The Changing Strategies of Marketing and Public Relations Due in Part to the Influences of Web 2.0 Applications

The way arts non-profit organizations interact with individuals is constantly changing and evolving.  This trend is true of marketing and public relations for organizations in all industries, too.   As David Meerman Scott asserts his 2009 text, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, there are currently new rules that everyone is learning to live and play by.  What Scott’s work focuses upon most is how interactions are different in this new environment.  To him marketing and public relations is no longer a one-way announcement of events and news.  The focus now is on developing authentic relationships with individual relationships.  Marketing and public relations can no longer be solely based on what organizations want to tell people, it is now also about what they want to say back and meeting their needs.  Web 2.0 applications are the platform where these new strategies can be put into motion in the quickest, most effective, and most personal way.

Paul Gillin echoes these sentiments in The New Influencers (2009).  Chapter 7 of Gillin’s book is entitled “Putting the ‘Public’ Back Into Public Relations”.  In this chapter he focuses on how blogs and social media sites can be where the conversation is started by individuals and that conversation then moves to what becomes news.  Gillin’s main point is that the public relations field is now being driven by individuals and what they want to talk about which in turns forms where the news is and also decides where the organizations must focus its  marketing efforts.

While the way we interact with people is changing, there are general concepts that remain the same.  The much used arts administration textbook, Standing Room Only, by Kotler and Scheff is still relevant in terms of marketing demographics, individualization and various strategies (1997).  What the text is lacking and needs to be supplemented with is a focus on how these strategies can now be moved into Web 2.0 applications.  The same is true of Relationship Fundraising (Burnett, 2002).  Here Gillin’s thoughts are echoed on letting the conversation be driven by the interests of the individual.  While Burnett is focusing on fundraising he is also building relationships, which are one of the reasons Web 2.0 applications should be utilized.

It is clear that experts are now focusing on what the individual wants to hear, see and talk about when deciding how to present information to the public.  This is where Web 2.0 applications are relevant as they are a mechanism for achieving these new standards and doing so with minimal cost and maximum results.