How Important is Social Media as a PR Tool?

Social media is a term given to a constantly evolving number of networks that have steadily built platforms to exist on the Internet, mobile technology and widgets. These platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace, to name but a few, have built an online community or a ‘global village,’ as McLuhan believed. They bring people from all over the world together with the click of a mouse or button on a phone, allowing them to ‘self publish’ and giving them a voice and a presence on the internet. These social online connections have opened doors for public relations in terms of global and local networking. By building online relationships, a PRO is able to link up with thousands of people in the media industry and learn from them. If influential journalists, bloggers or public relations specialists are writing articles or blogs, giving their opinions or presenting breaking news, interacting with these people allows a public relations practitioner to view what they are writing, what influences them and gain inside knowledge from a number of different perspectives. Sky News has even recently appointed a Twitter correspondent for news sourcing and up to the minute news in our society. Additionally, social media allows people in the public relations industry to interact with the public, which is incredibly important when it comes to branding.

Social media has been proven to attract new customers…and create a solid base of loyal clients and can be useful in terms of building and sustaining their reputations and finding out and changing perceptions of brands. Twitter is especially good at this; customers and fans can follow their favourite brands, see what they are up to, often receive special offers or discount coupons and engage in conversation with the company. This allows the brands to demonstrate two-way communication and transparency, which is important to ensure trust, an integral part of PR. Social media has developed to the point that it is no longer a number of narrow, singular channels but instead a wider construct of communications and interlinking networks. This seismic shift from broadcast models to engaged networks leads me on to Jan van Dijk and his idea of Network Society, translated into English in 1999. This is the concept that our society is shaped a mix of media and online interaction in three main categories; individual, societal and organizational, gradually replacing face-to-face communication and changing how we interact. To put more eloquently,

‘a network structure connects all levels of society, usually called the micro, meso and macro level or the private and the public (spheres and levels). It was noticed that the dividing lines between these abstractions are blurring in reality. On the Internet interpersonal, organizational and mass communication come together. Using this medium we bring the ‘whole world’ into our homes and working places,’ (van Dijk, 1999)

This further supports the idea of McLuhan’s ‘global village,’ and Facebook and Twitter pages allow public relations officers to manage reputations, forge customer relations and link up with people all over the world in what has clearly been demonstrated as relative normality. Fifteen years ago this would not have been possible, and these opportunities have lead to greater understanding between public relations practitioners and the public. As the second most popular website in the world after Google and with over three hundred and fifty million users, it is rare to find someone who doesn’t have Facebook in today’s western society. Given that more than three and a half billion pieces of content are shared on this website per week, it is easy to see how useful this website is as a public relations tool. Only a few months ago, easyJet announced their move to launch a ‘holiday planner’ application that allows consumers to purchase tickets and invite friends on their planned trips. This has shown easyJet’s understanding of today’s network society, where people spent up to five and a half hours on social networking sites in December 2009, up 82% from last year. Today’s younger generation especially have grown up on Hi5, Bebo, MySpace, Facebook and more recently Twitter, so it is important to connect with the consumers of the future and connect with them in the relevant and appropriate way that they have learned to communicate.

In light of this, it has been interesting to see how quickly social networking sites such as Twitter have overtaken traditional types of pr tactics such as press releases. Recently the CEO of Fortune 200 company Sun Microsystems resigned via Twitter in haiku form, declaring:

‘Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.’

Twitter allows people from all over the globe to have online and tweet conferences, and Google have just updated their search engine to show trends, tweets and Facebook statuses, allowing practitioners to actually monitor public perceptions using Search Engine Optimization. This allowed Dell to discover that:

‘…Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available at the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others.’

However, it is possible for social media to be a negative thing for the public relations industry. One issue is that it is becoming nigh on impossible to be anything other than transparent; any indiscretions, mistakes or crises can be broadcast within minutes to the world by anyone. Just one example is the recent Southwest Airlines misdemeanor regarding director Kevin Smith. Not realizing who he was, an airline worker ejected him from a flight for being too overweight for his seat. Within minutes, he wrote a tweet complaining about the issue which was seen by his following of over one and a half million. This provoked an outcry and prompted many other dissatisfied customers to share their stories and complain, the internet shortly afterwards seeing a surge in bad feeling towards the company with the press rapidly following suite and reporting widely on the issue. Their delayed apology seemed to have little effect on either Smith or the public. Nestle have also had a very recent social media disaster when they hit back at criticism and were rude to fans on their Facebook page, as well as threatening to censor and remove pictures and members. This, unsurprisingly, provoked widespread bad press and generated much bad PR for the company. The problem with social networking sites is that it gives power to celebrities and brands to do their own public relations, which can be problematic if they are not trained properly and gives the industry a bad name.

