According to Chen Gina Masullo (2015), Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. These includes, interactive sites, video sharing sites, and audio sharing sites among others. For example, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and LinkedIn among many others.
Whereas, Public relations (PR) is the process through which organizations, companies and private individuals communicate with their publics through media. The PROs of different organizations in this case communicate with their target audience directly or indirectly with motive of creating and maintaining a positive image. These communication can be done through press releases, newsletters, public appearances, among others.
Opportunities social media provides to Public Relations field
Social Media has triggered a revolution in cooperate communication in Uganda by giving a voice to those that previously could not have been heard. This has opened a whole new world of opportunities for both businesses and individuals that were unimagined in the era of the traditional media. For examples, individuals such as Bobi Wine, and Dr. Stella Nyanzi among other celebrities have been widely heard by the help of social media.
However, social media plays an important role in shaping public opinion but with the entire globe moving to the online world to search for information and buy products/services, a Public relations practitioners that does not effectively communicate with the online community can no longer effectively shape and maintain the desired public image of their organization. For example, the way People Power has succeeded in using Facebook and twitter to shape public opinion towards its ideals.
Kaplan A. M. and Haenlein M (2010) argues that the emergence of social media has also made it possible for individuals and firms to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products, services and the companies that provide them. Thus, the impact of consumer-to-consumer communications has been greatly magnified in the marketplace.
Social media is a hybrid element of the promotion mix because in a traditional sense it enables companies, organizations and individuals to have direct interaction with their customers, stokeholds, suppliers, and internal publics while in a nontraditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to one another. Boyd D. M and Ellison, N. B. (2007). For instance, a master’s student expressing her dissatisfaction with the services offered by the university.
The content, timing, and frequency of the social media-based conversations occurring between consumers and an organization are outside managers’ direct control. This stands in contrast to the traditional integrated marketing communications paradigm whereby a high degree of control is present. Therefore, PR practitioners should learn how to shape consumer discussions in a manner that is consistent with the organization’s mission and performance goals.
Regardless of who stands behind and why, negative campaigning can have a devastating effect on public reputation of a company or an individual. The risk of negative publicity, however, is not the only reason why the Internet PR is increasingly gaining in importance.
Social media eliminates the walls between members of the public and a brand, shortens the time a company has to react to relevant stories, and shapes the line between marketing and public relations. Often, public relations’ and marketing professionals’ roles overlap on social media.
Back in the day, public relations professionals would give a statement on air, release it in print, or publish it online. Social media has shortened the field, making public relations a faster-paced and more delicate matter.
According to John Boitnott, a Journalist and Digital Consultant, Twitter and Facebook pages are now serving as the primary channel for a businesses, brand or celebrities to release official information about themselves. The lesson here is clear. Businesses that fail to use social media to manage their reputations may not only lose reach in the digital world, but may not even be noticed amid all the noise.
Threats of Social Media to Public Relations field.
Although social media is one of the greatest inventions in human history, it has dramatically changed the world and above all, the communication. Social media has opened a number of challenges, especially for the PR sector that has mastered communication with and through the traditional media. While PR practitioners virtually had no competition in the era of the traditional media, the democracy of the Internet has forced them to compete with the entire world.
Social media has given everyone the ability to share their opinion just about everything with the entire world in a matter of seconds. The ability to reach thousands or millions of people in virtually no time gave PR personnel a powerful tool but it also made their jobs more difficult, especially in case of an attack on integrity of their clients and brand as they have to react to rectify the image of the institution.
Mark Evans’ a principal with Monitoring and Evaluating Consulting urges that many entrepreneurs and small companies with limited marketing budgets are discovering they can generate good results by being active and creative with social media. As a result, many of these companies don’t see the need to hire an agency.
PR firms may have no choice but to rethink what they offer and how much they charge. They are, in many ways, competing against clients and potential clients who have the option of doing social media themselves as opposed to using an external suppliers of the service.
CONCLUSION
In Conclusion, since the inception of Social Media it has proven to be a tool of power for the Public Relation personnel enabling them to reach a much more global scale and in spite of the few hiccups that have happened since its introduction, it has been of mass advantage.
REFERENCES
Obar, Jonathan A.; Wildman, Steve (2015). “Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue”. Telecommunications Policy. 39 (9): 745–750. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2015.07.014. SSRN 2647377
Kaplan Andreas M.; Haenlein Michael (2010). “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media” (PDF). Business Horizons. 53 (1): 61. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-24.
Boyd, Danah m., Ellison, Nicole B. (2007). “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 13 (1): 210–30. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.
Pavlik & MacIntoch, John and Shawn (2015). Converging Media 4th Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-19-934230-3.
Definition of public relations (http://www.ipr.org.uk/)
Chen, Gina Masullo (2015). “Losing Face on Social Media”. Communication Research. 42 (6): 819–38.
Kaplan Andreas M.; Haenlein Michael (2010). “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media” (PDF). Business Horizons. 53 (1): 61. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-24.Ways You Should Be Using Social Media as Your Top PR Platform (https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/bhow-social-media-is-now-your-primary-public-rel.html).
No comments:
Post a Comment