Using Social Media to Convert Public Relations

“Can social media help convert public relations as mostly publicity to public relations as mostly relationships? Discuss.”

This essay will discuss whether social media can help convert public relations from mostly being about gaining/gathering publicity to public relations being mostly about relationships.

Who,
where, what, when and why? Traditional PR was all about getting the right
message, to the right people at the right time via a singular message delivered
via mass media (press, TV, radio). The current multi-channel, multi-device digital
landscape has changed this so much more flexibility and adaptability is
required of online communications. There has never been a time of more
opportunity to increase your brand/company awareness online but  customer relations also needs careful
management preferably by a dedicated social media team.

It is
debatable whether a company or the general public (consumers) have more power
and influence over its image. On the one hand it can be argued that the
consumer has more power and influence for example Pret opened a pop-up vegan
restaurant which was influenced by the large (growing) vegan food movement (in
the general public) and Pret then changed the menu to more vegan-friendly
offerings, also Starbucks was influenced by consumer opinions/views to move
away from basic coffee offerings to more artisan coffee offerings. Michael Kors
was also influenced by consumer opinions/views to move away from offering basic
handbags. Irn Bru’s recipe change (they are reducing sugar content following
government guidelines) is causing large upset amongst customers.

Brand
reputation is (to a certain extent) important in influencing consumer opinion
and behaviour so it is important to cultivate/nurture customer relationships
online. Unethical companies will get fined and shamed for example Canada Geese
and Starbucks. Luxury brands such as Rolex watches are seen as a status symbol
and are aspirational lifestyle items. Celebrities influence people to make
choices/decisions online (so good PR would be to attract relationships with
celebrities and other influencers). If things go wrong online then the brand reputation
is somewhat destroyed but big companies such as Amazon do have large resilience
to PR mistakes. Lush is a handmade cosmetics company which is vegan and not
tested on animals which has become massive now as a movement. Cars such as
Jaguar, Porsche and Ferrari are iconic and a massive status symbol for people
to own. Interestingly, Body Shop have been brought by L’Oreal (seen as
unethical by some) and Innocent Smoothies have been brought by Coca Cola (the
largest soft drinks manufacturer in the world- and in some ways a long way from
the small-time ethical community-minded spirit of Innocent!). Millennial’s care
greatly about ethics. Although celebrities are good to project your PR message
online and promote your company there are recent examples of massive misfires
by companies online. For example, there was a huge backlash over Kylie Jenner’s
Black Lives Matter Pepsi ad and also over the racism from H&M when a white
child wore a “King of the Jungle/Survival Expert” jumper and the
black child wore a “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” jumper.

Social media influencers/bloggers are influential over time and this requires time and effort in terms of electronic PR. Pew De Pie (YouTuber) lost sponsorship over ill-advised anti-Semitic comments and child pornography comments. Blockbuster video did not change with the times rapidly enough and Netflix came in and now it is no longer in business. Brewdog (craft beer maker) has become really large and obsessed by KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and it does outrageous things and over the top things just for publicity and attention. At Redbull and Brewdog you will not be hired if you turn up to an interview for example which is unnecessary in my opinion, but may be seen as trendy by some others. TripAdvisor has a big influence over a companies’ image because customer ratings and reviews easily enhance or harm a companies’ image.  A local example is a garden centre in Inverurie started selling animal furs and there were massive protests and also there were boycotts threatened when Irn Bru announced it was changing its recipe (because people are anti-sweetener). Also- Irn Bru is now made/brewed in England in Milton Keynes but is most commonly associated (and mostly available) in Scotland. On balance then, companies have more power and influence over their image because they have the means (time, money, manpower) to manipulate their image to the outside world. A word of caution is perhaps we are in some ways too gullible because there are stories of Chinese and Indian bots making fake reviews and ratings on TripAdviser so maybe do not trust everything you see online so online PR should be about creating valid/real messages online so that the company/organisation can be seen as trustworthy, dependable and reliable.

Grunig,
J.E. & Chun-ju Flora Hung-Baesecke (2015, p71) believe that relationships
cannot be qualified a value in purely monetary terms (like in the past with
traditional PR) as it is indefinable and indescribable as it is more of a
feeling (opinions and views) nowadays. (2015,P76) they conclude that a
reputation is composed of a combination of the entire amount of the knowledge
and views and opinions of every influential body. (2015, p78) Reputations are
flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances and situations socially,
publically, economically and politically. (2015, p92) It is far from clear-cut
about company perceptions and the results are mixed and show that even with a
good reputation a company can be recollected for bad things and vice versa so
online PR must be carefully planned and organised for valuable results. (2015,
p105) “. The more energetic and active you are about talking and speaking
about a company the more inclined you are to have brain representations of the
company, to recollect positive and negative actions and to state fulfilment and
maybe disappointment with services and items. The less energetic and active you
are about talking and speaking about a company the more regularly you will
think of shallow and obvious brain representations of the company such as
explanatory elements, internal and external staff, or other items/things
connected to the company.

Gruing
and Baesecke (2015, p107) come up with a number of
results/recommendations/suggestions which are: PR staff who are concerned with
defending or increasing in a positive way the status/standing, and the
associations, of the companies they are in they should achieve this by actively
engaging in the planned organised procedures of the company so that they can
have a possible authority on the company actions selected by the people in
charge. The conventional method of stating predetermined statements after
actions are taken would have a marginal consequence on both standing/status or
associations. In evaluation and reflection this author recommends that PR staff
should centre their attention on associations as a gauge of equally the
importance and significance and accomplishment of their efforts. The authors
study’s conclusions also recommend that PR actions have an increased academic
and experimental relationship to associations than to standing/status, and that
associations ought to be the centre of attention of assessment studies in PR.

