Ronnie Simpson's Blog

I’m at the Eurocom Worldwide international managers’ meeting in Paris and Ulrike from Germany asks the question you always dread from an attractive, young PR executive.

“Well Ronnie, how long have you been in the PR business?”  Knowing it will reveal my age, but with no obvious escape route, I reluctantly mumble a reply, “30 years.”

“Oh,” she says.  And I’m thinking she is surprised that this guy looks so young.   But then she follows up with the killer question addressed to all boring old f#*ts.

“You must have seen a lot of change in that time?”

I think for a moment.  “Well, actually, no.  We’re still doing more or less the same stuff we did 30 years ago.  But,” I add, “I think the world of marketing and PR is about to go through the most fundamental change of the last 30 years.”

I spare her (until the next day) the presentation I am due to make on blogging to the Eurocom Worldwide conference.  The theme of this is that Google and search has fundamentally altered how marketing and PR works.

It is hardly for me to preach, having come from being a ‘failed blogger’ to currently a ‘recovering blogger’.  But the reason we have got to take blogging seriously is that it is one (though not the only one) of the ways of getting higher up search engine listings.  As Rick Bruner of ExecutiveSummary.com has said: BLOG = Better Listings On Google.*

The good news for PR is that online stories are also key in helping to attract the Google spiders.  We have measurable evidence of that following our Eurocom Worldwide launch of Saaspoint (formerly Enterprise CRM) into the UK market.

In one of my earlier blogs (yes I do them sometimes) I referred to the rather sniffy attitude to online media in Europe compared to the US.  The view seems to be that “If it’s not in the Irish Times or print media then it hasn’t happened”.

In fact, now quite the opposite is correct.  If it’s not online and searchable then it doesn’t exist from a Google perspective.

Reading Newsweek on the flight to Paris there was a quote from New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger:  “I really don’t know whether we’ll be publishing the Times in five years.  And do you know what?  I don’t care either.”  His focus is now on the web.

Of course, we have been here before during the dot.com boom when the demise of print media was forcefully and wrongly heralded.  Print media will not die but Google has changed the rules.  Search is the new word of mouth whether you’re looking to buy an MP3 player or hire a PR agency.

No, there has been little change in PR over the last 30 years.  But hold on to your lederhosen folks – all that is about to change.

ends

* Courtesy of Rick Bruner, ExecutiveSummary.com and director of research, DoubleClick.net