Link between Social Media and The Public Relations Industry
Public relations professionals were one of the first to utilize social media to improve business. They used social media to encourage brand awareness for various companies. Rather than putting out a long form press release, PR professionals shifted to “social media release”
According to the director of public relations at Cisco Systems, David McMulloch, “The press release of the future will deliver its content in text, video, SMS, microblog and podcast form, to any choice of device, whenever the reader decides, and preferably it will be pre-corroborated and openly rated by multiple trusted sources.”
Social media PR trends
Researches from a joint study conducted by the Transworld Advertising Agency Network and Worldcom Public Relations Group show that:
- 28% of PR firms disclosed that 15%-33% of their revenue came from social media last year
- This percentage has grown by 44% in 2011
- The PR industry is more effective in terms of leveraging social media as compared to ad agencies
IBIS World, an industry research firm, predicted the following trends:
- PR firms are likely to grow at an average rate of 5.7% to $12.8 billion annually from 2010-2015
- The growth in PR firms is mainly due to increased demand of many companies wanting PR firms to manage daily interactions with target audiences and press on popular social media sites like Twitter and Facebook
- The shift from traditional media to social media will result in PR companies concentrating on utilizing blogs, social media sites, podcasts and mobile media to promote products or services
- More than 80% of PR companies are expecting an increase in social media work in the near future
Managing Public Relations Through Social Media
In order to utilize social media effectively in your PR pitch, it is important that you make your message distinct among others. In order to do so, consider the following tips:
1) Keep the press release simple by omitting overused words like any of the following:
mission-critical applications to improve business processes
cutting-edge
These words may be fancy but if you are using Twitter, you only have 140 characters to work with and you need to make sure you get your tweet right.
2) Never spam. Bloggers, journalists and editors will not appreciate it when you send them tweets or messages on Facebook. Familiarize yourself with your own contact by checking their profiles or blogs before sending them any messages. Ideally, you need to identify the real experts in your niche so you will not waste time and effort on bloggers and journalists who are covering markets that are in no way, related to your own market.
3) Create unique but relevant content. As a PR professional, you are expected to be an expert at turning even the most boring announcement into an interesting piece. Excellent content will not only give you the required media coverage but it will also generate leads.
4) Keep track of what people say about your company in various social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, etc. and respond quickly if needed. Data analytics tools allow you to gauge consumer sentiment for your brand and assess the effectiveness of your communication techniques.
There is more to social media PR than just publishing press releases on Facebook or twitter. Social media PR is an effective tool to connect with journalists, bloggers and consumers in your market.
Comments on this entry are closed.