I read an interesting article the other day that suggested that workers today are accomplishing far less than a decade ago.

The culprit? Technology.
While technology is supposed to make everything easier and quicker, it also poses its own distractions.

How many of us have wasted an hour or so trying to get our computers to do what we want them to do? Perhaps the Internet is not working probably, perhaps you’re not receiving emails….. There may not be a logical reason for why any of these problems are occurring, but still, the time is wasted playing around with these machines that are supposed to make our working lives easier.

Technology has made information so much more accessible, which in turn means that we are more likely to spend our days multi-tasking. Every time an email comes in, ping, our attention is distracted from the task at hand. We read the email but then, guess what, there is another task emanating from the email and we find ourselves moving further and further away from the project on which we were originally working.

The result?
We spend many hours chipping away at various different items on our task list but never achieve that feeling of truly accomplishing something.

The question of traditional PR versus blogging continues to be a hot topic of discussion. Steve Broback compares the impact of press releases and blogging in a recent post entitled “Traditional PR vs Blogs: Google Makes it Clear Which it Prefers.“

As I’ve said before, it is really important to leverage the Internet for effective PR. The Internet has provided us with a way to gain so much reach that we cannot ignore the opportunities that it presents.

Google indeed seems to be expressing a preference towards blogging and maybe we have to re-address the effectiveness of traditional press release distribution.

I have been promoting blog marketing among my clients and with one client, in particular, I have found that blogging has played a key role in raising search engine rankings and generating leads.

The blog compared to the press release shows the impact that free, open thought has over carefuly crafted, canned statements. It also shows that people are looking for credibility and supporting evidence, somthing that blogging offers but press releases cannot. Blogs are open discussions; press releases are closed statements.

You wouldn’t dream of turning up to a job interview without conducting research into the company and taking some time to mentally prepare yourself. So, why unleash yourself on the media without performing the same due dilligence?

If you say the wrong thing in a job interview, you sabotage your chances of getting the job but at least your embarrasment is confined to the interview room.

If you say the wrong thing in a media interview, not only do you risk sabotaging your company’s reputation and your own credibility, but you also have to face ongoing media coverage and archives that never go away.

Here are a few tips on how to prepare yourself for a media interview:

For a long time, the SEO world has been talking about the importance of active link building to build site authority and, hence, increase ranking in the search engines.

Link Bait is a new term, coined by link builders, to describe the creative ways in which they are gaining inbound links.

What does this mean for PR?
In addition to building site authority and increasing search engine ranking, link bait also has a lot in common with viral public relations campaigns.

Before the name “link bait” was ever invented, the concept was being used. Remember Burger King’s Subservient Chicken? Burger King was very successful in promoting their new chicken sandwich via the subservient chicken gimmick, which has become a widely used example of viral marketing. How many times did someone write about the subservient chicken and then include a link back to the website?

The connection between viral marketing and link bait only stands to strengthen my assertation that public relations practices must be taken online. Further than simply evolving with the times, I believe that online communications is the secret to better public relations.