The art and science of shaping public perception professionally dates as far back as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These pioneers of PR strategy would frequently inundate the training grounds of grassroots opinion in ancient Greece with rhetorical flourishes using both inductive and deductive reasoning.

The public relations industry has surely come a long way in 3,000 years, and today, public opinion battles are fought, lost and won not on the printed page or on The O'Reilly Factor but in cyber space. As a stake holder in the online realm with your very own website which markets a unique brand of products and services, it is important to know what your customers are saying about you, and more importantly, what they are not saying about you. Here are a few ways in which you can use this veritable goldmine of professional talent to help you not only build and enhance your market reach and market share but also preserve your online reputation which you may have built after years of honest toil and trouble as the Macbeth witches would put it.

What is a Web PR Firm

A web PR firm, also known as an online PR firm, is responsible for evolving, much like a political think tank, a carefully thought out strategy that does three things:

Publicity and Media Outreach through Actionable Networking:

A web PR company puts its media outreach network to work and gets your online company "good" press on authority blogs, online magazines, e-zines and just about anywhere on the Internet where the "message" about you is not construed or misconstrued as paid or unpaid advertising. These stories and features about your company are mostly editorial in nature and typically revolve around an event in your company such as a product launch, a trend that will impact both your company and its customers, or a major milestone achieved by your organization such as an award you may have received from your government for outstanding performance or exemplary achievement within your industry segment, domain or niche.

Reputable web PR firms are managed by seasoned public relations industry professionals with years of experience in the management of corporate reputation. All we need to do to understand and appreciate how effective a PR firm can be in times of crisis is to go back to 1982 and recall the Tylenol murders case and study how the public relations firm working for McNeil Laboratories managed the crisis adeptly and performed damage control.

Media Monitoring:

It is the responsibility of the web PR firm you engage to monitor cyber space including the blogosphere and make sure that discussions about your company are relayed back to you in a timely fashion in order to facilitate prompt decision-making at the executive level. Dubbed as "media monitoring" this function involves closely tracking millions of online sources every day with the help of sophisticated tracking technologies with a view to gathering, categorizing and segmenting any and all types of online buzz about your company, your products and your employees.

Online Reputation Management:

Your web PR firm is responsible almost exclusively to respond on your behalf to any negative publicity—legitimate or otherwise—that may potentially tarnish your reputation on the Internet. These negative comments about you may appear in blog comments, online complaint boards and even as full-length blog posts.

Damage Control in the Internet Era

Web PR firms deploy a complete arsenal of methods to either “knock off” this type of negative publicity which tends to show up more frequently and prominently than you would like on Google’s search results pages, or to counter-balance these comments with a well-articulated rebuttal posted alongside the negative comment. Experienced web PR firms have also been known to "negotiate" negative commentary out of the reach of the Internet community.

Although companies that render media monitoring and reputation management services do exist as single-focus consulting firms, it is best, owing to economies of scale, to appoint only one company on a monthly retainer to perform all three services. There is undoubtedly synergy in all three functions and if three consulting firms are appointed to each assume the responsibility on an individual basis, there is the danger of these companies working at cross purposes with each other to the detriment of the client's overall interests.

What is there in it for you and your Customers?

Online press releases, articles, stories and features about your online company that are not perceived as marketing collateral, tend to generate a higher level of credibility. Such efforts go a long way in building customer trust, loyalty and brand equity. Google loves web PR too because it generates authority back links for your website which it uses to rank you high on searches conducted on various Google properties around the world by searchers who are looking for reliable sources for products, services and information.

The Bottom Line

If you are large enough and can afford the services of a web PR firm, search on Almighty Google for web PR and online PR consulting firms. You are sure to find a company that is willing to do business with you on your terms, conditions and budget.