Social media is increasingly being used in a viral manner, which can be a useful public relations tool. Triumphs such as Rage of the Machine achieving Christmas Number 1 over the X-Factor winner was born out of a Facebook group, and awareness was raised for Breast Cancer Awareness through women changing their Facebook statuses to the colour of the bra that they were wearing. This was a simple idea which generated much talk and mystery for people who didn’t understand, sparking more internet talk about the cause. The rise of viral videos being shared as well means that public relations officials can take advantage of channels such as YouTube, such as during the public relations disaster for Dominos. A video was released on YouTube of two of their American employees doing a number of disgusting things to their food before appearing to serve it which provoked, understandably, huge amounts of negative press, loss of faith in the brand and a significant loss of customers. Dominos later utilized the same website by uploading their own apology onto this channel in order to reach the same audience that had viewed the original video.

Overall, it is easy to see both the pros and cons of social media for public relations in today’s Information Age. On one hand, these networks ensure transparency, which can only help the public relations reputation in terms of trust, but on the other hand it means that the side of PR that is hiding indiscretions and preventing bad press is over. Similarly, PR is beginning to get worse press from these company spokespeople who are now trying to deal with online crises who are not PR trained and are operating the social media sites for their brands. One of the most important things social media offers the world is the sense of immediacy; anyone can now access any information at any time, so it is vital that companies have an online crisis management response outline which they can put to use immediately if need be. A three-day wait for Dominos to upload their own video resulted in three days of speculation and anger and given today’s fast-paced society, something could have been done sooner.

It is no secret that both Facebook and Twitter played an important role in Barack Obama’s victory, and the sense of belonging to a network and being part of a community is an important one that his campaign team recognized. Any public relations companies, practitioners or brands that fail to take this on board and work with it are limiting their future success tenfold. The immediacy and intimacy of being able to talk to any consumer, business specialist or journalist at any place and time in the world at any point is hugely beneficial, especially during the recession. Companies have had to make cuts in spending, in particular when it comes to overseas business meetings and conferences, but social media still allows the interaction necessary for public relations to be effective. The ever-increasing popularity of social networking may well have contributed to the rise of the online social media release, too. These are slowly beginning to overtake traditional, paper press releases and not only save time, paper and money (and thus the environment) but also allow more information to be transmitted. Sites such as www.pitchengine.com allow a PRO to write a press release and link to Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feeds and other websites, as well as integrating other interactive media and videos.

From this blog, I hope it has been clear that with the correct precautions and understanding, social media can be a most useful public relations tool and helps build, sustain and enhance relationships with the public, industry insiders and stakeholders that would not have been possible fifteen years ago.

What is Public Relations?

It's been a busy few months with endless deadlines, Christmas and numerous Grad Assessment Days and interviews, and one of the questions that I've been asked in a number of times in them has been what exactly I think public relations is. In my opinion is a notoriously difficult term to define; throughout its academic and practical history it has experienced several name changes and involves practices from a wide variety of disciplines. Drawing on expertise from politics, sociology, business, reputation management, marketing, economics, public affairs and advertising, a public relations executive can be seen as a jack-of-all-trades or a chameleon; adaptable and flexible depending on the particular task in hand and integrating a number of fields.

Having read a book on issues management, I enjoyed the authors' view that PR is 'the art of adjusting organizations to environments and environments to organizations.’ (Crable and Vibbert) Every environment differs depending on the time in history, the country and the culture of the specific society. Culture in particular is of utmost importance in PR; what publics buy, read, listen to and watch are integral to consider when thinking of how they interact with an organization and how successful that organization consequently is. It has been suggested that publics are reactive entities that arise in response to organizational actions,' and in many ways it is easy to see how this conclusion been reached. When a new product such as the iPad, SatNav or Windows 7 becomes available, consumers rush to buy it, regardless of whether they know how to use it of if they will even in fact like the product. I can't help feeling that this is because of our societies “keep up with the Jones’” mentality, where our very identities are shaped by what we wear, buy and own. 

