With a global user ship in the billions, social media has become one of the fastest growing industries in the world. While it has touched just about every industry under the sun in some capacity, it has had a huge—and arguably more pointed—impact on the public relations industry, creating new opportunities and challenges for brands. It allows brands and consumers to engage across a variety of channels in real-time, which has led to an increased demand for brands to address consumer inquiries quickly and effectively. Social media has also led to the emergence of powerful digital influencers for brands to reach out to and work with.
With the advancement in digital technology, it has become the backbone of every industry. Social media has also evolved from a networking tool to a marketing function. It has become as much compulsory as tool for businesses embracing smart technology to become, well, smarter.
From changing the way people consume their news to contributing to the rise of the citizen journalist, social media has forced PR and reporters to adapt or perish.
Here are the key ways in which social media has impacted the PR industry and why it’s essential for all professional communicators to get on board.
- Wide Reach
Social media is immediate and noisy. Roughly 6,000 tweets are shared per second on Twitter. While that makes social media a highly effective tool for communicating breaking news coverage, it also means the lifespan of a news story is much shorter than it used to be. This means that journalists are constantly searching for the next big thing and PR must keep up.
However, even though the lifespan of a story may be shorter, social media has the power to broadcast a story farther than ever before. Thanks to social sharing, an article in a small local publication in the middle of the country may go viral online, spreading globally and becoming the next big story.
- Crisis communications has become even more important
Other than scheduling media interviews and pitching stories, PR professionals are now responsible for managing brand voice and protecting the organization’s online reputation via the publication and promotion of additional content, community engagement, media monitoring and measurement.
Failure to monitor social media for brand mentions and have a plan in place for responding to customer feedback (both good and bad) could mean a missed opportunity at best.
- Increased access to journalists.
Social media helps PR pros get closer to reporters. By following a journalist on social media, PR pros can learn about a reporter’s tone of voice, opinions on relevant topics and recent work.
However, this doesn’t mean you should drop all other responsibilities and spend hours sifting through Twitter. Instead use social media monitoring tools to find publications and journalists that meet your criteria and get instantly connected with their recent tweets and social media profiles.
- PR pros find themselves in the customer-service trenches.
Social media interactions happen in real time. This means that social media users expect an immediate response from brands when they have a concern, complaint or question.
Although the primary responsibility for most PR pros is still to secure media placements for their client or company, they’ve had to become much more customer-focused.
Building your brand community on social media is now just as important as arranging an interview for your CEO; depending on your industry, it might be even more influential than traditional media coverage.
- Social media has introduced a new PR phenomenon: influencers
Social media has brought about a new type of citizen journalist: the influencer. Influencers are considered one of the best ways to attract new customers to a brand. More than ever, these social media influencers with high follower counts could mean big opportunities for PR professionals and the brands they represent.
- Makes PR affordable for small businesses
In the past, public relations firms and specialists mostly worked with politicians and large organizations with the funds to spend for brand management and crisis communications.
Today, even small businesses can afford to hire a college student studying communications, journalism or public relations to manage their online presence. This makes PR affordable to the businesses that need it, and who cannot afford more professional and experienced PR assistance.
- Integrated PR
Marketing experts jumped on the social media before PR experts caught up and incorporated it into a good PR strategy. As a result, to work with social media marketing, public relations experts must integrate marketing concepts and practices with PR strategy to achieve results.
This integration can also cause a company with separate PR and marketing teams to butt heads over control for social media.
- Encouraged customer focus
Social media compelled many brands to start focusing more on their customers, and building positive relationships. Customers can always go on Twitter and Facebook to sound off about bad customer experiences.
This forces companies to resolve issues speedily to avoid a PR crisis. Companies also use interactions on social media to improve their business as a whole, especially where complaints and kudos are concerned.
