by Matthew J. Geiger

Created on: February 13, 2010

Public relations is a very important function of a business as this ensures the company can accurately portray its views on issues while guarding against damage from missteps or unethical competitors.  With radical changes to our culture brought on by the internet, public relations takes on a whole new function.  Not only must company outreach utilize the internet, any negative blog can be extremely damaging while even little online missteps can cost a firm dearly.  Consequently, PR officers need to completely rethink how they interact with the world.

With more traditional forms of media, public relations campaigns could be used to cover-up or overwhelm negative reports against corporations, as well as governments, but the internet is the great equalizer in media coverage.  Where there is only so much space in a newspaper and time is extremely limited for television, the internet is as open as it is large.  To boot, television and newspapers have limited populations of viewers; whereas, the internet is quite literally worldwide.  Whether looking at monetary costs or limited audiences, the internet has essentially no boundaries or oversight to check bad behavior.

As a consequence, the internet gives an agent of a public relations department a clean canvas for promoting his or her company.  On the other hand, it also leaves a firm open to attacks, whether valid or dishonest, from all directions.  The challenge comes from a need to attract consumers to the company’s webpage or postings on twitter, Facebook, MySpace when dissatisfied customers or competitors can attack a firm’s reputation by simply visiting already far more popular webpages.  These attacks can be particularly damaging to the firm in the real world, yet leave the business unable to defend itself.

Certainly, a firm can attempt to dispel rumors by announcing a response on its or an affiliate’s website as well as seek legal recourse for cases of slander when possible, yet this puts the firm’s credibility on the line.  Distrustful consumers, who simply see a business in denial, often find the firm’s retaliation as distasteful and a sign of admission by denial.  Coupled with the fact that the accusers can usually cloak his, her, or its imagine, a web war can be very damaging to the firm without repercussions for the other entity.  Staving off such an attack currently relies on a good reputation and using more traditional forms of media to attract consumers in targeted markets.

Unfortunately, the internet is still a rather new phenomenon that continues to leave individuals and businesses unable to adapt to such an invasive influence.  Obviously, the internet can be a very valuable asset when it comes to strengthening a firm’s reputation, yet it is also the sharpest of double-edged swords to ever exist. Strategies for addressing the dangers of the internet are incomplete and must be developed as we learn how to cope with the new dynamics the worldwide web has introduced into our society.  This means learning how to utilize both traditional and internet assets to address web attacks.

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