Managing Public Relations with the Social Media Generation

Posted by Gino Cosme

June 3, 2008

Social media makes it possible for ordinary men and women to be the creators of their own content - authors, video and radio producers, even musicians. In terms of public relations, it also means that “citizen publicists” are both an important and sensitive PR strategy that companies should both embrace and prepare for.

In a recent article, Deirdre Campbell of Tartan PR says, “The digital landscape makes PR dynamic. It reaches a far greater number of people than newspapers, and it lives longer than traditional media. It can’t be ignored, and we must embrace it.” And this is true.

However, PR agencies must be aware and prepared for the reality that social media communities and “untrained journalists” do adhere to a different set of practices. This includes having unique versions to a story, leaking stories out to be the first to share an upcoming new story (and hit the Digg homepage), and of course being openly critical to a campaign. As Michael Allison, says, “Technology allows them (citizen journalists) to write about what they see. And it’s democratizing the way news is presented.” This is true too for controlled social media relations.

Social media relations can be a very effective, albeit new, public relations discipline. The challenge is to assign and coordinate the right blogger and social media engagements at the right time for the right purpose. One way in which this can be managed includes developing and implementing social media engagement strategies, including relations and monitoring programs, which must include reactive and proactive response tactics to the inevitable issues that will crop up.