Newhouse School of Communications

April 17, 2009

by Christy Perry

Reading his mobile Tweets onstage, digital seer Steve Rubel proved his point to his audience: today's PR is all about online social media.

Rubel is Edelman Digital's Director of Insights. His job is to track what consumers and companies are doing online and to help companies connect with those customers.

Newhouse Public Relations department chair Brenda Wrigley introduced Rubel to a crowd of Newhouse PR majors on Wednesday, April 15, in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium. In his presentation, he outlined the "5 Digital Trends to Watch" for those interested in pursuing public relations careers.

The five digital trends, in order of appearance:

--Consumers using search engines/social media online to solve their problems. "People are saying 'I can get faster service if I tweet about it online,'" Rubel said. He advised future PR practitioners to understand how to mine information from online social media conversations and to be fluent in social network culture.

--News media undergoing a "reforestation" as it goes digital. Whether news organizations shut down or simply reorganize, Rubel explained, PR people need to rethink influencing a changing media landscape. His suggestion to the students: become a "curator" of niche content. He explained that PR professionals and their clients need to choose and cultivate areas that they want to own.

--Less is the new more. Translation: there's a glut of information out there in cyberspace. People are selectively choosing what they want to know and are using friends as quality control, filters for which information they'll take in. Rubel's takeaway message is that public relations needs to create useful digital buzz and web utilities that help consumers.

--Raising up corporate "all-stars". "If you want to survive in this job market, become an all-star," Rubel said. He showed examples of corporate PR bloggers and tweeters who have created a following and are trusted for their insights. Rubel pointed to Twitterers from Kodak and Ford who provide their followers with useful info.

--The power of pull. PR practitioners traditionally push press releases and other media opportunites to bring clients and reporters together. Rubel says it's now equally important that marketers create digital content that journalists will pull from searches.  "The more content you create, the more visible you are." Rubel suggested that PR students learn how to write for searchers, not just for readers.

Also on hand for the event was 2008 Newhouse graduate Chris Lee, who now works for Edelman Digital. He gave students job seeking advice and ideas on how they can set themselves apart after landing work.

Follow this link to Steve Rubel's MicroPersuasion blog.

Click here to connect to Rubel's Twitter feed.







L to R: Prof. Dennis Kinsey, Edelman Digital's Steve Rubel, Prof. Robert Kucharavy, and Edelman Digital's Chris Lee (2008 Newhouse grad).

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