Good Day Friends,

I hope your espresso, latte or capo has its flavors and sugars, because while mine is still scorching hot I want to discuss the article "Using RSS for coroprate communications" by Elizabeth Albrycht, APR on PR Tactics and the The Strategist Online.

Albrycht is a 16-year veteran of high-tech PR practice and co-founder of the New Communications Forum, a conference series designed to bring journalists, marketing and PR professionals together to learn how to use participatory communications tools.

SUMMARY OF ARTICLE

According to Albrycht, 2007 is the predicted year for the widespread takeoff of RSS adoption.WebReference.com defines RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) as a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content.Many media companies such as New York Times, CNN, PRWeek and Fox News use this technology drive more traffic into their site by sending you news headlines and other messages.

Albrycht advocates that this could be a great technology to use for corporate communications because of its speed and its ability to bypass spam filters.She suggested that this technology can be used to deliver releases to the media or any other of your companies or clients stakeholders, furthermore, could be an efficient way to communicate to your publics.

COMMENTARY

This technology could be a great repetition tool, however, it should supplement your PR communications efforts.The president of Terrie Williams Agency Terrie M. Williams at the 1996 Vernon C. Schranz Distinguished Lecturer at Ball State University said with the advancement in cellular and computer technology public relations is quickly drifting away from being a relationship-based business to becoming a technologically-based business.

I feel that our ability to manage communication and relationships for our clients is what makes our profession useful.Building positive, beneficial and long lasting relationships is core to our practice, and I feel that RSS will further push us away from that core.

E-mail has benefited and damaged us.Using impersonal communication tools as your primary method in building relationships will not deliver the best results.

For example, your client has information they want a specific magazine to know about.You have not established a relationship with an editor at the magazine, so you do your research and found the person whom you should contact.The editor’s preference is they want releases sent through email.

You personalize the e-mail and send the release.The editor’s response is they do not have the time or the space to publish the release.