ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media marketing is revolutionary communications tool that has quickly changed the ways in which public relations is practiced, becoming an integral part of corporate communications for many companies. Social media offers public relations practitioners new option for every aspect of the corporate communication process. From research to evaluation social media can be utilized to create and distribute meaning content to wider audiences that traditional media allows.
PR leads marketing to the management of all social media communications channels.
-In 51% of organization, PR leads digital communications
-PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organizations and is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organization.
-PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organizations.
        (Schwartzman...et al.... 2009)
According to social media and public relations theorist Jason Falls (2009), "PR has taken on an entirely new role in the organization over the last two to three years. It's the most dramatic shift in the industry since the invention of email, but is happening faster and more dramatically"
One remarkable change that the influx of social media in corporate communications has led to is the creation of new social media-specific jobs. According to former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 may not have existed in 2004" (Gunderson, Jones, & Scanland, 2004). Companies hiring public relations practitioners are no longer content with knowledge of traditional tools of the trade like news releases-public relations practitioners in the social media age must have an understanding of how to use social media for corporate communication.
         According to the digital readiness report, "when searching for prospective candidates, knowledge of social media is almost as important as traditional media relations skills" Schwartzman et all....)
         Among those responsible for hiring PR and marketing employees, 82% of respondents and said mainstream media relations expertise was either important or very important. More than 80% said knowledge of social networks is either important or very important. Nearly 77% said knowledge of blogging, pod-casting and RSS is either important or less important, and almost 72% said understanding of micro-blogging services like twitter are either important or very important.
       Other new media communications skills that hiring decisions makers found important or very important are search engine optimization (62%), email outreach (56%), web content management (52%) and social bookmarking (51%).
        To meet the needs of internal and external communications in today's organizations, public relations or marketing job seekers need to develop a comprehensive portfolio of digital communications skills.
        18% of hiring decision makers have no interest at all in traditional public relations skills signaling a shift from a mainstream media relations-focused approach ( Schwartzman et al...)

                                                                                         DAHAYE THERESIA 42544