We cannot really speak about “traditional” public relations any longer. PR has extended its area of interest to the online world since a long time already. As a matter of fact, although not “another” discipline, online PR is a “new branch” of the old PR, a discipline that takes the principles and values of its ancestor to better represent the interest of the clients and the public.

Useless to repeat over and over again stories about the magical powers of the Internet, how this might be the magic wand that transforms a little firm into a Global player. If a business owner is not aware of that fact, he or she should probably find a better occupation, for there’s no place on the Web for obtuse thinking. Period.

Now, what a business owner might not know is strictly related to how online public relations works and how this discipline can boost credibility for a business, with a strength that often shakes the offline media to the ground.

Reaching the public has never been easier, and yet trickier. It takes a minute to join a newsgroup or a forum, less then a minute to post a smart comment to a blogger’s entry and some funds to start a PPC campaign or to initiate other paid advertising strategies. You need some money for a good press release as well, a reliable distribution service (always recommended the professionals from PRWeb) and a lucky star to watch upon your news and make the journalists pick your story out of the other few thousands that are released at the same time all over the Web!

It takes a skilled PR expert to know how to “talk” to the people. While you don’t see their faces you should understand that they are there, in front of their monitors, reading your texts, paying attention to your podcasts and ready to react to your message, if and when you have something to say. You should understand that the Web is alive, it’s growing, it’s transforming, it might even change its shape, like a chameleon, it might lift you up or take you down, in a matter of days.

If you don’t have “what it takes”, if you don’t know “how to”, the Web is still there to help you out. You can ask for advice, type into that Google search box your query and thousands of answers will reveal themselves at a click of the mouse. Which one is the right one? Which one to trust?

This is the magic of the Web: it offers so many answers, possibilities and choices. Understand that the moment you go online, yes, you go Global, but you are just a drop in the ocean. When you try to make a living online, when you try to sell your products, you’ll come up as an answer to a search query as well. Are you the right one? Can you be trusted?

This is what online public relations can do for you: it can make you the right one. It can make you the one people trust.

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