How social media has changed the PR and communications sectors? - 5th April 2011
Posted by Aideen McGrath on April 05, 2011 in Public Relations, Social Media with 0 CommentsSocial media has brought us on a communications adventure and introduced new rules of branding and consumer engagement. Quick, easy access to information has upended the way in which consumers absorb info and make their choices.
How has the digital age led by social media changed the PR and communications sectors?
The relentless advance of social media has been a powerful catalyst for change in the PR world, opening up more opportunities for influence and engagement than ever before.
It’s such an exciting, labour-intensive time to be in PR. Because of social media, dynamic content has never been more important, and delivery channels as diverse and powerful.
Social media has brought us on a communications adventure and introduced new rules of branding and consumer engagement. Quick, easy access to information has upended the way in which consumers absorb info and make their choices. For a PR professional, today’s hyper-connected social web brings risks as well as opportunities. The opportunities are widely documented: deeper and faster connections with consumers, exciting channels to build brand awareness, global reach, powerful research and insights tool, real-time monitoring and so on. The risks too are great, and need to be anticipated and managed carefully by PR professionals. If motivated, ‘reputation snipers’ can do serious damage to a brand and the negative contagion effect that can take place online has caused us to look at how we manage crisis and corporate reputation both online as well as offline.
The rudimentaries haven’t changed however. PR is still about relationship building. How we initiate and build those relationships with consumers is considerably different online, and is forcing a significant adjustment in our mindset. One thing PR professionals need to grip is that social media cannot just be a ‘sell’ platform. It’s not about bombarding people with brand information; it’s about building a relationship with them, engaging them in dialogue. Crucially, brands need to learn how to listen meaningfully, and know how to respond in a way that affects a consumer’s outlook and considered behaviour with that brand.
Peer to peer influence and user-generated content will continue to dominate and become more powerful drivers of change and influence from a communications point of view. Expression/sharing platforms like YouTube and Facebook open up huge creative territories for PR and marketing agencies. A big idea can now explode in so many directions on the social web, which is a huge opportunity for engaging and highly interactive PR campaigns.
On a more technical point, PR content needs to be optimised so that it ranks higher in search engines and portals. We have started to optimise our press releases and the impact has been instant and very compelling with better syndication in key channels of influence.
Greater use of social media platforms like Twitter, FaceBook, FourSquare and LinkedIn has revitalised debate around how to monitor effectiveness. This is a good thing. PR is notoriously poorly measured. Right now, it’s not about how many friends a brand has on FaceBook, it’s how the brand converses with that friend and how it builds on the relationship in the longer term to effect change and foster positive advocacy.
What, if any, are the current limitations of social media platforms?
1. Working out ROI is tricky. Online brand monitoring tools are not very sophisticated and those that are tend to be US-centric and expensive.
2. With so many social media platforms coming on stream, it can get harder to focus. Aggregator and monitoring tools such as Hootsuite, Mashable and Netvibes help to keep on top of it all.
3. Resource-wise, meaningful social media monitoring and engagement takes up time. We are piloting a dedicated social media team working on big brand campaigns - they are freed up to manage social media engagement on behalf of our clients. That way, they’re always ‘on’ and ready to react and engage with the audience. It’s early days, but the results are encouraging.
4. Twitter - sometimes 140 characters just isn’t enough…
Aideen McGrath is a Director at H+A Marketing + PR, a leading integrated communications company based in Cork. http://www.hagroup.ie
Aideen McGrath 's work with some of the biggest names in Web 2.0 (eBay, MySpace, Expedia) has fuelled her passion for social media. She gets her kicks from running high-energy, wacky brainstorm sessions and landing a ‘eureka’ creative that delivers.Find out more at Aideen McGrath's Profile. Don't forget to subscribe if you'd like to hear more!
Trackback URL
Enjoy this post? Share it with others.
Comments
About H+A Blog
Our blog was created to educate, inspire, provoke thoughts and generate ideas.
It is a voice of our passionate team who shares its knowledge and views on marketing, PR, branding and new media, while also discussing the latest trends, innovation and technology in the communications industry.
Categories
Recent Entries
- Employees, Social Media and Trust - Oct 27th
- Best of blogs: what we read last week - Oct 17th
- The rise and stall of checking in
- Facebook vs. Google +.....the social media war - 2nd August 2011
- Tips on how to survive the Dragons Den - 14th July 2011