"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." -Anatole France

Planning for your online public relations presence is an integral part of your overall success. By laying out your plan from beginning to end, it becomes clear what you need to do to make the most of your online PR efforts. But how do you plan without knowing what to plan? Before actually planning an online public relations campaign you must research the industry that you are competing within.

Researching the Industry and Your Competition: Any successful public relations campaign starts with a thorough communication audit. By understanding the marketplace, the competition (and how you fare against that competition), the appropriate media, and the premier opportunities available, you increase your chances for long term success exponentially.

What to look for within your research, benchmarking or audit efforts: A website audit (or the process of researching or benchmarking your industry and the competition within it) analyzes all communication aspects of your website. Look at your placement within search engines and how your website appears, or, if you don't appear in popular search engines discover the keywords and content that you would like to receive traffic from and take note. Gather information how well your message has been integrated into the media and check to see if all the communication channels available to you are being utilized. If you have not been the recipient of any online public relations efforts thus far, research the resources that could drive traffic to your site such as news outlets, review sites or industry forums. When you have audited your external PR opportunities and obstacles, take a look at your website. Look at the design and content of your site to see if it works well with what you are trying to convey. Remember to audit all aspects of your businesses communication. This will give you the opportunity to positively impact the communication to your publics in an influential manner.

What and How to Plan from Research: When you have all the important research about your company and its industry, prepare an executive summary which outlines the findings in a non-technical, business focused way. From this report, start detailing a prioritized list of recommendations - how will you compete and who will you compete against, what are the media opportunities available for the company or product you are promoting, what is the objective of each web page of my site, etc. Successful online pr campaigns all understand the steps they must take in order to share their message with the right publics. Once you have the research, and have made the right recommendations, it's time to start laying out the plan to accomplish those recommendations.

PR Planning using 30-60-90 Day Reports With your list of recommendations, you start gaining some insight into what needs to be accomplished. Auditing your industry might tell you that the top sites all have articles or content about industry specific topics. The audit might also tell you that many webmasters link to these articles from their own sites and are actually promoting the clients services through the use of these articles. Online PR efforts would focus on setting goals and planning to achieve this same thing.

Online PR plan for Link Building Through Articles:

* In 30 days, five articles placed on thirty different industry websites * In 60 days, fifteen articles placed on 90 different industry websites * In 90 days, thirty articles posted on 180 different industry websites

By researching the competition and developing a comprehensive plan, you know what it takes to achieve online PR success. By planning your goals and focusing on only what is directly at hand, you will more quickly start developing your PR image and brand identity on the Web.

What is the Secret to a GREAT PR Plan? Are you ready for the secret to a great PR plan? Creativity. Great PR planning is satisfied through the development of ingenious ideas. The reason most PR plans fail is the actual absence of creativity. If you are a journalist you will understand that most of the press releases that are received are like form letters detailing some obscure part of your business; XYZ Corp. Releases (some ambiguous product or service). The problem with this is while it may be news to you, it's not news to the journalist or the other thousands of companies who release this information every day to the media and the general public. If you want your online PR campaign to be successful, identify what need, issue or problem your product or service solves.

About the author: Peter Prestipino is the founder and principal of SCG - Swirling Circle Online PR Group providing Internet solutions to small and medium sized businesses through online PR efforts such as mini-website development, link building, press releases and product reviews. For more information, visit http://www.SwirlingCircle.com.