Product Description

Everyone knows about the Internet as a way to market and sell, yet few organizations have experienced even a fraction of the Net's power for true public relations. This guide, with step-by-step instructions and action plans, explains how to conduct effective and measurable PR on the Net.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1413604 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication & Technology, a consultancy that helps organizations integrate the Internet into their strategic communication efforts.

Customer Reviews

A truly strategic manual for using the internet in PR
I was very sceptical about purchasing this book, thinking that it would be - as many resources on this topic are - a "PR online for idiots", limiting itself to flowery discussion of using websites and providing merely a list of fairly obvious tactics.

This book is a good primer for PROs who do not know much about the internet, and possibly those who know little about public relations. It does cover the typical tactics associated with communicating on the web. (I kind of expected that.)

However, I was very glad to discover that Shel Holtz's book effectively draws on PR theory (from the likes of Grunig and others) advising us to make effective use of online tools in two-way symetrical communications, setting measurable objectives and evaluating our efforts. He centres on public relations as the management of reputation. (Some marketing communications resources on this subject can only focus on selling products.) He clarifies the difference between a collection of online tactics (which certain resources call "strategies") and truly strategic online communications, i.e. allying the PR activity with the organisation's "bottom-line strategies" and targeting specific audiences. The book also stresses the importance of integrating the internet with offline / traditional activity.

Part II of the book investigates the internet's appplication to various practices, not just focusing on media relations but including public affairs, community relations and crisis communications. The appendices also include some useful tips.

It includes useful case studies through-out and is generally very easy reading.

Finding fault with this book is quite difficult, but one might suggest that the chapter on measurement was mainly a collection of tactics, not applicable to all businesses. (But evaluation has troubled the traditional PR world for a long time.) At the very least Holtz's book encourages the practitioner to include evaluation in the PR activity, shows how to conduct basic but effective evaluation and encourages the consultant to develop evaluation methods particular to their PR activities and allied to objectives.