By: Hannah Gary
Throughout the years public relations has gone through many changes. Aspects such as technology and communication advancements made this possible, but nothing can compare to the growth of social media. It has become a massive part of our clients’ marketing strategies such as increasing brand awareness, growing revenue, building relationships, providing customer services, and more. I am going to list four ways social media has changed public relations in the world today.
Two-way Communication
PR Firms reach their customers through channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and many more social media platforms. Sharing your brand’s personality with consumers allows them to feel a deeper connection with what you have to sell. Social media is also helpful for the consumers to engage with your brand, whether it’s by liking something you posted or sharing your content so others can see. The only bad thing about this is that people are also able to complain or criticize your brand, which others can also see.
Finding Influencers
If you’re looking to get into the work of Influencer PR, the best platform to find influencers is Instagram. Influencers build relationships, trust, and credibility with the people who follow them. Influencer marketing is extremely beneficial to the ADPR industry because it improves your brand awareness, provides value to your audience, and builds partnerships for the future. When it comes to consumer engagement, statistics show that 80% of marketers rate content marketing as most impacted by influencer marketing. (Garrett, 2020) From a beauty guru with 20 million followers to an ASMR vlogger with 8 million followers, influencers are possibly one of the best ways to get customers to engage with your brand and create opportunities. Once you partner with the right influencers, it will help your brand tremendously by gaining traction.
Crisis Management
By using social media, PRs can monitor the public’s opinion about a current brand before it is put out for people to see. (2021, January 16) If there is a bad review on a company, we can productively address the issue before a major brand crisis happens. There are six major steps you want to take when handling a Public Relations crisis: (2020, August 14)
- Have a response team
- Devise a strategy and brief your team
- Have a message
- Identify and address the company being affected
- Monitor the situation
- Review and learn from the situation
Making Announcements
PRs are responsible for their clients getting the word out of a new product, service initiative, or anything that is important for consumers to know about their brand. You could get the word out by writing a blog, posting graphics on Instagram, posting a YouTube video, a simple tweet with good, related hashtags, and more. Like always, you have to implement strategy and tactics before anything.
When people think of Public Relations, they think we are mostly about just making a brand look good, or fixing their situation, which is somewhat true, but it goes way deeper than that. PRs take their time to build brands, shape the perceptions of clients, create reputations, build trust, and so much more. Social media has played such a huge role in what we do, and it is just going to keep growing from here.
Works Cited
Garrett, M. (2020, October 27). How to use social media for PR. Retrieved February 19, 2021, from https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/how-social-media-has-changed-pr
Admin. (2020, August 14). 3 tips for using social media as a public Relations tool – Y Digital: Social and digital marketing agency. Retrieved February 19, 2021, from http://ydigital.co/sm-tips-pr/
How to manage a social media crisis: A practical guide for brands. (2021, January 16). Retrieved February 19, 2021, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-crisis-management/
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