Every few days we hear of another newspaper or magazine shutting down. The Rocky Mountain News and Country Home magazine are a couple recent examples.  It’s sad to see the shakeout that is occurring in the mainstream media. But it would be a mistake for marketers to believe that the landscape shrinks their opportunities to tell a good story.

Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage” is a pretty fitting description of today’s journalism. There are millions more “editors” now than ever before. You won’t find them in a newsroom. They’re sitting in front of a laptop writing blogs, creating Facebook pages, uploading video on YouTube. Some are exchanging tweets. They can propel your business, they can ignore it, or they can sink it.

You need to find and feed these new journalists because your competitors certainly will.

Here are four key steps to building a successful online PR program.

• Conduct a search for blogs that may cover your industry or reach your target audience. blogsearch.google.com is an excellent place to start looking.
• Search for groups that may have an interest in your subject on Linkedin and Facebook.
• Research the sites that you find through your searches or friends’ recommendations. Understand the point of view of the writer.
• Once you find these new journalists, don’t try to force feed them. Blogs and social networking media should stimulate dialogue, not diatribe. You’re there to contribute to the discussion.

So, give a moment of silence to the Rocky Mountain News, Country Home and other media casualties.  Then build a plan to reach the millions of online “editors” who have taken their place.