Public Relations

After reading chapter 7 of The New Influencers titled, Putting "Public" Back Into Public Relations I was fascinated with how much social media affects PR. "PR professionals see social media as both an opportunity and as a threat. The opportunity is to raise the professions visibility, and the threat is that no one really knows how to deal with these new influencers," (pg 125).

More and more each day my mind inches closer into wanting to go into the field of PR. This chapter really helped me to understand what is going on in that profession right now. It seems that PR has hit a spot in time were it must find a way to reinvent itself. Since the web has taken off so fast and has reached so many people, old ways will simply not work anymore. "The press release is not dead, but it is slowly being replaced. What is replacing it is useful information delivered to influencers in any form that suits their needs," (pg 128). This quote sums up exactly what is happening right now.

People want information fast and they want it to be reliable. What is hard about this is that because of the web, there are now so many different ways to give that information, and everybody seems to want something different. It is also getting harder to know what is important. PR professionals do realize the change that is ahead and are starting to find new innovative ways to do things. They are evolving along with the web, and are increasing their popularity in the world. They are doing so through blogs, podcasts, making shifts in their firms, and by simply changing the approach they use to reach their clients. Whatever the case may be PR seems that it is here to stay.