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PR has always been a vital part of brand management and, as businesses have moved on to the web, PR has followed. But, do brands need a different kind of PR online? Well, yes and no. The fundamental aims of online PR are broadly the same as offline - publicity and brand management - but the nuts and bolts can be different. Crisis management, for instance, can be a lot more hair-raising online. It also depends on the type of business, such as companies with a difficult proposition. To BNFL, which recently launched its site, it was a boon to find a forum on which to justify nuclear energy - there wasn't really a pre-internet equivalent to that.

Cliff Lunt, head of interactive services at NMI Group, which built the site, says the BNFL brand is a particularly challenging one because so many people have pre-conceived ideas about nuclear energy. The site gives it the chance to speak directly to the public. "Web sites are a massive PR tool," he explains. "Nuclear energy is quite an emotive term. You're not going to stop the debate, so the best thing BNFL can do is to put the argument as best it can in a fair and concise way. It's a repository of information, facts and arguments."

But most businesses don't have difficult propositions and tend to integrate online PR into their general strategy, says Niall Cook, director of netcoms at PR firm Hill & Knowlton. "If you look at PR in its broad sense, you can split it into defensive and promotional work," he says. "A lot of the time, you're trying to defend a reputation or brand; other times you're trying to exploit and promote it. You can pretty much match the things you'd do in traditional PR with online tactics. It's often the same things - you're just using the internet as a channel."

Cook thinks the necessary skillset is the same too, just a different way of looking at things. "It's about an appreciation of the new characteristics of this channel. Most good PR people can pick that up. It's about integrating it into your overall strategy."

Jonathan Hawkins, managing partner of Pumpkin PR, agrees: "The principles are basically the same. Most PR work is via other media, so it's about your ability to forge relationships with people - journalists, media owners, public. The internet and email can only help. It's an additional string to your bow."

Now that makes it all sound so easy. Put up a site saying how great your company is, send emails instead of faxes, and you've got online PR sorted. Well, not exactly: while the broad aims of PR are the same online, the way they are achieved is different.

Consider the scale of the online market and its segmentation. At first, the internet was just one huge space, which made it hard to target specific groups. "When PR agencies started using the internet, everyone was there, all in one place," says Cook. "And the principle of a lot of marketing communication is to get the right message to the right people at the right time."

As the web developed, so too did thousands of niche spaces. If you want to target men in Liverpool aged 18-35, there will be a football site forum, for example. But, says Cook, that brings a new challenge - everyone has easy access to all parts of the internet, so they don't all conveniently stay in one place. "Before, you could carve up what you said to different people and be pretty sure an IT director wouldn't stumble across and be confused by a message aimed at someone else, but how do you do that segmentation online when all your different messages can be seen by everyone? That is difficult for some traditional PR people to grasp - they're used to very narrow casting."

The effect of all this is increased transparency. The internet offers highly measurable, targeted communication, but the flipside is everyone can see everything. But that shouldn't be a concern if you've nothing to hide. "You're not meant to tell half-truths or lies if you're a professional," says Hawkins. "One of the first rules of PR is that you have to be honest and open, so, in that respect, the transparency is a good thing."

Then there is the reciprocal nature of the internet to consider. Web sites invite feedback, forums give the public a voice, and email makes everything much more immediate. Companies cannot hide from the public as easily as they used to. "People are interested in providing comments, particularly on specialist sites," says Giles Fraser, co-founder of Brands2Life. "You're going to get a lot of feedback and that has implications for how you do PR. You can put forward a concept and get a lot of feedback quickly. But you have got to know the site's audience and position what you say in the correct way as people using the web are very sensitive to over-commercialisation."

Fraser points to the example of Kalido.com, a data warehouse software business, which is using blogging as a form of PR. The site's founder has his own corner of the site, called Andy's Corner, where he puts out his views on the company. "It gets interesting reactions from customers and media, and he's reaching a global audience to communicate ideas which he wouldn't be able to do any other way," reveals Fraser. "It's a fantastic and cost-effective way of giving ideas and shaping views."

Transparency, feedback, honesty. That all sounds good, but what about when things go wrong? You haven't done online PR until you've dealt with a crisis. The speed with which bad news, whether it's true or not, can spread online is startling. It's important for businesses to respond fast to bad publicity, but the challenge is magnified when a single click can send a story around the world in seconds. The PR response has to be able to match it.