This attitude is something that has rapidly developed in today’s contemporary society. Consumer brands in particular are of utmost importance in our neoliberal, postmodern and capitalist culture, and before I address the significance of public relations in building these brands I shall briefly look at how this has come about. Jameson proposed that postmodernism is a ‘specific reaction against the established forms of high modernism’ and possibly even high culture. One can infer, then, that as a rebellion against academic literature, opera, classical music and art appreciation, today’s culture is focused on low culture or postmodern stimuli such as reality television, trashy magazines and rebellious rock or sexualized R&B types of music. Of course this is an overtly generalized and in many cases inaccurate view, however it cannot be denied that these indeed seem to dominate and influence our current consumer society.

Thompson et al (1990) proposed the notion of culture theory, which suggested that culture is an ‘ecosystem…[in which a] preferred pattern of social relations and cultural bias or set of shared values and beliefs about human society and the natural world…[are] reciprocal, interacting and reinforcing.’ This idea of interacting is also important in terms of two-way communication in public relations. An organization, and more specifically, a brand, is more successful if there is interaction and communication between both them and the publics. In order, then, to determine which products and brands will be successful in a particular society and how to build them, it is integral to discover how those publics will or already do react to certain products. Public relations is needed in order to build the brand a good reputation, convince publics to hold it in high regard and be loyal to it.

PR is also often discussed as a cultural intermediary in today’s promotional and pop culture, and people form their identity through their consumer purchases, with the role of public relations to helping determine, drive and respond to these trends. My belief is that brands flourish through the use of effective communications via conversational and textual mediums, rather than the use of visual aids. The general consensus today is that brands are built and sustained by effective advertising, marketing and PR as a combined sector, however it is important to differentiate between the three, especially given that PR actually plays an arguably more vital role in the success of brands than both advertising and marketing. Without the initial building of the brand and reputation, there would not be enough, if any, public interest for a product to even exist, let alone need to be advertised. Therefore, the main task for public relations in terms of building brands is to use words to convince the media and the publics that it is the company, organization or product is worth taking notice of and writing about. Language is the most fundamental tool in communications, yet advertising and marketing uses pictures that can be very effective, but not necessarily successful in portraying the exact message needed. The role of public relations in this culture to help build brands has been described as marketing public relations, i.e. promoting the products with clever use of PR by creating awareness of a product and establishing relationships between the brand and the media, as well as with the consumers. 

It can be argued that our culture is centred around the non-stop barrage of visual stimuli that saturates our very existence and is effective in influencing our consumer decisions. With pictures and adverts jumping out from pages in our morning paper, flashing across our screens in commercial breaks as we watch the news, catching our eye as we drive past massive billboards on our way to work and blinking onto our computer screens as we surf the internet, we have no choice but to acknowledge and subconsciously process the images of brands and advertisements for them that flood our day-to-day lives. I believing though that that we, as consumers, make decisions based on recommendations, reviews, comparisons and word of mouth. We go to see plays or films based on good reviews as opposed to a billboard picture that we have seen on the underground, and are employed on the basis of personal and professional references rather than facebook profile pictures. If a paper or trade magazine offers good reviews or recommends a particular product, be it a Topshop dress or the new quadcore 27-inch Apple Mac, we are likely to trust this source over an advert. In fact, we as consumers are trusting advertising less and less when it comes to consumer brands, with adverts such as mascara brands digitally enhancing or adding fake eyelashes for almost every brand and models in hair adverts wearing hair extensions. Good public relations therefore works hard to create credibility and trust; consumers are bombarded with emails, spam and adverts on a daily basis that they have no time to sort through and take risks with. They will inevitably reject an unknown or distrusted brand for one that they can rely on and which delivers its promised quality.

This trust is related to the idea of transparency in public relations. Additionally, the development of the internet there has eliminated the chance of hiding from any brand faults or advertisement exaggerations; products are discussed on forums, discussion boards, blogs and social networking sites such as twitter and facebook, meaning that brands must be completely honest. The internet also increases the opportunity for the two-way communication which is useful in terms of feedback from stakeholders.

