e-PR

The Essential Guide to Public Relations on the Internet

by Matt Haig

Published by Kogan, 2000
Paperback, 166 pages
ISBN: 0-7494-3434-1

The Internet has opened up a wide range of new channels and opportunities to benefit the traditional approach to PR, so having expected this book to provide a detailed guide to making the most of these in the market, it proved to be a disappointment.

That’s because Matt Haig has taken the broad view that everything on the web is PR for a company, from building a website, to using e-mail newsletters, as well as using media relations effectively. As a result, there is a lot of ground covered in the 160 pages, meaning that the book skims the surface of a lot of areas and therefore becomes an introductory guide to marketing on the Internet. A chance has therefore been missed to provide a definitive, detailed guide to specifically using traditional PR on the web and instead this book doesn’t stand up well against many other ‘Internet marketing’ titles and serves simply as an introduction for newcomers.

This actual coverage of traditional PR is restricted to the last three chapters that look at using media channels online, writing and circulating an online press release, and finally supporting online activity with offline support as well for greater impact.

As a general overview to using the Internet as a marketing and promotional tool, this book is a good starting point, but don’t be mislead by the title – this is not a detailed guide on how to transfer a PR campaign effectively online. We’re still looking for that one!