Blogs

THE ONLINE/OFFLINE INTEGRATION AND ITS IMPACT ON PR

Change has two completely opposite impact on the ones at the core of it - one who dread it and the other who see an opportunity in it. The inevitable offline/online (digital) integration driven by the growing pervasiveness and influence of social media and emergence of the ubiquitous mobile phone as the primary internet access device exactly poses that challenge before the Indian PR industry. Having seen this early and managing the specialized digital/social media practice for two years now, have a view that is unique and different. Personally, feel the impending integration which is inevitable and a mere question of time before it becomes the defacto way of operating, is the greatest yet opportunity for Indian PR and

RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS INFLUENCE CAN PITCHFORK PR TO WHERE IT BELONGS - THE CENTER STAGE

It has been the dream of most PR professionals across the world of getting to a spot where the discipline or function is the center of the marketing or branding universes. And it need not be a pipedream anymore if PR firms and professionals grab with both hands (if not more) the chance offered by growing influence of social media to engage consumers and build bridges to them for brands.

PR is about two way dialogue and social media exactly enables that

Of all the communication tools and tactics, PR was the one that was all about building a two-way dialogue between an organization and its stakeholders. An interactive and iterative one that evolves and spreads allowing the organization or bra

SEPARATING WHEAT FROM CHAFF IS KEY AS SOCIAL MEDIA ACCEPTANCE LEAPFROGS ACROSS BUSINESSES

A disclaimer is in order before the article. With whatever limited knowledge have had of this space and having known/interacted with some of the known names in this space in India and worldwide, would like to admit that have only an initial understanding of this beast which keeps changing its size, shape and nature all the time. So am more an avid learner fascinated by this difficult to pin down, hard to define and even harder to keep a tab of beast.

Disclaimer done, the reason that prompted the article is some reports on TV and articles in print in the recent months on social media and digital marketing (there is a huge debate worldwide whether both are interchangeable or distinctly different) which al

SOCIAL MEDIA NEEDS TO MOVE FROM PROMISE, TALK TO RIGOR AND ACTION SOON

New/social and peer media or customer generated media is the in thing nowadays. There is not a single day that passes without a story on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or the stars of the social media space making it to the airwaves or the ink. The success of Obama and our very own Pink Chaddi campaign is fresh in our memory and already spoken to death in social media conferences and seminars. On the other side, hear of a new venture or an existing one foraying into social media every other day. If one adds up all this hype and hoopla with what certain brands have done in the social media space then social media should have arrived and already in the radar of all brand and marketing managers. Well, not really.

PR AND CONTENT MARKETING - IT IS TIME TO TANGO!

As I started researching and thinking to write this article, I realized, content marketing and PR are twins bound by the umbilical chord at birth and together, they make for a potent weapon in the marketing mix.

PR and content marketing at a certain level are just the same

From my earliest days in PR first with MelCole and later with Weber Shandwick, nearly everything I saw being done and now as an entrepreneur (what I see my teams doing), centers around content. It is just that we didn�t call (pitches, press releases, fact sheets, backgrounders, media kits, contributed articles and CEO speeches) �content� then but that�s precisely what it was. The only change being, now, we all can connec