An example of a brand that makes use of this is two-way interaction (especially two-way symmetrical communication) and utilizes public relations as ‘communication and exchange of ideas to facilitate change’ (L’Etang, 2008) is Spotify. This brand offers free music and playlists with some advertising in between, and provides options for feedback to improving the service. These improvements are then made, advertised about and publics are then given further chances to suggest other enhancements and developments. This transmission of ideas helps forge relationships with the consumers, creating a symmetrical communication that is mutually beneficial. This public relations tactic has also recently been employed by Windows 7, and makes the customer truly believe that they are doing something to improve their favourite brand. The monitoring of stakeholder opinion to enhance a brand, integrating the knowledge received and informing the consumers of the success and implementation of these improvements is a successful way to conduct public relations.

Whilst advertising and marketing are palpable and based around selling a tangible product or service, public relations works in a much subtler way. Truly successful PR is predominantly unnoticeable and works behind the scenes, leaving no trace of its work and creates no physical manifesto of its efforts. Public relations influences the ‘middle man,’ i.e. the media through truthful persuasion to do something invaluable to any consumer brand; advertise for free. By writing about them or one of their products (in a favourable light), the consumer is convinced in a much more effective way to buy and trust the brand. Public Relations works with the media to portray messages to a number of different audiences and target consumers; globally, nationally, locally and in specialist mediums such as trade magazines or certain radio stations or television channels. As opposed to blindly spamming and attacking us in the way that much advertising does, public relations is successful in that it ensures the review of brands and articles are being written – publicity is more important than forgettable billboards and commercials we ignore while willing the second part of our favourite programme to return. A brand is a perception which PR shapes and shrewdly feeds us without our acknowledgement of their gentle persuasion. 

So far in this somewhat long blog post I have mainly focussed on the importance of public relations in terms of media relations and liaisons, however it is important to note that whilst these are of utmost importance in terms of building consumer brands, PR also takes into account a number of other factors unlike advertising and marketing, which are consumer centred. External issues such as media rights, copyright, business relations and stakeholder management are of the utmost importance; without addressing them, consumer brands risk losing existing customers and alienating potential future ones too. When, as stated before, consumer brands such as L’Oreal use fake eyelash extensions in their adverts and try to pass them off as the merely as the effect of the mascara, the consumer feels betrayed when they find out they have been lied to and it breaks rules over misleading advertising. Public relations is different in that it views stakeholders as equals and practices ethically, rather than a body to make profit from. Indeed, PR uses concepts such as stakeholder theory and take into account not only marketing factors and resources, but also political and social factors too in terms of how stakeholders are affected by something. Advertising falls short in that it views stakeholders as merely customers, investors, suppliers and employees, whereas the stakeholder theory encourages public relations to consider additional shareholders such as future customers, the community or society the company (in this case, the consumer brand) is operating in and the government’s laws. In doing this, public relations helps build brands by considering everyone who may be affected by the organization and products and ensuring that the company is being ethical.

Although public relations considers all possible stakeholders and customers when building brands, the beauty of a consumer brand’s success often lies in public relations targeting its market audience, as opposed to everyone, which is often the case and downfall with advertising. Clever PR acknowledges that not every consumer brand appeals to everyone, so it focuses on a specific range of people that would be interested. Getting journalists to write about or review the product or brand in a specific publication that specializes in similar products is more effective than getting articles in many publications where the product is not relevant. An example would be Harley Davidson motorbikes: getting the Daily Mail or Cosmopolitan to review the newest model or write about the latest Hells Angels convention would be much less effective than Motorcycle Industry Magazine or featured on Top Gear for example. This way, the right consumers are targeted and the wrong ones are not forced to acknowledge the brand and consequently be irritated by constant reminders in print, on television and on the radio of brands and products that they would dislike.

