PR STUDENTS DIGG SOCIAL MEDIA
Posted by Tom O'Sullivan on May 11, 2010 in Public Relations, Social Media with 1 Comment18 CIT students prompt Tom O'Sullivan to examine the evolution of social media and the importance of defined strategies for companies engaging with social media.
I spent most of last Friday at the Cork Institute of Technology as an industry representative with a former lecturer of mine, Emmett Coffey, listening to the 18 students of the MA in PR give presentations on social media and PR.
17 of the students used powerpoint with varying degrees of imagination and success while one student took the bold step of standing up and talking with no visual aids at all.
The presentations were split into two groups, those who said that you have to start using social media now or risk being left behind and those who said that social media should be considered a tool to be used when you have a clear objective in mind.
That split got me thinking about the evolution of social media over the last two or three years and how both sides are both right and wrong.
Social media began as a genuine conversation. It was designed to connect with other web users on a personal level. For brands and companies that embraced social media at an early stage, this meant actively engaging online to enhance the brand experience, to develop better and deeper relationships with customers and to consult with customers to aid innovation and improve products and services.
Over the years, social media tools have evolved, but not as fast as the social media ecosystem, the environment created by the rise of social media. As anyone who has spent time online knows, opinion is king, and the stronger the opinion, the more online oxygen it receives. For brands, this creates dangers and opportunity. One slip up and your brand can be heavily damaged online. Don't engage online and you run the risk of your brand being slated by unhappy customers. This is the main argument behind those who say you have to engage online, you have to take enter the social media jungle. People are talking about you anyway, you have to engage with them directly.
The other side of the coin is that there is no point in jumping into the conversation without a definite strategy. Talking for the sake of it can be a time waster. It is very easy to get sucked into the social media world and lose yourself in conversations and topics that take you away from your core business. While that works for people online who are, for all intents and purposes, professionally interesting, for the vast majority of people, it means lost productivity and revenue.
That is why it is so important to have a defined strategy for social media engagement. While it may seem to go against the original ethos of the social media community, the growth of the online ecosystem has meant that just joining in is no longer a realistic approach for most businesses. Social media has to be seen as a tool to help grow your brand and your sales. Social media needs to be seen as a quality control system where issues with service and products can be identified more easily. While it will help engage more directly with customers and potential customers, just chatting to them is no longer the best option.
Tom O'Sullivan 's work takes in strategic messaging and media training as well as event management and media relations. Tom is also interested in new technology of all kinds, especially new communications techniques.Find out more at Tom's Profile. Don't forget to subscribe if you'd like to hear more!
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Glad we got you thinking Tom. Really enjoyed giving the presentation.Hopefully we cross paths again in the big bad PR world.
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