PR & New Media January 2, 2010

New media is definitely making it easier for people and companies to publicly express themselves and their opinions.  So what does this mean for the public relations field? Has new media made the lives of public relations directors easier or more difficult?

Let’s say you are a public relations professional working for a celebrity or a high-profile client like a CEO. They use and have access to new media just like everyone else, and it is a great way for them to brand themselves and create a positive and more personal public image. They are also able to get more feedback from fans and critics of their work which can be helpful in maintaining their image. This seems like an easy way for a PR professional to manage their clients, that is until something goes wrong.

On the flip side, all of the new media surrounding these types of people can make a PR professional’s life a nightmare. New media creates many more challenges for their clients because they have the ability to ruin their image themselves. Because of YouTube, social networking, and email, people can run into trouble when it comes to their personal lives. People can be fueled by emotions and post comments on their social networking sites in an instant. This can obviously create problems for the PR professional handling their business because they cannot control every little aspect of their client’s lives, they can just recommend what is right and wrong. Also, new media has the ability to ruin someone’s image in an instance if photographs that aren’t favorable get passed around, or videos that are not meant for the public go viral.

So I believe that new media is making the lives of public relations professionals just a little bit more difficult, but in a good way. At least they will remain in business when they have to salvage the image’s of people with emerging media nightmares!

Magazines VS New Media January 2, 2010

Magazines are obviously struggling with all of the new emerging media. The hardships magazines are facing these days are lower subscriptions, higher costs, and lower reach. There have been many magazines within the past 2 years that have been on the decline and some have even run their course. Big names like Conde Nast, who run over 20 publications, are making cut-backs when it comes to how many issues and publications are being put out on the newsstands.

Just like the newspaper industry, the magazine industry is seeing a lot of competition coming from emerging media.  People are getting their news and information faster and more conveniently through the internet now so the magazine industry seems to be falling a bit behind. The magazine industry is very different from newspaper though because magazines are more for a niche markets because they are broken down to different categories based on their content. They are perfect for reaching certain targets because of the specific nature of their content, but of course, the internet is a faster more convenient alternative.

When it comes to emerging media and magazines, new media is definitely putting a strain on the magazine industry because everything that can be found in the pages of all of these publications can be found on the internet, more importantly, on their own websites. Many publications are being forced to repeat content and other information on their website in order to keep their readership up. People are just expecting to have internet access to everything. So in order to stay up to par with new media, many magazines are getting more hits on their websites than they are getting purchases of their issues. Their online content and interactivity is more important than ever. All of the other new media outlets are being utilized as well. Many are taking advantage of YouTube and social media. Also, with smart phone technology, many publications are creating applications that can be instantly accessed by readers.

So it a fact that magazines in print are not doing so well these days, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t teaming up with new media to make their businesses better.