Top 5 Reasons Social Networking Belongs With PR
This season has began off fast and furious, with exciting new accounts and expanded work scopes for existing clients. I have been happily developing plans for clients who will be ready to place their social networking tactics one stage further and more importantly, showing them how these tactics integrate to their overall communications program.
Therefore the $50,000 question, “The master of social networking?”, remains surface of mind for me personally – because it does for a lot of, including clients. The truth is no marketer “owns” social networking – the consumer may be the owner. Better questions include: Who should drive the general public dialogue which comes out of your business or organization? Who’s best given the job of identifying which social networking channels you need to use, and why? This is an exciting space with many different options – obviously marketers over the spectrum wish to participate in the sandbox. I can not blame them. But over and over, I revisit that social networking is most effective to PR. Listed here are my top 5 reasons:
1) Social Networking Are News Channels: There’s virtually no such factor as “traditional” or “mainstream media” any longer. National, local and trade media are utilizing Twitter, blogs, Facebook and much more. The main skill of traditional PR agencies is managing media relationships they are driving awareness, build brands, make sales and alter behavior. Today, it’s hard to apply a highly effective media relations plan without including social networking.
2) Social Networking Is Earned Media: An alternative around the media relations point above was best stated inside a Tweet I just read yesterday: “Digital media buys online coverage. Social networking earns it.” I’m not sure who stated it, but credit to @Aerocles @SBoSM for delivering it. Earned media may be the domain of PR.
3) Submissions are a Core Skill of PR: A journalistics publish today really presented this time well: Content-wealthy communications – from whitepapers to byline articles to speeches – are where PR practitioners stand out. Social networking is really a content-wealthy medium. The way we distribute information has altered, but PR continues to be the best arena in order to obtain business content.
4) Sales Don’t Auction Here: Advertising messaging is just quite diverse from PR content. Even with similar goals in your mind, how a message is presented and delivered differs, accurately. But around the social Web, hard sales messaging will not work. The truth is, PR continues to be speaking on its clients’ behalves forever – pitching reporters, developing community partnerships, managing reputations, soliciting speaking engagements and writing speeches and presentations. We have been getting two-way dialogue off-line we are prepared to go online.
5) Streamlining Saves Money: Great ideas may come from many sources or agencies, but there should be a lead horse within the race. Just one lead agency, within the finish, saves money and time: mix-agency coordination time is reduced, media measurement is combined, messaging is consistent, information distribution is coordinated and much more.
I am certain this will not function as the last blog publish about this subject – the controversy rages on. Until then, we’ll continue doing great work on the clients’ account – online, offline, everywhere. What is your opinion? Can social networking have multiple agency proprietors, or perhaps is there one discipline which should move forward?
Candace McCaffery is definitely an experienced professional who manages an extensive listing of clients across a diversity of industries and it is the director of Cookerly Public Relations’ interactive and social internet marketing services.