The Nuts and Bolts of Social Media & Public Relations

Web presence is more than just a website these days.  Making your content shareable and participating in the conversation through social media is part of the ever-changing face of public relations in 2011.

Managing Social Media Channels. Did you ever wish you could be in more than one place at the same time?  As far as I know science has yet to master that phenomenon; however your “voice” CAN, and should be in more than one place at the same time.  Centralized campaign management systems (i.e., HootSuite and TweetDeck) enable a manager to listen, aggregate, publish, and manage multiple social media distribution channels all from a single portal.

The Consumer. Remember that by making your customers cheerleaders for your brand, you create a win-win situation. Bonus!  Social media extends an indispensable tool for gauging audience opinion by way of a two-way conversation in which both sides (customer and company) can exchange views.   Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the gathering, storing, and analyzing of data to help business users make more informed and therefore more advantageous decisions.  In an article published in 2006 (“Social Network Analysis and Business Intelligence”), Dr. Ramon Barquin, president of a consulting firm since 1994, wrote, “Stay tuned, social network analysis and business intelligence travel in lockstep these days.”  Now five years later we enter 2011, and there is little doubt that his words held up.

Networking With Influencers is 100% simpler today than was before.“Influencers” can be journalists, reporters, bloggers, or anyone of influence who covers topics in your industry.  By establishing relationships with these influential people you may find that you’ve snagged your business a mention and maybe even a feature story.  MuckRack.com is a free website that enables you to search for and locate journalists.

Sharability is a must!  By creating something interesting that grabs your audience’s attention people will naturally want to share it with their friends, and even comment or blog about it (further increasing your exposure).  To help them out, each social media site has its own share buttons (i.e., Facebook’s “Share” and Twitter’s “ReTweet”).

Multimedia, such as mobile marketing, photo, video, and file sharing, can work within the social media arena to spread the word and help build brand awareness. Check out Windows Movie Maker, or iMovie for Mac users, and note that by publishing videos or photos somewhere on your own website and then linking them in your press release, you’ll drive traffic to your website (the centralized hub for your business).

Consumers “Pull” Themselves to Your Media Message. More and more today we see a shift in the way society accepts and digests brand messages.  It’s becoming commonplace for consumers to “pull” media messages in their direction (i.e., RSS Feeds and Google Alerts).  As a voluntary recipient of your brand message, this type of consumer is ultimately more responsive.

 

As you can see there are various ways to increase your public awareness. Public Relations is a vital part of any business, big or small. Your company is only as good as its word of mouth, so share it with the world and get your company social today. If you need help with your online presence contact the staff at Social Media Platform and they’d be more than happy to help. You can contact them at http://smp4you.com, http://facebook.com/smp4you or http://twitter.com/smp4you.

Public Relations and Social Media

As consumers, wouldn’t most of us be more likely to trust the endorsement offered by a family member, a friend, or even another consumer we’ve never even met over a company’s endorsement of their own products/services?  Undoubtedly.  By leveraging the power of public relations and social media you have the awesome capability of building buzz for your business while attaining third-party credibility.

The traditional press release is evolving and although print media still has its place, social media is taking center stage.  The major difference between a traditional press release and a press release embraced by social media outlets is the exceptional capability social media has as a viral marketing tool.   It only takes the click of a mouse and your message can spread like lightning from one person to another.  Consumers have always shared with friends, family, neighbors, and the like — the good the bad, and the ugly about a brand.  Social media has simply created a premier platform to spread the word.  Having a presence for your business on popular social media networks such as Facebook is becoming increasingly compulsory.  The relatively new phenomenon offers word-of-mouth marketing on steroids.  Think smart!  Create a win-win situation by making your customers cheerleaders for your brand.  They’re truly the best sales agents a company could ask for.

social media and pr

The Value Social Media Brings to PR?

• Easily distribute through various channels
• Embrace the power of the consumer
• Get the conversation going! (2-way communication)
• Grab the attention of journalists and/or bloggers (they may write about your company’s story)
• Sharability (use a “Share” widget and allow readers to post/share information at lightning speed)
• Multimedia capabilities (i.e., YouTube videos, surveys, links, etc.)
• Ability to build inbound links and backlinks
• Pull PR makes it easy – the media and your intended audience target themselves for you!  They find and pull themselves to your news (i.e., RSS feeds).