SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION

SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION

The social media revolution has had a resounding impact on the public relations industry. It offers new opportunities and new requirements for successful public relations practices. The pressing need for social media expertise in public relations has led to the creation of new careers, and practitioners must be aware of how social media marketing can be used for corporate communications. Social media marketing is an extremely effective tool for the public relations industry, as it offers new channels for the necessary communication between an organization and its publics, and new opportunities for this communication to be meaningful and mutually beneficial. As public relations have most widely adopted social media marketing techniques, the aspects of the traditional RACE formula have evolved. While the basic principles are the same, social media tools offer practitioners new ways to implement the traditional elements of public relations practices.

Public relations campaigns in the social media age have to adapt and become much more flexible. The perceptions of stakeholders must constantly be taken into account in the development of campaigns, and if perceptions change during the process, the campaign needs to be altered to accommodate those changes. The actual communication of a public relations campaign or program has a myriad of options for distribution.  Public relations are no longer about inundating news rooms with news releases and media alerts. While traditional media still matters, practitioners need to know how to design their messages for new audiences. Social media offers opportunities for interactive news releases that can be pitched on the Web, to bloggers, rather than journalists. Evaluation has changed as well, with social media tools offering new opportunities for measuring the effectiveness of communications.

 The success of a public relations campaign or program is no longer measured solely by the weight of newspaper clippings it achieved, but by the number of blog posts, conversations, comments, re-tweets, bookmarks, etc. that it garnered online. Social media marketing is a powerful tool that lends itself very well to the adoption of Hunt and Grunig’s ideal model of public relations – two-way symmetrical. Public relations practices based on one-way output or manipulation of the truth cannot survive in the social media age. Public relations have changed, and is changing still, emphasizing practices that are more aligned with the ideals of the industry. Simply put, public relations revolve around the public. If social media is utilized to its full potential for corporate communications, the industry has an opportunity to strive for its ideal, and through transparent, honest practices, implement successful campaigns and reverse negative stereotypes. The creation of new jobs has resulted in a need for new skills – skills that are not currently being widely taught.

In a nutshell, current students of public relations are still learning the traditional tools like news releases, and a shift needs to occur in academia to incorporate the new aspects of the industry. Practitioners need to know how to create content for new audiences, as well as how to use social media to have meaningful conversations with the publics of an organization.

By:  ULAYA SIJALI A. (BAPRM 42681)