Abstract
Web 2.0 and public relations “The greatest craving of humans is to express and to be understood”
Humans love and desire connection with others. The boom of internet age is the proof of this desire. Internet survived the dot com bubble and the world saw the rising of giants like Google and Yahoo who thrive on information sharing and “connecting” people through chat rooms and social networking. The desire to express finds its manifestation through newer channels like blogs and social networks which maximizes the exposure to other humans. This combination of human expression and technology presents an opportunity for leveraging the social image of an entity.
This leverage is successfully encashed by public relations firms. The advent of Web 2.0 or the next generation of “web” has broadened the ways of human connection i.e. information spread is faster than ever. This property is used by PR to maximize the message recipients. The biggest example of this is the Obama campaign which is considered a milestone in Presidential PR. The PR firms also work in making the image or changing the public opinion about various celebrities and politicians on the web. The success and the downfall in the Anna Hazare movement can be attributed to this. In the recent gang rape in Delhi, the meetings organized by various NGOs were purely based on harnessing the exposure capabilities of social networking sites.
Today a trust can start a heated argument between politicians or can act as a messenger to the common people. The another reason for PR strength in Web 2.0 is that it involves the action of recipient to either share, retweet or forward and thus involving the recipient with the cause. PR together with Web 2.0 provides an opportunity to connect and involve a vast pool of people on a very low cost. The message reach is expanded and it also can help in the preliminary assessment of news, product or a happening. Thus the need to connect is a leverage and opportunity for PR to
Humans love and desire connection with others. The boom of internet age is the proof of this desire. Internet survived the dot com bubble and the world saw the rising of giants like Google and Yahoo who thrive on information sharing and “connecting” people through chat rooms and social networking. The desire to express finds its manifestation through newer channels like blogs and social networks which maximizes the exposure to other humans. This combination of human expression and technology presents an opportunity for leveraging the social image of an entity.
This leverage is successfully encashed by public relations firms. The advent of Web 2.0 or the next generation of “web” has broadened the ways of human connection i.e. information spread is faster than ever. This property is used by PR to maximize the message recipients. The biggest example of this is the Obama campaign which is considered a milestone in Presidential PR. The PR firms also work in making the image or changing the public opinion about various celebrities and politicians on the web. The success and the downfall in the Anna Hazare movement can be attributed to this. In the recent gang rape in Delhi, the meetings organized by various NGOs were purely based on harnessing the exposure capabilities of social networking sites.
Today a trust can start a heated argument between politicians or can act as a messenger to the common people. The another reason for PR strength in Web 2.0 is that it involves the action of recipient to either share, retweet or forward and thus involving the recipient with the cause. PR together with Web 2.0 provides an opportunity to connect and involve a vast pool of people on a very low cost. The message reach is expanded and it also can help in the preliminary assessment of news, product or a happening. Thus the need to connect is a leverage and opportunity for PR to