On the fence

The windows of my home office look out into my backyard, where a crew of men is building a new perimeter fence. The Love Your Lawn guys are on Day Two of this noisy job, one that my elderly neighbor Leo is watching with great interest. I walked outside to ask him what he thought about the chain-link coming down between us.

“The new wooden fence will look real nice,” he replied, “but now your kitties can’t come over and visit.”

Of course, this made me immediately start brainstorming on ways to provide cat access as part of my fencing plans. I had a lot of thoughts and ideas, all of which distracted me as I tried to focus on a communications project for work. But then I realized that fences and access—at least in the virtual sense—could be just as important to PR planning as they were to my backyard projects.  

Consider this: 20% of American adults over 18 years of age don’t use the Internet. If you use the most recent census figures, about 46.9 million adults are not online. This “digital divide,” the split between those who do and do not have internet access these days, is a real barrier—a fence keeping people out of the data-based world that most of us take for granted.  

The reasons for this divide vary significantly. Some people have disabilities that make it difficult to use technology; senior citizens don’t readily adopt these options; low-income households can’t justify the expense of broadband; a small number lack basic literacy skills. But more than half of those not using the Internet, according to the Pew Internet Project, say that “that the main reason they don’t go online is because they don’t think the internet is relevant to them.” Hard to wrap your head around, isn’t it?

Still, it’s an important consideration, especially when designing public relations for nonprofits that might target these audiences. Your tactics shouldn’t center on social media, for example, if the intended recipients don’t use Facebook and Twitter. A website is not the best information source if it means a trip to the library to view it on a public computer. A woman in an abusive situation can’t take the risk of having Genesis Women’s Shelter on her browsing history.

Before you panic, remember that there are plenty of alternatives to digital options. (In fact, we used to do a lot of cool PR before Al Gore invented the Internet for us.) For some audiences, an old-fashioned flyer or handout might work very well. For others, an event might generate buzz. And sometimes it’s enough just to get people to talk about you: Keller Fay, author of The Face-to-Face Book, claims that “90% of these conversations [about brands] happen offline” in real conversations between people.

The end objective is to do what’s right for your particular audience. Look for the “fences” you may have put up and the unintended barriers you may be creating. Are you building a nice landscape that disappoints and excludes your nice old neighbor? How can you get around those issues while still creating something of value?

As you sort through the answers, these challenges could change your plans—perhaps for the better. For me, they meant standing in the back yard, explaining to a perplexed contractor that I needed a small hole cut in a brand-new fence.

“Whatever works for you,” he replied, shaking his head. Yes, indeed. Whatever works for me.