Software Update: social media and public relations

The impact of social media in public relations.

Public Relations, prior to the creation of social media, had a stable yet evolving practice. Audience engagement was based on electronic media and print, the focus of a public relations campaign was about securing decent coverage in dailies, television, and radio. However, the explosion of social media is affecting the execution of campaigns formulation, dissemination and measurement. Not to mention that some practitioners may argue that the evolution of social media has brought a new level of complexity and stress among public relation.

The dominance over the message is no longer the privileged preserve of an organization but rather the numerous publics enjoy equal power to initiate dialogue. Before the involvement of social media in public relations—for practitioners—when evoking on a new campaign, their only source of having audience engagement was through having radio, television, and dailies. In addition, practitioners relied on print and electronic dissemination. When wanting a news release to be publicized immediately, the organization has to send it with pressure of it being released on the next print.

On the contrary, the inclusion of social media, all information can be sent via email. Or better yet, when you want an information to become publicized, one can simply upload it to the organizations’ website or platform: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blog, YouTube, etc. With the combination of public relations and social media, it allows for your message to be amplified, allowing public relations to become stronger and more impactful. In such way that your content can be spread faster and reach a larger audience.

With over 75 percent of internet users, social media has provided PR practitioners a unique circumstance in the collection of information, monitoring public opinions and engaging in direct dialogue with its public. The direct engagement through social media, allows organizations are able to recruit direct feedback; as well as sharing real time updates on organization activities. Direct feedback, allows for organizations to improve their practices. It allows for the organization to know publics preferences; wants and needs. This is to maintain a mutual beneficial relationship between the organization and its publics.

Having direct audience engagement allows organizations to speak to their target audience. Since social media has such a broad audience, it allows for organizations to embody a more diverse target audience. PR practitioners who embrace new technologies—blogging, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.—are perceived among the organizations as powerful. They are seen in such ways because they are willing to become leaders in the industry and utilize new tools in order to reach their target audience. Previously, public relations would almost always target specific individuals, such as investors and business partners, but with the assistance of social media it has caused the target group to expand; including all vital individuals to the success of an organization. And for such matter, social media has allowed for public relations to become more “friendly” to stakeholders of a business, which results in a new area of marketing— relationship marketing: helps companies become more warm, inviting and appropriate.

Social media has compelled many brands to begin focusing on their customers. As well as building positive relations, customers can always go on Twitter and Facebook to bash on an organizations customer service. Social media has created a 24/7 news cycle, with the rapidness of new media the publics are expected to have updates involving the organization within minutes. With consumers expectancy to have instant updates regarding the organization, PR practitioners may be under more pressure to produce instant content, for such amplifying both the skill to have accurate writing and for mistakes. Being able to gather their desired information within seconds rather than having to wait till the next day newspaper print, has revolutionized the rapidness in which news are being released.

Prior to new media, communication was a “one-way street.” Companies published information and customers had no public avenue to interact or respond to the distributed content. However, the involvement of new media has altered the disturbance between the organization and its public— immediate feedback, the interactions that social media applications allows both the public and the organization to have a “conversation” online alters the audiences perspective of the organization. If a company is being active and responds to your comments online, it can be interpreted that the organization cares for its public’s wellbeing and values their opinions on the improvements of the organization as a whole.

Arguable, various researchers have discovered that the inclusion of new media has altered with practitioners’ lifestyles and bring upon additional work. Practitioners have to keep abreast with current availability. With the evolution of social media and various updates, workers have to keep a tab on changes and comprehend its functions rapidly, leading to a function on a campaign. Practitioners need to figure out how to accommodate trends into their campaigns. With consumers expectancy to have instant updates regarding the organization, PR practitioners may be under more pressure to produce instant content, like amplifying both the skill to have accurate writing and an eye for mistakes.

In addition, having the almost instantaneously and required level of accuracy of information, the process to develop and distribution of the materials may put pressure on the practitioner and the team. Consequently, it may put pressure on the relationships with colleagues, senior staff, CEOs, and his/her minders. It can also harm the relationship with the Information Technology (IT) team if direct upload of the content is not available for its public. In-house PR practitioners may have to form stronger relationships with the IT department in order to have a harmonized content upload when it is needed.

With the embrace of new media, practitioners need to enhance not only architecture skills but skills needed to manage the increasing amount of information digitally. As well as writing for cross-media will still be a requirement however, the demands for multimedia events will bring upon various challenges. Practitioners will also need to be able to analyze new technologies, how they can aid or hinder traditional roles in PR; dissemination, reputation management, stakeholder relations, crisis communication, media relations, etc. Arguably, researchers have indicated that finding the budget and time to support the upgrading of new technology can bring upon challenges, especially for small organizations. In addition, researchers have stated that there will be an impact on recruitment issues for public relations which can alter journalists looking to ‘jump the fence’ into public relations role.