From Broadcast to Broadband

Submitted by alana on March 3, 2008 - 3:12pm.

After the “.com boom,” the mounting success of social networking sites, like Myspace and Facebook, and social media sites like, YouTube and Digg have been the greatest revolution of the World Wide Web. After these sites were created, making it easy for the average person to create their own web pages and profiles and connect with people around the world, the user base for the web grew by over 45%. These web sites have become an advertising dreamland. Now, The PR industry is jumping on board and using these sites as tools to build reputations and create relationships with audiences and clientele. Here are some reasons we include Broadband outreach in our client's media campaigns:

  • The Numbers: Nielsen Online reports that over the last year that Facebook and Buzznet doubled in traffic and Linkedin and ClubPenguin tripled in traffic. There are also reports from Alexa.com and Google Page Rank that there are over 16 million monthly visitors on social media sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon.
  • Target Your Audience: Most social media sites have a specific demographic they are speaking to. Myspace reaches young adults and teens, ClubPenguin reaches children and Linkedin reaches professionals. There are also sites like Facebook that actually allow the user to target the audience that their media or ad will reach.
  • Speed of Content Delivery: It only takes a matter of minutes to upload videos, audio clips, media releases, graphics, etc...and just a few more minutes to start seeing the audience traffic and reactions.
  • Feedback: For the first time publicists can not only count the numbers of audiences that are experiencing their media but they can also get feedback from them! Sites like YouTube, MySpace and Digg allow consumers to comment on the media that they watch.
  • Variety in Tactics: With the social media revolution comes a variety of tools that can be used for PR. Some of the many options are MNRs (multi-media news releases), posting videos to blogs and video sites, viral videos, podcasts, wikis, and a profile on a social networking site.

With these reasons and the increase in popularity of social media sites it becomes more and more important to consider them in any PR strategy.

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