In their latest collaboration, Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge aim at helping PR practitioners and basically anyone who’s trying to reconcile how traditional PR approaches should interface with the rise of social networking as a force in present-day communication. The authors say, “In addition to a still relevant process of media relations, we now need to expand our scope of participation and outreach by also identifying, understanding, and engaging the everyday people who have plugged-in to a powerful and democratized online platform for creating and distributing information, insight, and opinions – effectively gaining authority in the process.” Calling the PR industry a practice that’s diminishing in impact because of the loss of focus from the people that truly matters – the public – and concentrating its energy on media relations instead. Because of the socialization of communication technologies, ordinary members of the public are rising up as a new generation of influencers and opinion leaders, and this is a movement that communication practitioners must deal with to remain relevant. Brian and Deirdre call for a change of our fundamental attitudes to the way we perceive PR, and to make a move away from communicating ‘at’ our communities, and to actively engage them in dialogue, and to participate in their online conversations so as to ‘cultivate a loyal, vocal, and hyper-connected community of customers and influencers.’

PR 2.0 is a blog by Brian Solis, a man with an uncommon view of the convergence of new media, marketing, PR and traditional media. Brian is recognized as one of the thought leaders in the area of PR 2.0, and not coincidentally, his blog is among the top 1.5% of blogs tracked by Technorati. You may just find his blog useful in redefining the way you think about the redefinition of PR by the Web and new media.

While researching some materials for my public affairs class, I chanced upon this book by Deirdre Breakenridge at the Borders Bookstore about three weeks ago. There isn't that many books out there that amalgamates PR and new media, so my attention was caught. Picking up the book for a casual browse, I became impressed by the immense practicality of the book and its conversational style of discussing many of the new media tools on the Internet today, and how they could be used for PR and communication purposes. I took my chance and bought the book to learn more.

What really left a deep impression on me was when I decided to contact the author on her Facebook account (I found the link on her blog through a simple google search), and she replied almost within the same day. I had written to her half expecting not to get a response, but to get a mail from her really served to enhance her credibility as a PR2.0 evangelist, as well as reinforce for me the notion of how interconnected we are through the Internet. By the way, she had also cited a couple of other PR2.0 advocates in her book, and I was also able to connect with them via media like their blogs, Twitter or Facebook.

Back to this book. I am still making my way through it, and I need to be clear that this is not the Web 2.0 bible or one stop solution to all our needs. But it is a starting off point, especially for those who are - like me - from the traditional PR background and have come in search for answers about how the PR industry as evolved with technology today.

Almost each chapter could be a stand-along resource on issues such as the use of RSS, blogs and other social media, making measurements, as well as writing your own PR2.0 plan for your organization. 

To me, the greatest value-add is when I am able to grab some of the ideas in her book and discuss it with her, and several of the other new media practitioners whom I've contacted, according to the needs of my circumstances. Don't take my word for it. Read a review on the same book posted by Bob Crawshaw, a marketing practitioner based in Australia. It makes the topic such an evolutionary and exciting piece to talk about, and I hope you'll benefit in the same way too!