Social Media Transforms and Personalizes the PR Machine

A guest post today from Darryl Warren. The US public relations industry comprises of more than 7,000 companies with staggering combined annual revenue of about $8 billion. Within that, the top 50 companies account for about 40 percent of industry revenue. Almost three quarters of all PR agencies provide a full range of services, including media relations, crisis management services, lobbying services, event management, and fundraising services.

It’s not a field that is expected to die out as many companies seek assistance with resources they cannot themselves provide, such as expertise in the form of knowledge, experience, special skills, and creativity or sometimes even time or personnel in handling the myriad task a PR firm would do. And yet the technical advances that we are enjoying are certainly changing the landscape of what the industry had reign over.

Just as common use of computers and printers diverted the profit potential from owning a print shop, the development of social networks had afforded a new opportunity for businesses to take over many of the tasks a PR firm would handle. This is creating a shift from external PR sources to development of in-house social media/PR departments within companies. Even a small business has more opportunity to create their own PR initiatives given the array of tools available.

With Facebook and Twitter, a company can now create more interactive brand development and have a more intimate relationship with image control. The ability to become more interactive with their client base through these mediums allows for relationship building as opposed to more traditional advertising models where the communication was more one-sided. This replaces the traditional advertising approach that PR firms would handle. Unlike traditional media, you can develop relationships with your customer base and respond in real time by monitoring reactions. On Facebook fan pages, you can create a participant and contact database for contests, concerts, exhibits, and events, reducing the need for incorporating PR firms and thus reducing overhead expenditure.

Google plus has yet to open their corporate aspect but count on this being integral to relationship development and PR initiative strategy through its group exclusivity capability.

Companies can also get more interactive with their clients habits through the use of FourSquare. This can be used not only to track retail outlet traffic but can also drive customers through badge acquisition, setting up online frequent usage reward programs. Also they can augment visits by offering discounts to those who shop at the store. This is again an interactive tool to engage clientele and build business while track traffic in real time.

Not only can product information be shared through announcements, but new merchandise announcements can be done through media such as Flickr and Instagram (photo and video sharing sites), Tumblr (like Twitter, but utilizes photos combined with short captions; your site is listed in categories accessible to all members) and even Last.fm. The last option is primarily for music but not exclusive as it is a multimedia sharing site that includes sound and picture sharing and has an events section for added promotions.

YouTube shows promise for way more than as a passive advertising vehicle. Now companies can disseminate messages and receive commentary, making it more interactive. Damage control not only can be done by addressing questions via Facebook fan pages, but.can be better implemented in more personal means as opposed to a newspaper ad or a press release through a Youtube release, sharing the link via Twitter and Facebook fan pages. This approach becomes more attractive when, according to a recent story in PR Daily, journalists and news outlets were reported to be inundated more and more with press releases and have, in turn, been ignoring them more often. Thus the traditional approach to become heard may no longer be as effective as taking damage control and all forms of PR to the internet directly.

(Other examples of utilizing social media strategically for damage control can be found here: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/10/04/damage-control-social-media-reversals/ )

Monitoring the effectiveness of these tools as they relate to your strategy is also key, and there are tools such as Bitly, Topsy and Klout available to assist in tracking progress. Topsy tracks the items shared on Twitter (and in a few weeks Twitter will have its own in-house tool available for this purpose); Bitly tracks the number of times a person clicks on a link you share; and Klout tracks the influence of items you release into the webosphere. Also of note is that blog sites have their own tracking data to show how often it’s being read and the sources that directed traffic to your blog so you know where your message is getting the most response.

With more people getting their news from other online sources and a proliferation of industry and interest-specific blog sites popping up (such as WordPress, Bravenet or Bloggr), the landscape has moved from something passive to one that is more interactive. One can create their own contact list to disseminate information centralized on this array of media and have a better chance of creating relationships with these non-traditional yet influential media sources in the process as well as their customer base and their friends than if it were left purely to a third party.

Altogether, these tools can be used within the office to create and monitor traffic, get feedback, develop client relationships, perform more immediate damage control and create meaningful contact lists for a myriad of event initiatives. In short, it is self-control over building brand awareness with more direct client contact. As it can be done within house, it has changed the face of PC to a more intimate and hands-on affair where the strength of influence and brand awareness is limited merely by the familiarity of the potential these sources can have.

Darryl Warren has broad and extensive experience covers a wide range from administrative through to industry and instructional roles. This, coupled with recent focus on writing and PR strategy with social media demonstrate flexibility and adaptability to technology and performance models with praxis compensating for normal accreditation.