What every Public Relations practitioner should know about social media
As a college student, it has always been very important to me to keep up with all of my friends and family. We all know that this task can be challenging with busy schedules, It is also difficult to keep in touch with friends and family back home when you live over 150 miles away. Very few people are going to take the time to text or call all of their acquaintances. This is where social media come in. Thanks to sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter we can let all of our friends and family know what the latest news is with the click of just one button.
With so many social media sites popping up today, users are likely to choose the outlet that is most convenient and fun, as well as the site that all of their acquaintances are using. But what are the most popular social media sites? According to SEOmoz.org, the top five social media sites for marketing use and popularity are (in order) Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Digg. http://tinyurl.com/2ap79v
In other big news, it was recently announced by AddToAny (the makers of a widget that allows users to share content in multiple social media sites at one time) that Facebook had jumped substantially ahead of e-mail as the all time most popular way to share content over the web. http://tinyurl.com/lv79xl
What does all of this mean for the public relations practitioner? The most important thing that should be gathered from this information is the at the social media landscape is constantly changing. If you choose to launch a campaign using social media, it can be very affective if properly targeted toward the correct audience. For example, Facebook gives the opportunity for the public relations practitioner to target a specific group of people using fan pages and groups.
An example of my own use of this tool would be my subscription to the Taste of Home magazine. Once I started to subscribe, they suggested that I should be a fan of their page on Facebook. I accepted the offer and now I can interact with the very people who make the magazine. They regularly post different recipes and news content to the magazine fan page. This then shows up on my Facebook news feed every time I log in. Taste of Home's utilization of social media has ensured that I and many subscribers like me, stay connected to the magazine.
For more information about social media, please visit:
"Social Networks: Facebook takes over top spot, Twitter climbs"
Facebook Statistics
Further examples of Public Relations through social media: "Airlines follow passengers onto social media sites"
Social media is the best when you want to keep in touch with family far away (as long as they are signed up too...).
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