No company can ignore the fact that social media has drastically transformed public relations strategies and the communication in general over the last few decades
To understand how to use social media for public relations, we must know that public relations is a field of study and a profession that goes way back before social media even existed.
At the beginning of the last century, especially in the US and in the UK, executives started noticing that they could combine concepts from multiple knowledge areas and use them when communicating to people to make it easier to reach their goals.
From governments to NGOs, private companies to even celebrities, innumerous people have been using public relations to manage concepts such as image, identity and reputation. There are several ways of doing this: press conferences, newspaper coverage, social responsibility, message development, media kits, press trips and events, for instance.
One thing changed drastically, though. Not only in the way that public relations has, but in the way society works in general, especially when it comes to communication: social media.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Linkedin are just some of the examples of modern-day social media, but some of them were very important in the past, such as Orkut and MSN.
First of all, social media brings all companies and personalities into the public spotlight where private and public matters are discussed. Every enterprise and celebrity is being watched and judged with any little mishap generating controversy. With this, social media became a milestone when it came to public relations management.
Of course, social media brought a lot of good possibilities when doing PR. Here are some tips on how to use social media for public relations campaigns and in general:
- Understand your audience and become their friend: everyone loves it when a brand cracks a joke on social media and we’re certain you’ve already thought about one while reading this. There are a lot of successful cases when a brand, for example, creates a mascot to joke with users or uses popular slang to interact with the audience. This is not product related, but it helps to create a more meaningful relationship with the audience while potentially attracting more followers by generating memes;
- Point out your differential: social media makes it much easier to present in a fast and simple way how your product/s are innovative and different from competition, and above all, how they can help your customers.
- Highlight relevant facts and numbers: highlighting the company’s achievements can help to make your message more powerful and drive attention to conquering new customers and impact other stakeholders. Smart insights about the company’s sector, statistics, as well as social responsibility actions can also help to boost reputation and a campaign’s buzz;
- Keep an eye on the competition: social media makes it possible to evaluate what the competition has been doing by monitoring their activity. Your competitors for sure will be targeting audiences similar to yours on social media and it is good to be one step ahead;
- Monitoring and the evasion of possible crises: nowadays, a lot of crises start with a post or a trend on social networks. The company can post something controversial on its pages or a consumer can complain about a product or service and this starts a chain reaction that harms the company’s reputation. With social media, it is possible to monitor any unusual activity and fix it as soon as possible, sometimes preventing a big crisis.
In the information era, no company can ignore the fact that social media has been drastically transforming public relations strategies and communication in general drastically over the last decades.
If a brand wants to succeed, it can’t ignore social media nor traditional PR tactics, they must work together in order to adjust to its reality and goals. The old PR days are definitely behind us and it is best to embrace the change rather than fight against it.
If you and your business would like to learn more about communicating in Latin America as a foreign company through PR and social media strategies, keep reading our blog posts.
