The Online Base Camp

Every brand needs to pri­or­it­ise its online base camp.

This post will dis­cuss why your organ­isa­tion might bene­fit from shift­ing its focus away from social media and onto the brand’s website.

Here we go:

The Online Base Camp

I’ve devised brand strategies for over a dec­ade and am in awe of social medi­a’s power. It’s a glob­al cul­tur­al melt­ing pot of ideas and expressions.

But as PR pro­fes­sion­als, we’d be wise to remem­ber that social media is a mass phe­nomen­on. Few brands enjoy the suc­cess often asso­ci­ated with influencers.

In the cor­por­ate uni­verse, it’s digit­al-first.
Not neces­sar­ily “social media” first.

A brand’s web­site — its online base camp — is often under­used, under­es­tim­ated, and under­ap­pre­ci­ated.

Many organ­isa­tions over­es­tim­ate their social media pres­ence and under­es­tim­ate their online base camp — their web­site.

But it shouldn’t have to be that way.

From Digital Peasant to Digital Landowner

Social media has been a pri­or­ity for many organ­isa­tions for many years. But digit­al-first is more than just social media. And, let’s face it: social media doesn’t work for all organ­isa­tions alike.

A brand’s web­site should be its online base camp, a place for like-minded people to brain­storm, test ideas, put up roadmaps, and review logs.

Unfortunately, web­site pub­lish­ing is seen as bor­ing. But that’s just because the explod­ing scene of middle-hand ser­vices won’t both­er to pro­mote you tak­ing com­plete con­trol of your organ­isa­tion’s web presence.

Social media, on the oth­er hand, keeps us on our toes. Networks like YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat keep us on our toes, and they have a knack for dom­in­at­ing our newsfeeds.

But the truth is that very few brands do well on social media. For many brands, it makes more sense to be digit­al landown­ers than digit­al peas­ants.

Putting All Eggs in the Social Media Basket

If social media mar­ket­ing works for you, that’s great.

But we should recog­nise that social media pub­lish­ing for brands comes with sig­ni­fic­ant drawbacks:

Complaining about social media won’t get you res­ults; neither search engines nor social net­works are known to give in to user demands. Either you play accord­ing to the social net­work’s rules or don’t play at all.

Controlling Your Online Presence

Many brands could prob­ably do much bet­ter if they focused their resources away from social media and dir­ec­ted them to their websites.

Investing in your cor­por­ate web­site is a prag­mat­ic pri­or­ity in today’s digit­al-first media landscape.

I star­ted blog­ging before it was cool, and I kept blog­ging well past the hype days — and I’m still at it. I wouldn’t trade hav­ing a fully con­trolled online pres­ence for any­thing, nor should you.

Because here’s the thing:

Websites are uniquely flex­ible. One single web­site can sim­ul­tan­eously accom­mod­ate sev­er­al high-level PR strategies on auto­pi­lot. And the entire infra­struc­ture is under your con­trol. Social media mar­ket­ing can’t do this.

As the paradigm of inbound com­mu­nic­a­tions entered the online uni­verse, it has been proven that many brands must rely on “pub­lish­ing a con­tinu­ous stream of new content.”

Why You Need an Online Base Camp

Website pub­lish­ing extends well bey­ond what we typ­ic­ally think of as blog­ging. Some pub­lish­ers like to call their plat­forms news­rooms, oth­ers con­tent hubs, and some don’t call them anything.

No mat­ter what you call it, being a digit­al landown­er is more than just hav­ing a format for newly pub­lished content.

To emphas­ise the import­ance of a con­trolled cor­por­ate online pres­ence, I’ve star­ted refer­ring to cli­ents’ web­sites as their online base camps for:

In oth­er words:

If social media isn’t a good fit for your organ­isa­tion, stop banging your head against the wall. Instead, shift your focus to the brand web­site, your online base camp.

Learn more: The Online Base Camp

Digital Sharecropping

Nicholas Carr pop­ular­ised the concept of digit­al share­crop­ping in the mid-2000s and is an apt ana­logy for how mod­ern digit­al eco­sys­tems func­tion. ¹Carr, N. (2006, December 19). Digital share­crop­ping. Rough Type. https://​www​.rough​type​.com/​?​p​=​634

Digital share­crop­ping = the phe­nomen­on where indi­vidu­als or busi­nesses cre­ate con­tent on plat­forms they do not own and have little con­trol over, much like share­crop­pers in agri­cul­tur­al eco­nom­ies who worked land owned by oth­ers. ²Silfwer, J. (2025, March 13). Digital Sharecropping. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​d​i​g​i​t​a​l​-​s​h​a​r​e​c​r​o​p​p​i​ng/

From Agrarian to Digital

To under­stand digit­al share­crop­ping, we must first explore its name­sake: tra­di­tion­al share­crop­ping.

Digital Sharecropping in Everyday Life

Digital share­crop­ping is ubi­quit­ous, though many do not recog­nize it. Here are some real-world examples:

Effects on Cultures and Societies

Digital share­crop­ping has pro­found effects on eco­nom­ics, cul­ture, and power structure.

How To Escape Digital Serfdom

Digital share­crop­ping is not sus­tain­able in the long run. To avoid being a digit­al serf, con­sider these strategies:

Digital Feudalism or a New Renaissance?

Digital share­crop­ping is an eleg­ant yet insi­di­ous evol­u­tion of eco­nom­ic depend­ency. Just as tra­di­tion­al share­crop­pers found them­selves trapped in a cycle of labor without own­er­ship, today’s digit­al cre­at­ors, gig work­ers, and entre­pren­eurs are build­ing wealth for plat­forms rather than themselves.

The future is uncer­tain — will we break free and return to decent­ral­ised, user-owned digit­al spaces, or will AI-driv­en, cor­por­ate-con­trolled eco­sys­tems tight­en their grip?

The ques­tion is: 

Will you be a digit­al peas­ant or a digit­al landown­er?

Learn more: Digital Sharecropping

The Inbound Shift

As pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als, we must rethink how we think about pub­lics. Traditionally, many PR depart­ments have argued:

“Why should we waste budgets on ‘already acquired’ audiences?”

The truth is — it’s the oth­er way around.

The inbound shift is a fun­da­ment­al mind­set change in the pub­lic rela­tions industry.

Instead of “spam­ming” non-exist­ing audi­ences, pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing can do much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ³Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Inbound vs Outbound: The Difference

Inbound vs out­bound is the online equi­val­ent of draw­ing the line between those who know you and those who don’t.

Drawing a line between those who know you and those who don’t know you is noth­ing new:

If your inbound shift PR strategy is strong, you might no longer need to pri­or­it­ise your out­bound PR strategies since your inbound audi­ence will attract out­bound publics!

Learn more: The Inbound Shift PR Strategy

List of PR Blogs

PR blogs come and go, and some seem to go on and on — I should know. I’ve been blog­ging before, dur­ing, and after it was con­sidered cool. Today, I still find that hav­ing a great web­site is underrated.

Many organ­isa­tions over­es­tim­ate their social media pres­ence and under­es­tim­ate their online base camp — their web­site.

Blogging is still the corner­stone of con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions. To stay cur­rent, I update this list with act­ive blogs on pub­lic rela­tions and com­mu­nic­a­tions (2024).

Would you hap­pen to know of an act­ive PR blog that I should include in this list? Please let me know!

Learn more: Doctor Spin’s List of PR Blogs

What should you study next?