Social Media: A Perfect Fit for Public Relations

Image Courtesy of Matt Hamm

The social media bandwagon is beginning to overflow, but who’s going to drive? Advertising agencies? SEO companies? I think the best choice is public relations.

This might fly in the face of the current online chatter about the death of PR at the hands of social media, but I think like Mark Twain and Jeff Goldblum, the rumors of the death of PR are greatly exaggerated. For PR professionals who are willing to change with the times and evolve along with social media, the future is very bright. Like Todd Defren says in his blog about the future of PR, “The next 50 years will be better than the last 50 years.”

Why public relations? It’s simple-we have always been involved in social media. It may not always have been in the form of 140 character tweets or YouTube channels, but while the vehicles are changing, the end result is the same-communicating with the public. In the past we had to do this mostly by going through media gatekeepers-the editors, producers, writers, and managers of radio and television stations, newspapers, and magazines. Now, in addition to working with these gatekeepers, we can deliver our messages directly to the public. That’s exciting stuff!

Why not the others?

Advertising agency-directed social media programs all have a similar structure that our president, Bob Maples, likens to a “sugar high.” The campaign is built around an event or launch of some sort, it builds the hype around the event, peaks at the time of the event, and then drops off dramatically with very little in the way of long-term coverage. That is the opposite of what you want when it comes to social media. With social media, the goal is ongoing contact with your customers or stakeholders, two-way communication with the public, and constant coverage and monitoring of your brand. This is the realm of the public relations professional.

Seach Engine Optimization companies have also tried to get their piece of the social media pie. And while these organizations have a lot of experience in the search world and the online environment, they usually aren’t professional communicators. I have seen written documents from SEO companies where the punctuation was bad, the formatting lacked any consistency, and there were a number of grammatical errors. In comparison, when you are working with public relations professionals, you often will be working with people who have strong writing backgrounds. Here at Maples we have ex-journalists on staff. My background is in book publishing. This experience is perfect for social media, where clear and concise (and in the case of Twitter-brief) communication is a necessity.

So instead of worrying about the death of public relations, I think a better use of time for public relations professionals is to keep learning and evolving with social media.

Tags: advertising, digital media, maples communications, PR, public relations, social media