For the past few months PR people have been talking about something called Web 2.0, the general monicker for all tools associated with social media. For instance, blogging shares the stage with MySpace sites and Tagging Tools and other forms of internet social networking. Now that term is being picked up by public relations experts and has been given the label PR 2.0.

Lately PR Bloggers have defined PR 2.0 as using social networking to engage the audience. However, there is a clear distinction that makes PR 2.0 a radical idea. It encourages public relations practitioners to let go of the message.

Obviously it is sort of hard to control the message when an elected official is arrested for an alleged crime. The public relations effort must react and the message takes on a winding path.

But that is the point of PR 2.0: dismiss any notion of attempting to control, shape or dilute the message. Social networks, blogs, forums - where people talk about a story, ask questions, offer opinions, and provide new information following a major event - make it impossible to shape a message.

People are using many new media tools to create messages and share them with others. PR 2.0 encourages this sort of behavior and dictates that if you want to be credible, you can't control the message.

The perfect example recently was the idea to allow Chevy Tahoe owners to create their own television ads. Quite a few of those ads made fun of SUV owners as large oil-sucking polluters who should be more concerned about the environment, than about their cars. But experts like Richard Edelman think that is an okay thing.

You have to be listening to the voices, and not limited to those you've always thought of as your sources of news. Stories can start with those of little "authority" (in Technorati speak). Second, stories frequently start in the blogosphere; the PR agencies don't generally understand that. - Richard Edelman

If we accept the notion that PR reaches across a wide spectrum of publics, ideas, cultures, languages, and can utilize a number of new media tools, then the idea of PR 2.0 makes sense as a collection of social networking strategy. Letting go of the message in that context makes sense when you're using word-of-mouth to generate buzz. It also can prove a hard pill to swallow when you're working to explain actions and programs suddenly under scrutiny.

However, as more and more people utilize social networking it will become harder to control a message and it will require understanding how to use PR 2.0 tools to at least engage publics and join in the conversation.