Part 1: Traditional PR vs. online PR

PRSource.com had a fairy tale beginning, can you tell us a little about that?
Almost immediately after reading about my new PR company in the newspaper, a local technology incubator, eConception, gave me a call asking to swap PR services for their portfolio company in exchange for office space. I took two weeks to draft the PRSource.com business plan, pitched it to the incubator and received US$1.2 million in cash and business service commitments.

Can you explain how eConception, Logic Media Group and PRSource.com work together?
The eConception companies were still demanding PR services and other technology-related clients began knocking on the door. I formed Logic Media Group to service these needs and literally overnight we had seven employees before we knew it.

Logic Media Group quickly became a core business service for eConception and its portfolio companies have a tremendous impact in terms of positioning, marketing and establishing them among their target audiences.

As the market bottomed out, Logic Media Group was still a revenue generating company in the eConception portfolio. Today it still serves as a core business function, providing crisis communication management, while each of the others are going out of business.

In what ways does online PR differ from traditional PR?
Traditional PR is about personal relationships and handshakes, while online PR is a tool that allows an individual or company to get their message out to large or small audiences very economically. With PRSource.com you select and pay for your own PR needs and you choose what makes the most sense for your PR campaign.

Your experience with political candidates has yielded some unusual strategies, has it not?
In my work with candidates for office and politicians in general, I have always advised them to try to think about the potential negatives when building an online strategy.

Things such as buying up all relative URLs to your name (BobSmith.com, Smith2001.com, etc...), more importantly though, they should also buy up the most obvious negative names (BobSmithSucks.com and others).

Online reputations for political candidates are probably the most overlooked aspect in political campaigning today. But all you have to do is remember how Jesse Ventura got elected as Governor of Minnesota, USA to realize that online campaigns are real and your online reputation is very important.

In the past, print media has always been in the PR driver's seat. Will online publicity markets take over any time soon?
I still think print media is the king and will continue to be for some time. I am a big fan of online media but let's face it, it is hard to enjoy reading a PDA or a laptop while sipping your latte on a Sunday morning.

Where I think online publicity plays a very key role is the fact that print and TV journalists are increasingly turning to the Internet for background research and sources for their stories.

Positioning yourself in the online world is extremely important for these reporters. Journalists now report that they would much rather receive an e-mail story pitch than a phone call or fax

To what extent and under what circumstances do PR folks pay attention to online ezines and markets?
Your online reputation is as important, perhaps more important, as your offline reputation. In addition, Internet slander (true or not) has the potential to live forever (Example: go to any search engine and type in Bridgestone/Firestone and you will see a company still living with a PR disaster over one and half years old now).

Truly good PR people know how to use ezines, news, discussion groups and other areas of the Internet to respond to a crisis, position a client or post messages.

Continued...