For example, Amazon.co.uk closed for almost an hour on 19 March 2003 after listing the price of two pocket PCs incorrectly: the HP iPAQ H1910 at £7.32 (actually £274.99) and HP iPAQ H5450 at £23.04 (actually £499.99). This is a danger peculiar to the internet because links can be forwarded to millions of people before a company realises there's a mistake. Amazon.co.uk cancelled orders made at the wrong price and issued the following statement: "As conditions of use clearly state, there is a contract between Amazon.co.uk and the customer for an item until Amazon.co.uk accepts the customer order by email confirming that it has dispatched the item."

Steve Bustin, director of PR company Vada Media, points out that it sometimes helps to keep a low profile as fighting incidents can make matters worse.

"Another classic example is the Beckhams," says Bustin. "When a rumour appeared on Popbitch's noticeboard, the Beckhams started legal action to get it removed. The result was that everyone logged on to see what it was and it spread further. If they hadn't done a thing, chances are some people would've seen it, some may have believed it, but it went mega."

Cook agrees that disaster management is probably the biggest challenge of online PR. "The speed at which something can travel, and the lack of control you have when it happens, is really quite scary," he points out. "Particularly as people in PR are used to being able to control their messages tightly through their channels and by developing good relationships with journalists." The danger is compounded by the fact that today's web site is not tomorrow's chip wrapper - it can hang around for a long time. "Traditional media is ephemeral. A piece of negative coverage is a hassle on the day and you will have to have your response ready, but you can be pretty sure that after six months no-one will be talking about it anymore," Cook says. "But the internet perpetuates these things, whether they are true or not, and that brings a different set of dynamics which PR professionals have to be aware of."

In many cases, Fraser says that you just have to accept that the views are out there as it is impossible to eradicate negative publicity from the internet. "People are going to express a view and their view will be alongside yours," he explains. "If it is clearly wrong, you can address it, but otherwise, in many cases, you will just have to accept it."

The 'sucks' web sites are a good example of that. Kodak has had been subject to one, but it is far from being alone. Many airlines have been targeted, as has Nestle (see case study, p46) and McDonald's. It's a thorny issue. The web site creators use the freedom of speech argument, but if there are any trademark or copyright infringements, the targeted firm is in a better position to fight back. So what should a business do if it is targeted in this way? "They should try and preserve all the evidence there is," advises Mark Owen, head of the intellectual property group at law firm Harbottle & Lewis LLP. "People tend to change their pages quickly once they get a complaint."

Companies can take their case to court or to the ICANN (www.icann.org) (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), an arbitration body which settles domain-name disputes more quickly and cheaply. But, for all the hassle and expense, is it really worth it? Owen believes companies are usually more worried about brand damage than trademark infringement, so they are effectively going down the PR route of damage limitation. However, the damage is only done if people actually visit the offending web site, and more firms are realising that leaving it alone may be a better policy. "If you've got one of those sites, in order to make it successful you've got to get it out there and become a brand owner yourself, and start marketing it," says Owen. "A lot of people with those grievances aren't particularly into that or don't have the resources."

Those site owners also depend on the media picking up on the story, which is not happening quite so often. "I think it was in vogue for a while, but people are not as interested now," says Owen. "The press is less likely to write about them, so people are less likely to hear about them. I think companies have become more measured in their response."

It may seem scary that disgruntled customers and rumour-mongers have email and web sites at their disposal to spread bad publicity on a whim, but the targeted companies have the same tools with which to fight back. Within hours of bad news spreading, they can set up a web site to counter the story. So, can't they just fight fire with fire? "You can exploit the internet as much as the people who are trying to damage brands," says Cook. "But you need to understand the dynamics of the channel and then apply the same thinking from traditional PR."

Businesses can also benefit from the fact that the internet is still widely perceived as an incubator of rumours and people will not necessarily believe everything they read online. "I think people still look to traditional media to confirm things," says Hawkins. "If people see things online, they tend to take them with a pinch of salt and look to traditional media, even if it's an online version, to provide definitive information. Rumours are really the preserve of the internet rather than the press."

Neither should email be underestimated. Ordinarily, online PR tactics can fall all too easily into the scattergun approach, and almost everyone seems to agree that untargeted emails are one of the greatest online annoyances. But, a good mailing list can come into its own in a crisis, says Bustin. "Email lists are much maligned," says Bustin. "In a crisis, businesses need to make use of their email mailing list to talk directly to their customers - the people they have a relationship with. It works on the principle that it's easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one. So, if someone is impuning their reputation, it's their customers they want to reach immediately."

