by John Bell
PR: What to Do When the Public Does Most of the Relating

Public Relations Is Changing
You've probably heard about it. It goes something like this:
The consumer is in charge. Trust in media falls. Trust in word of mouth rises. Now there's traditional media, new media and consumer-generated media. Media explodes. Every day, 50,000 blogs are created and social networks connect millions from China to Charring Cross. People are watching less TV. Reading fewer newspapers. And Internet usage grows. Now there are traditional influencers and new influencers. One's a business leader in NYC. The other is a momblogger in New Mexico. Conversation is more important than messaging. And search engines change the game.

Hype or Truth?
The truth is that our definition of "media" has exploded. Our idea of "influencers" has expanded. And effective communications has as much to do with building relationships through conversations and word of mouth as it does with marketing campaigns and message delivery.

How do we create effective communications programs when peer-to-peer recommendations are the new form of "earned media"?

The Rise of Digital Word of Mouth
If most word of mouth activity occurs offline (80%)—at the pub, on the Metro, in the checkout line—then why focus on digital word of mouth? What happens online doesn't stay online. Online discussions about sustainable energy, the stresses of being a parent, candidates for election, and even the right car to buy bleed over into our daily terrestrial lives. They also fuel traditional media as journalists seek story angles and "the voice of the people" online every day.

In the online world, word of mouth gets amplified, channeled and, ultimately, measured. The conversations are not all about consumer brands, and there is plenty of discussion around B2B products and services, issue advocacy, and public affairs and across most areas of interest from health to technology.

The explosive growth of social networks, blogs, virtual communities, product review wikis—all create more access to conversations both for people as well as brands. We can now listen to what customers are saying, and we can engage them in conversation through cost-effective, nonintrusive means. We can build positive relationships with customers and constituents that lead to loyalty and advocacy.

Some say that word of mouth has impact only in "mature" mass media markets like Europe and North America—places where there is a decline in trust in media at the same time there are new ways for individuals to communicate online. Not true. Word of mouth will be just as relevant in emerging media markets like China, India and Russia. Places where there are other reasons for conditional trust in societal institutions.

We've discovered¹ four principles to building successful digital programs that amplify word of mouth to influence people positively.

¹ In the three years that we have been developing digital influence programs, we have learned a lot from actually deploying programs. We've discovered these principles from both our successes and our failures.