wow . . did I chat with you this weekend or something . . . this is exactly the dilemma I’m going through at my company right now . . . I have to learn how to detach myself from the “go get’em” sales mode and be more conscious about the overall message the company is trying to deliver . . .great post!

An enlightening breakdown and something that I am struggling with right now. Luckily I have enough autonomy and authority to have my opinion matter when it comes to how the PR firm we are using proceeds. There is definitely some overlap but their knowledge of the search marketplace is about as extensive as my knowledge of the PR world. We have been able to strike a good balance but I can see how problems could arise if we were unable to work together.

@Gary – That detachment is something sorely lacking in the “hybrid” group now treating online PR as simply an IM tool, so congrats to you for recognizing it.

@SDS – That’s precisely why the management function of PR is even more important than ever. PRs have struggled for decades (and still often do) to make traditional management teams understand and effectively use PR. The struggle our industry seems to be having in online PR is that we’re not often able to excite management in the online game, when they’re used to instant gratification and when PR is a continual process.

@Mark – I’m glad to hear you’re striking a workable balance. :) I think sometimes that the issues are less about IMs and PRs being able to “work together” on the Web (when many work virtually to begin with and never interact with one another), but instead that many in both industries truly don’t understand their own role – they think they can “do it all,” and they poorly educate their clients because of it. Heck, even in PR alone we have major issues lately with people not knowing what they do – like corporate communications folks thinking they can speak for the larger PR industry, and those who still mistakenly believe that public relations is nothing more than media relations.

@Rob – Social media is a tool that crosses the divide, that’s for sure. Social media has plenty of marketing functionality, but PR value as well (like the example you mentioned). I wouldn’t say that “social media marketing” is “PR’s closest cousin” exactly though. I’d say that social media is just a new collection of tools applicable to both disciplines, and by trying to encompass it all under a term like SMM, we actually add to the problem and confusion. Social media marketing certainly exists. I just think that perhaps most of us define it far too broadly.

this is a great article, i’ve forwarded it to my team members. i’m helping manage my client’s online marketing efforts alongside a team of print publishers and editors, so finding that balance between online sales and branding may take awhile but definitely do-able with our combined knowledge. great article! i especially like the breakdown of tools for each industry

Great post, and I agree that Internet marketing and online PR (real online PR) have differences. But I would say that the two have many more things in common than not, and the two are getting more intertwined each day. Just look at the booming online reputation management industry!

I wonder why you would not include SEO under the Internet marketing tactics, along with articles, blogs, and social networks? Any professional Internet marketer can, and should, be using all of these things effectively.

Real SEO professionals understand the online PR field and are able to successfully achieve the goals of both in utilizing all of their tactics. It is not easy to find firms or individuals that can pull this off effectively but it can be done. I work for eVisibility Internet marketing agency and I feel that we have a pretty good crew that understands this. I guess that it really all stems from our President’s approach because he has always been very aware of the differences of the two and that effectively inter meshing the two gives you great benefits. That and the fact that we have worked with some large traditional ad agencies and they are always aware of PR.

One area of overlap is replacing negative search engine results about a company with positive ones and/or getting the negative results moved further down the list. Lots of internet marketing and search engine optimization companies have considered themselves to be PR firms because they offer such services. I see this as a very small component of PR that a real PR firm might contract out to a search engine optimization firm.

It’s awesome, your post has described a enough information on the marketing tools of Internet marketing and online PR. Really it shows quite differences I too agree with you.

I think most of the points you make are valid but I don’t see such a clear division in my business consulting. SEO is as much a Internet marketing function if not more than PR. Most of these points can be under one list.

Internet marketing & PR are basicly the same thing, I would still consider online PR as a part of internet marketing.

My comment may be pretty late, now that this article is more than an year old. But Jennifer, your post was very relevant since I was grappling with such a situation myself with some of our clients who posed this question. Have penned my thoughts and have linked your post too, since its very relevant.

http://itwofs.com/beastoftraal/2009/01/09/social-media-pr-vs-social-media-marketing/

First of all I would like to say that this post highlights a point that is often overlooked by internet marketers. By replacing bad pr in the search engine results about a company with positive ones many SEO service providers are already playing the part of a PR firm with out realizing it.