Online music retailer CD Wow!, for example, used email recently following its out-of-court settlement with the British Phonographic Industry over accusations that it was selling CDs cheaply in the UK which it had bought in Asia. It wasn't about lies or rumours, but it was still potential bad news as CD Wow! competes on price. The firm immediately emailed its customers, explaining what had happened and encouraging them to buy at the cheaper prices while they still could. That kind of honest communication should breed loyalty.

So, if the worst does happen and, say, there's a price error on your web site and a link flies around the world, there could be an unexpected silver lining, reveals Bustin. "A lot of people could log on to the web site for the first time because they had received the link," he says. And even if there was no longer a miraculous bargain product, chances are that many of these people will have stayed and looked around anyway.

Perhaps the old cliche is true, all publicity is good publicity.

BARCLAYS TACKLES PHISHING HEAD-ON TO MINIMISE DAMAGE

Almost every bank has been targeted by 'phishing' scams over the past year, in which spamming software is used, for example, to send scam emails to the customers of a bank, supposedly from the bank. The emails purport to be a security check and hoodwink people into visiting a fake web site and entering their account details.

From a PR point of view, such scams are disastrous as they hit banks where it hurts most: their reputation for security. It took them a while to gain customer confidence in online banking anyway.

Simon Newman, head of internet banking at Barclays, says his bank was the first in the UK to be targeted. "What became clear to us very quickly was that it was an industry issue and, although Barclays was the first to be hit, the others soon followed," he says.

Probably the worst thing a company can do when bad news hits is hide, so Newman didn't waste any time in trying to limit the damage by appearing in a BBC news bulletin.

"I was delighted to have the opportunity, within 24 hours, to go on TV to get across the message to think before responding to emails," he says. "We were very explicit and clear that Barclays would never send emails to customers asking them for security details."

Although online fraud is less common than other types, it gets more attention, says Newman, so it can be more damaging to a brand: "There are few instances of problems, but they have a disproportionate impact."

Tackling the issue head-on worked. "My job is to ensure that trust is maintained. The acid test of confidence is ongoing utilisation and January was a record month in terms of log-ins and transactions," he adds.

NESTLE USES ITS WEB SITE TO RESPOND TO NEGATIVE PUBLICITY

Scroll to the bottom of Nestle's baby-milk web site (www.babymilk.nestle.com), and you'll notice links to other sites, including Baby Milk Action (www.babymilk action.org) whose purpose is to encourage the boycott of all Nestle products.

The linked page includes statements such as 'Nestle knows that once a bottle has come between a mother and her child, breast-feeding is more likely to fail and the company has gained a customer. Breast milk is free, safe and best for all babies, but Nestle knows that if they don't get babies on the bottle, they don't do business.'

So, why would Nestle want to direct visitors to such a site? It's unusual, but it's an example of a firm using the internet as a tool in a long-term PR battle to respond head-on to negative publicity.

There has been controversy over the firm's baby milk for decades, with protestors claiming Nestle markets the product aggressively to mothers in developing countries, unnecessarily. But, on its web site, Nestle argues that not all mothers are able to breast-feed and may be better off using instant milk formula.

Hilary Parsons, head of UK corporate affairs, says the site was built in 1999 and was revamped at the end of 2003 to set out the facts. "The site aims to explain the realities of infant feeding in the developing world, giving Nestle WHO Code action updates, responding to allegations and helping people to contact the company," she explains.

"Information about infant feeding in the developing world, as well as on alleged violations, can be issued faster and more frequently."

COMMON ONLINE PR PROBLEMS

1. Online PR is cost-effective, but only as part of an overall strategy. "Many firms have a PR agency doing traditional PR and treat online as a separate channel and hire someone else," says Niall Cook of Hill & Knowlton. "That's inefficient."

2. Don't hide from a crisis. It's important to get your PR running straight away. "Once a story has been picked up, make sure people understand the company is behaving in the right way," says Giles Fraser of Brands2Life.

3. Use email judiciously. Send emails as carefully as you would send a letter. Emails are great as they're cheap and direct, and won't end up on the floor like a fax would. But the scattergun approach can do more harm than good.

4. Use online tools like blogging. It has no offline equivalent, so take advantage. A blog from the MD can make a site more engaging and help shape your brand's perception.

5. Take advantage of online communities, says Steve Bustin of Vada Media. "It's so easy to reach very precise market segments - one of the joys of the net is that every sector has its own community. The converse, though, is that you can spend a lot of time trawling the web to find them."