FPRA - Florida Public Relations Association Blog

There may have been a time or two in the past where you failed to catch the morning news before going into work. Maybe you overslept, forgot to charge your Blackberry, your spouse was on the computer, your newspaper was stolen or the TV was taken over by the kids watching cartoons. Whatever the reason, it’s something most of us have done at some point. Hopefully, there wasn’t a crisis—or a horde of reporters—waiting for you to arrive at the office.

As public relations professionals, it is our job to know what is going on in the world around us. And we should know what is going on before it actually happens. Even if it doesn’t have to do with your company, industry or region, it’s important for you to be aware of emerging issues.

But you’re smart. You know what’s going on. You read the major newspaper in your area everyday (and the others as much as possible), watch every television newscast you can, listen to talk radio and scan the other stations on the drive in to work and have a news clipping service catch what coverage you don’t. Heck, you even subscribe to breaking e-mail alerts, mid-day updates and visit various news Web sites throughout the day. It’s simple, right?

Why more is needed

Many companies have learned it’s not quite so easy. The most notable example of this was when The Kryptonite Bike Lock Company ignored the blogosphere in late 2004. (Steve Rubel’s MicroPersuasion blog has a great summary of the Kryptonite saga.) Basically, Kryptonite wasn’t monitoring the blogosphere until they had a full scale crisis on their hands and the media was knocking down their door. Kryptonite wasn’t aware of an issue that directly dealt with their company until it was too late. Don’t let this happen to you.

How new technology can help

New technology can help streamline your monitoring process. Did you realize that instead of checking various news Web sites throughout the day, you could get all of this information from a single source? It’s true. It’s through a process you’ve probably even heard of. It’s called Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and it will change the way you work.

RSS (or XML/rdf/atom) are the names of formats for content distribution. When you visit Web sites or blogs, you will notice whether or not they have an RSS feed. This way, instead of going to each different site, the information flows into one location.

Tools you need to know about

RSS feeds
Many of you may already be using Google and Yahoo! news alerts along with keyword searches to alert you of news throughout the day. These are still helpful and I encourage you to use these alerts in combination with RSS feeds. Why? Because the news alerts are only tracking what’s appearing on news Web sites based on your keywords. By subscribing to feeds, you’ll be able to monitor the news and blogs you want.

RSS readers
An RSS reader (a.k.a. aggregator) organizes all of your feeds much like an e-mail system. The reader can monitor anything with an available RSS feed—blogs and Web sites. Some of the more popular RSS readers available include:
• Bloglines (free)
• Google reader (free)
• My Yahoo (free)
• NewsGator (variety of free and subscription services)

PubSub is a hybrid. It works similar to an RSS reader, but it also monitors newsgroups and press releases from wire services as well.
Here are some of the various forms of RSS buttons you’ll encounter.

How to recognize a feed
Here are some of the various forms of RSS buttons you’ll encounter online.

To subscribe to an RSS feed, click on the icon. It will lead you through to a page usually filled with HTML code. Simply copy the address bar and enter it into your RSS reader.

This can become even easier depending on your RSS reader and the button available. The buttons below enable you to simply click on the button that corresponds to your RSS reader. Then, it will automatically subscribe you to the feed.

Blog search engines
While the major Web search engines have begun indexing blogs and may offer a blog search tool, a blog search engine is invaluable for monitoring purposes. There are a few available, but Technorati is the most popular.

Technorati will allow you to search for various blogs—or blog posts—by topic, most popular (searches and tags) and explore categories. It even provides suggestions from some of the top bloggers. Additionally, you can set up keyword watchlists inside Technorati or subscribe to watchlists by RSS feed.

Meme trackers
In addition to the top searches and tags listed on a blog search engine, there are meme trackers that can help you determine the most popular topics online. Here are a few to monitor:
• digg
• Fark.com
• memeorandum
• Slashdot
• tech.memeorandum
• Topix.net

Too much to handle?

Yes, this is a lot of information to process. However, proper monitoring will allow you to stay on top of emerging issues, and ahead of traditional media—which is typically at least one day behind. And be forewarned, if you are not willing to make changes now and adjust to the new PR, you will be overshadowed by those that are willing. In fact, right now many college students are learning about these tools and are putting these principles into action to land jobs—maybe yours.

Caution: Addiction may occur

Monitoring RSS feeds can become an obsessive habit. And there are definitely tools that will enable you to be as fanatical as you want (i.e. Technorati mini watchlist updates every 60 seconds). Because of this, some people may feel a bit overwhelmed at first. I did. When I first began, I was amazed at the amount of information. And although I knew monitoring feeds was intended to save time, I ended up feeling like it was monopolizing too much of my time instead. Therefore, I set time limits for myself. I generally check feeds in the morning and again in late afternoon. Because it is addicting, sometimes I periodically check throughout the day. However, you don’t have to. How often you check feeds is a personal decision. However, it is imperative that you learn these new methods for monitoring. Otherwise, you may find yourself in the midst of a crisis you didn’t even realize existed.

Resources

• Josh Hallett from hyku, llc, provides a more detailed guide on how to monitor the media on his blog.
• Global PR Blog Week may have occurred last September, but there is still a wealth of information pertaining to monitoring the blogosphere. Check it out.

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Jennifer Wakefield is the Public Relations Manager at METROPLAN ORLANDO, the regional transportation planning organization for Central Florida. She is actively pursuing her Master of Arts degree in Mass Communications at the University of Central Florida and will soon begin working on her thesis related to new technology and corporate communications. Jennifer serves as the Vice President of Publications for the Orlando Chapter of FPRA.