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In old era, almost all aspects of public relations works were held by the company itself. The company had the power to communicate what information they wanted to share. Began with the CEO of the company or the staffs in PR department became the spokespeople of the company (who). They shared the information about the company only through the traditional way of mass media, such as TV, radio, newspaper, magazines; and all materials were going to be shared should have been filtered by the journalists first.
Moreover, the information sharing could be trustworthy if any analysts came to the company and proved that company was capable in their field (how). The company itself and the porters held the power to select what information they wanted the people to know; the company decided the contents to be shared, and the reporters developed the contents by their own based on their investigations (what & decision making process).
Usually, the company and the public relations practitioners chose which country they want the information is shared to and they used the timeline planned to share its information (where & when). For the target audience, they used only the demographic targeting to focus their main goals. These activities of public relations in the old era indicate that the company held extra power in managing the image and the communication with the audience. CITATION Scows II 1033 (Scott public Relations)PUBLIC RELATIONS IN DIGITAL ERA Scott public Relations also stated how the public relations work in digital era version.
The company or the PR department is no longer holding the whole power of information sharing about their company. Almost all employees of the company can share about their company’s information to the world wide audience instantly and audiences can also share their opinion about the company’s information o each other (who). Not only the employees and audience, but the existence of media also holds the power to share the information to other media instantaneously.
Thus, the information which is spread locally can go globally (where). If in the old era, the public relations share information through traditional mass media and analysts’ testimonies, in the digital era, the public relations most often to use online portals in which the audience can access, such as website and social media networks. Moreover, they also use the micro-targeting by sending emails and text personally to the audiences (how). Therefore, their responsibility to respond more actively to the audience is bigger (what).
Because of the responsibility to respond, it requires them to get ready for answering any questions that arise any time from the audiences. However, it does not make the company stops to plan the timeline (when). This kind of PR activity causes the two-ways communication type which is conversation between PR practitioners of a company and the target audience about the company’s news. Because the social networks develop, the audience has been more critical and powerful to discuss about he company’s news.
In addition, some floggers will also choose what to share about the company (decision making process). The selection of target audience of a company done by public relations in the digital era is by using the digital data to gather the multipart individuals start from the demographics to the buying habits. These activities of public relations in digital era indicate that the audiences are more powerful than the company; the company should work hard to maintain the image and communicate the information in a well situation so that the audience could get into the company.
CITATION SCOWS II 1033 (Scott public Relations)CHALLENGES FOR PR PRACTITIONERS Stuart Elliott wrote an article about Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media in New York Times, there written the statement of a member of the board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Adam Level. He said that before the rise of social media, public relations was about trying to manage the message an entity was sharing with its different audiences, but now, PR had to be more about facilitating the ongoing conversation in an ‘always-on’ world CITATION Still 1033 (Elliott, 201 1).
Responding to Mr.. Levee’s statement about the conversation in an ‘always-on’ world, we will automatically generate our brain to think that challenges for PR practitioners in this active digital era are emerging faster than before. Specifically, the social media in which its number is always increasing as the time goes by. In Indonesia, there are several social media which exist in public, such as Backbone, Twitter, Mainstream, and Path which are usually used by people like teenagers and 20-sys people.
In some developed countries other than Indonesia, Linked also becomes the social Edie which concerns on job priorities and worker’s skills. These phenomenal social media do give impacts on how active people nowadays are. Almost 24 hours that people use their gadgets to see what happens in their environment through social media. Thus, no wonder that Mr.. Level mentioned that the conversation happens in an ‘always-on’ world. The active conversation in an ‘always-on’ world bring challenges for the PR practitioners to maintain the good performance of their company and how to survive and not to lose because of the social media.
As mentioned above, that public elation’s in digital era should be more active in responding the questions or rumors which appears from the audiences or public. Good response Of any kind of actions from the audience is the basic thing to develop good relationship between the company and the target audience. Moreover, they need to establish modern ethical standards for today’s public relations and marketing practices CITATION Rosily M 1033 (Roseanne M. Fiske, 2011).
Establishing the modern ethical standards aims to match the performance of the public relations today with the behavior of the audience after they are so into the social media. PR practitioners should learn about the changing of various audiences and also about how they deal with the technology development. Not only learning, but also to involve in the changing phenomenon and become the part of them CITATION Mac M 1033 (McClellan ; Howell, Social Networks and the Challenge for Public Relations). Becoming the part of them is to build trusted network toward a company.
The trust qualities are the person’s competence, benevolence, and integrity. Those qualities need to be adapted into social network public relations and controlled over the aspects that might influence the qualities CITATION McCall II 1033 (McClellan & Howell, Social Networks and the Challenge for Public Relations). Being in trusted networks also requires the public relations to attempt not to have over centralization toward the public. They should really know what basic is needed to be public relations; as we know that between public relations and marketing practitioners is different.
The practitioners and also the company should always realize that sales marketing is not included in public relations activities where sales marketing tend to push the public or audience to buy the products or services. Public relations attempt to convince public in a good yet elegant way that the relationship between the company and the public is developed. WHAT THE COMPANY (THE PR PRACTITIONER) NEEDS TO DO Reviewing the challenges that appear from the phenomenon of new media emergence, the PR practitioners should be smarter and brighter that they can pass the challenge and deal with the critical and powerful public indirectly.
First, what they need to do is to rethink and restructure the public relations techniques and match the techniques to the development happens these days. They should not cover the technology development only, however, they deed to get themselves understand and use the technology exist these days CITATION Oozes 1033 (Herbert, 2005). The reason that the PR practitioners should follow almost all aspects which has been digital is that they need to be the part of the audience who has been into the technology development, especially the new media emergence (specifically the social media).
They need to engage with the key publics and drive the discussion as well as they target their job’s goals CITATION Mac 1033 (McClellan ; Howell, Social Networks and the Challenge for Public Relations). The public relations should eve presence within the social networks in digital era not as the public relations practitioners, but more alike participate in it. They should monitor indirectly what is on nowadays among the target audience so that they could know how the company develops from the point of view of the public.
As the practitioners, they should really listen to the consumers and give kind response and attention in order that the audiences feel like the efforts of the company to raise their loyalty are good and worthy enough. Besides the image that they build through the participation within the social networks, his action also aims to make control of what is happening among them (the target audience). It does not mean that they should manipulate or edit the news, but it goes to drive the discussion and give impression toward the audiences’ point of view.
Any questions and rumors that appear within the social networks should be controlled so that the questions or rumors do not flow more negatively. The treatment from the practitioners toward the audience is also important. Besides the product or services which are good, the public relations should know to which extent they need to promote the products or services. To get the automatic endorsement from the target audience to the peer audience, public relations need to develop more relationship with them.