Week 10: New Media and Public Relation.

New media, also known as the alternative media is the up and rising trend of this century. With regards to public relations, Marketers and public relations practitioners today are confronted with an astounding array of new communications channels which they have to face everyday i.e: mobile applications, new softwares to read e-mails, social networking sites and more. Internet-based social media tools including blogs, online video and social networks are giving voice to the opinions of millions of different consumers all over the world. While mainstream media continues to play a vital role in the dissemination of information, even these traditional channels are increasingly being influenced by online conversations. The “new influencers” are beginning to tear at the fabric of marketing as it has existed for 100 years, giving rise to a new style of marketing that is characterized by conversation and community.

Here's an interesting case study on Coca-Cola.

"Despite some initial misgivings, Coca- Cola demonstrated its appreciation of the role on the new influencer by its willing- ness to embrace and support Eepybird in its ongoing videos showing the effect of mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. Created by two independent artists in the woods of Maine, the Eepybird videos have generated billions of impressions and illustrated the power of the new influencers."

At Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, though, the mood wasn’t so exuberant. Coke lawyers fretted about liability problems from amateur chemists trying to duplicate the experiment. When the Journal called for comment, a spokeswoman said the “crazi- ness with Mentos ...doesn’t fit with the brand personality” of Coke. “We would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it,” she said.

But Coke’s interactive marketers saw a gold mine. Sales of Diet Coke, which had been flat for some time, spiked between five and 10%, the company’s interactive director told MediaPost. In August, they contacted Eepybird asking how they could help pull off more experiments. Voltz and Grobe, who were tired of buying out the local grocery’s stock of soda, were happy to accept. In October, they recorded “The Domino Effect,” involving 251 bottles, more than 1,500 candies and a network of tripwires, pulleys and nozzles that sent choreographed foam spewing in every direction.

The Internet ate it up. Google and Yahoo featured the clip on their video home pages. Voltz and Grobe personally contacted dozens of bloggers who had helped along the first experiment, encouraging them to link to the latest video. Eepybird was flooded with traffic, more media outlets called and offers began coming in from casinos and corporate events departments asking for com- mand performances.

Coke supported the experiment with unlimited supplies of beverages, ad buys on Google and a sponsored contest with Voltz and Grobe as judges. Coke got 1.5 billion ad.

In this case, I feel that social media is rapidly becoming a core channel for disseminating information. Fifty-seven percent of this group of early social media adopters reported that social media tools are becoming more valuable to their activities, After having doen some research, I found our that blogs, online video and social networks are currently the most popular social media tools, but public relations and corporate communications professionals are using a wide variety of means to reach audiences, depending on their unique situations. Therefore, social media are clearly changing the way we think about media and influence