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.

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

Here we go:

The Online Base Camp

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

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.

But it shouldn’t have to be that way.

Rethinking Social Media

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 your roadmaps, and review logs.

But web­site pub­lish­ing is seen as boring.

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 in social media.

Social Media PR Challenges

Social media pub­lish­ing for brands comes with sig­ni­fic­ant PR drawbacks:

List of Social Media Issues

List of Social Media Issues

Social media isn’t just nyan cats and double rainbows. 

With massive change come new social media issues we must deal with.

Here are a few examples of social media issues:

Read also: The List of Social Media Issues

Seeking a Pragmatic Approach

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

However, social media mar­ket­ing doesn’t work for lots of brands. They could prob­ably do much bet­ter if they shif­ted their focus away from social media and dir­ec­ted those resources to their website.

Because com­plain­ing about social media won’t give you results.

Neither search engines nor social net­works are known to give in to user demands; either you play by the social net­work’s rules or don’t play at all.

Of course, any brand can lever­age the full power of social media. But too many brands can­not suc­ceed at once. Even if many more brands did great on social media, there wouldn’t be enough human attention.

Pragmatism is crit­ic­al for brands. We must lever­age all dif­fer­ent media chan­nels so that they a) make busi­ness sense and b) work in tan­dem with spe­cif­ic formats.

PR Must Rethink Website Publishing

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. And neither should you.

Website pub­lish­ing extends well bey­ond what we typ­ic­ally think of as blog­ging.

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.

And it’s not like we can ignore the power of web­site pub­lish­ing for too long, either.

We need online base camps to accom­mod­ate inbound audi­ences, argu­ably the most sig­ni­fic­ant paradigm shift for the PR industry in decades:

We must redis­cov­er inbound communications.

Inbound Communications

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. ¹Silfwer, 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

You Need an Online Base Camp

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

Is blog­ging the best way to describe a con­tinu­ous stream of new content?

Some like to call their web­site streams news­rooms. Some call them blogs. Some call them con­tent hubs. Some don’t call them anything.

I’ve star­ted refer­ring to cli­ents’ web­sites as their online base camp.

The online base camp is one of the few con­trolled envir­on­ments to which a brand can always revert if a social net­work sud­denly changes the rules of engagement.

An online base camp can host sev­er­al strategies and serve as a com­munity for like-minded people. In this com­munity, all mem­bers of the exped­i­tions ahead can come togeth­er, exchange exper­i­ences, and try out new ideas.

The online base camp is where you and your team post your roadmaps, review your logs, share ideas, and dis­cuss solu­tions. So far, the base camp ana­logy has res­on­ated very well with sev­er­al of my clients.

In oth­er words:

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

PR Resource: PR Blogs

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