Over the past decade PR and online communications have become virtually synonymous with each other. The question is no longer to what extent PR is an online practice. Rather, how has PR adapted to this Brave New World of communication? I’ve looked at a couple of the key game-changers for PR where social media is concerned.
The world at our finger-tips
Social Media gives our messages a global reach. Of course, in PR you are working to enhance the reputation of a brand so it stands to reason that reaching as many people as possible is a positive thing. However, as the famous HSBC ‘your local bank’ campaign is at pains to point out, a one size fits all approach to business (or communications in our case) can alienate people. It is unlikely you would ever want to say the same thing in exactly the same way to absolutely everyone.
It is aslo true that the more people you reach online, the more likely it is that you lose control of your messages. Online anyone can be a content creator and your messages can be distorted, mis-interpreted and mis-used as well as promoted. We need to be aware of the limitations of the media, as well as the significant opportunities and mitigate accordingly. The ‘#McDstories’ twitter incident is a good example of a company using social media to reach a global audience but not necessarily understanding to the risks you take in terms of loss of control when talking to the whole world. The graphic below shows just how quickly your messages can be distorted and dispersed when looking at a global reach:
We Can See Right Through You
As organisations extend themselves online they become transparent in a way we have never seen before. Where company ‘information’ was once a closely guarded secret, it is now online, available to customers and competitors alike. There are many who argue that increased transparency produces truly ethical businesses, afterall organisations with nowhere to hide are far more likely to play fairly.
An organisation that is open to scrutiny will need a communicator that is able to lend a human voice to its online profile, create a positive dialogue around the brand and respond to any negativity. Bruce Daisley, sales director at Twitter argues that it isn’t enough to merely be present online, organisations must “say something with substance – give them a reason to talk back or great content.”
Unfortunately, this is not yet always the case. Organisations are missing an opportunity to capitalise on their transparency. Apparently 70% of online customer complaints go unanswered even though 83% of customers who do receive responses feel positively about the brand following the dialogue! As organisations increase their exposure online the need for effective communication through social media becomes evermore important.
These two examples alone show how the landscape of PR has changed, and presumably will continue to shift as technologies advance. While relationship mangement remains at the core of Public Relations, the context in which it seeks to achieve this has shifted fundamentally. Embarking on a career in Public Relations we will almost certainly need a sound understanding of online communications and social media. This knowledge will have to extend beyond the inevitable trawling of Facebook profiles and the occasional ‘artsy’ photograph of a pub lunch on Instagram. We will have to find new ways to communicate successfully in this ever-changing environment.
PRospects 