If old PR was all about shaping the corporate message, speaking to the right people and deliberate timing then digital PR is the opposite. It’s about allowing the corporation to be shaped by audience opinion. Its about listening to audiences and using the wisdom of crowds to inform internal opinion and shape products, services and future messages. And its about capturing discordant, asynchronous communication whichever channel carries it.

Old PR was a discipline in timing, planning and sculpting. It embodied the art of indiscriminate mass messaging. It was one-way communication. A loudhailer!

Digital PR is different. It’s two-way, multi-channel, uncontrolled and it takes skill to measure and monitor. Skillful PR people have adapted to these new challenges, they are familiar with the rules of digital engagement. They understand the loudhailer has been replaced with a telephone. And the telephone call is a very long, infinite in fact. It’s a conference call where on occasions the organisation might be invited to speak but most of the time it’s listening to simultaneous inbound messages and it’s looking for patterns and trends as it converts data to information to wisdom.

Public Relations, has for so long been a one-to-many broadcast discipline that it takes a while to realise: digital PR is more about listening than talking. The relationship is different and it’s dynamic is reversed 180º from that of it’s former self. If you’re in PR, be prepared for a change, get closer to your data analyst colleagues and start broadcasting to the internal corridors of power!