Public relations is also concerned with building personal relationships; after all, people, not products create publicity. A spokesperson is important for any company, and a charismatic CEO is certainly indispensable in terms of a company’s reputation. People know, like and respect Bill Gates, founder and ex-CEO of Microsoft for many reasons, his extensive charity work being just one. Communication is fundamental and can be anything from simple interviews (interviewing an inanimate object is quite obviously impossible) to television appearances, public statements, blogging/tweeting or even column inches. This is the reason why many companies have celebrity models or spokespeople if their CEO is out of the media; personal branding is just as important as the consumer brand itself, and celebrity endorsement is an effective tool that is engineered by public relations to build a brand. Well known endorsements such as Kate Moss for Topshop or David Beckham for Emporio Armani and Gillette help a brand become more popular, as consumers attempt emulate their idol’s fashion or lifestyle. Public relations is about forging connections for brands (brand equity), and people make connections with people; it is almost impossible to ignore the global hysteria following Michael Jackson’s death or broken hearted teens when their favourite boy band split up. This reliance on another being for reputation can, however, have negative effects if the celebrity in question is involved in a scandal. Examples such as Kerry Katona’s drink and drugs battle and Grievous Body Harm arrest saw her dropped by Iceland, and Tiger Woods’ sponsors dropped like flies following his recent extra-marital deviations. Their public relations teams and spokespeople will in turn be working frantically on crisis and reputation management in order to prevent any further damaging stories leaking to the press and eventually try to rebuild their personal brand. This shows the importance of impression management not only on a personal level but on a consumer one too, as any tarnishing of the reputation can equally affect a company.

Thus far it has become apparent that, in agreement with authors of The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, ‘the essence of PR is to verbalize the brand in a way that encourages the media to run stories about the product or service.’ Stakeholders willingly ingest information in the press by choice. Words are of the utmost importance when it comes to the building of a consumer brand, as they are the most fundamental form of solid communication. Whilst advertising focuses on visual stimuli, as previously suggested by Jameson, PR is more powerful in that it leaves no doubt, no room for misunderstanding, misleading and inference, as well as being more accessible, easy to understand and emotive. Generally, public relations sells to sellers and so focuses not just on business to consumer communication, but business to business communication too. These sellers are generally the media, which people inherently trust, despite it’s frequent bias (publication and channel dependent, of course). Specialist publications such as lifestyle and beauty magazines are about 70% adverts and 30% print, but the consumer does not purchase them for these advisements which are thrown at us, whether we want to see them or not. Consumers chose to learn about the brands that they use or may potentially use through its public relations. William Daddi, senior Vice President at New York PR consultancy Magnet Communications sums this up: ‘If a consumer chooses to access editorial, it is by definition relevant to them. Therefore, the brand message contained within that content will be relevant to them as well. It will also be viewed as having integrity because of the independent nature of the brand platform or promise.’ This consumer choice is vital, especially in a time when publics are finally becoming able to vet advertising though blocking internet pop-ups, becoming ex-directory to avoid telemarketing, using playlists on Spotify and Itunes instead of commercial radio and streaming live television or recording programs of Sky+ to avoid commercials.

Public relations builds brands, which is rapidly followed by the building of good reputation if done successfully. The difference between them is that a brand is an image or idea people hold, whereas reputation is the reality of the organization. Public relations must strive to be originial, exciting, innovative and linear to be reported on and continue to stay in the media for good reasons, and also keep any negative stories out of it too. Advertising can then work to reinforce pre-existing ideas and remind the public of the brand, but can be static. 

As I draw to a close it is important now to consider the future of public relations in building brands, especially in this global recession. Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Worldwide, could not have been more right when he said: 'It’s the end of the era of advertising domination. Today, great brands are built with PR.’  If companies have any sense, they will cut advertising budgets and spend their money more wisely on PR, as it is not only cheaper but in my opinion central to the building and maintaining of brands; there appears to be little correlation between value and price. This commodification is impossible to map and rationalize, as the capitalism and consumerism is demand and time dependent. Just because an object or service is cheaper, it can still be invaluable; example of this can be seen with Dell. In 2001, it spent $430m on advertising and only $2m on public relations, yet it was built by PR after practitioners sent free computers to computer analysts working for trade magazines who raved about it in PC week. Whilst it can be argued that advertising and marketing are certainly important in terms of branding, all adverts have to be approved by public relations due to its link to reputation. Some of the most successful companies in the world have no advertising whatsoever such as Marlborough cigarettes, and in the words of afore-mentioned Bill Gates, ‘If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on PR.’