T.Kelleher
(2015, p281) examines the role of PR in the current digital landscape of the
explosion of Social Media usage. In the past they were concerned with
mass-perception and views and opinions and communicating a standardised message
to a wide varied and diverse population. Nowadays, social media has shifted the
focus to more individualised and personalised communication.  And thus PR has changed its focus also.
(P283-p286)- to answer this essay question I must first examine what is meant
by the term Social Media. There is considerable scholarly debate better how
best to define this term but mostly scholars agree there is a distinct and
definite difference between  Social Media
and the days of old mass communication. P288- The increasing sophistication
and progress in tools and techniques have reduced expenditure for storing and
preparing items of use and making the account/record of person-to-person
discussions and business deals easier to find by web search engines. P290-
Social media has made the wide expanse of the globe smaller by breaking down
barriers to communication and making communication between far off places
easier and with a greater sense of closeness. (2015, p296-297) .” Put
customers first when thinking about a PR strategy and you will be rewarded with
consumer conviction, confidence, approval, agreement, dedication/loyalty, and
organisational help and support as related results.  P297- Social media usage is a double-edged
sword and  must be carefully managed and
controlled to get your company or organisation your desired outcome as it is
easy to damage reputations online and in the current mass-use landscape of
social media this can have a massive affect for your company. P298- There are
pros and cons to Social media usage in PR but it is vital/essential to change
with the times and also we need to think internally and externally when using
social media for PR activities.

Solis and
Breakenridge (2009, p37) concur and agree that companies need to be on Social
Media- PR cannot survive if it doesn’t have the faith of those who believe and
authorize us with the trademark/brand name of the organisation we stand for. PR
is changing, and to continue on we have much intelligence gathering and paying
attention to do. Interaction/associations should still be at the heart/core of
PR. P201- Ignore social media as a company/organisation at your peril – dive
right in and get involved- be where the people are! D.L Wilcox and G.T. Cameron
(2014) also agree that PR needs to change and adapt but stay true to good
ethical behaviour.

I.Nee and
C.Burmann (2016) in their study of hotel reviews and ratings say that (p195-)
Companies/organsations increasingly realise the importance of responding to and
controlling/mitigating online ratings and reviews by way of a professional,
polite and well-considered constructive response to negative criticism. This is
especially important as people nowadays have a wide variety and diversity of
places to vent their good and bad feedback and if you are a small business and
unprofessional response can be truly damaging to your custom and takings. This
is also supported by A.Charlesworth (2014, p323) who argues that integrated online communications are making companies much more
publically transparent and open to ratings and reviews. In my opinion I believe
this is a good thing because this means companies/organisations can now be held
responsible for their actions in a direct easier way and then they can develop,
improve and grow with time based on real-time data from the customers using
their services, buying their products- this is why it is essential for public
relations to move online and use Social Media.

Views and
opinions online have never been so prolific and significant and powerful    and there is even a new area of study
specifically to look at this online (see F.A.POZZI et al., 2016 for more
detail) . Sentiment analysis (which is the
process of electronically recognising and classifying views articulated in a
portion/section of passage/wording, predominantly/principally in order to establish
whether the writer’s position towards a particular subject, theme, item for
consumption, etc. is affirmative, pessimistic, or nonaligned) is an emerging
field of study and is especially important currently where there have never
been more opportunities to engage via social media and on a variety of
platforms such as YouTube or Twitter using a variety of multimedia tools such
as images or video. R.Deiss, R and R.
Henneberry (2017, p174) also agree that social media must be constantly and
consistently monitored and reviewed for any views and opinions so e-PR requires
lots of time and effort and not just one big outlay of expenditure like was the
case with traditional PR.  

A.Charlesworth (2015, P210) reminds us that also it is important to
have a pre-planned and organised disaster strategy in place to help navigate
the murky waters of the online world. Social media has increased the importance
of having a good emergency procedure to deal with negative events which can
quickly diminish a company or organisation’s repute/character. D.Chaffey and
P.R.Smith (2017) agree with this on p413 they say it has never been easier to
damage your company or organisations reputation through a bad relationship with
customer’s online. It is debatable whether the impact of bad relationships online
are long-term or short-term but this probably depends on the size of the
company as to whether reputations can weather storms of bad publicity.

D.Chaffey
and F-Ellis-Chadwick (2016; from pages 502-507) have a number of things to say
about e-PR and traditional PR such as the strengths and weaknesses of E-PR and
how best to prepare and control E-PR (which is much harder to do than with mass
traditional PR with its short-term campaigns and projects). C.Dempster (2015,
p14) also agrees that their needs to be a shift in how PR is controlled and
prepared compared to past practices; PR planning
and organisation now has to happen in a much more reactive way now compared to
traditional more controlled passive way. 
D.Ryan (2017) has some interesting and thought-provoking ways (methods,
tools and techniques) to engage (via online content) with the current
generation of online users in this multi-channel, multi-device digital
landscape- remember that content must inform, educate or entertain. 

There are a number
of considerations when writing for Public Relations and this can equally
applied to writing for Social Media (though remember Social Media is a much
more casual channel for more informal discussions and debates)- see studies by
J.Foster (2012) or D.L.Wilcox (2014) for further details.

Nicholas (no
first name given, 2015) compares and contrasts social media marketing and
public relations. Marketing for social media
requires a mixture of both PR and marketing. To be successful on social media
you need to know how to balance customer relationships and liaison with
making/generating brilliant engaging, creative media pieces, curate fascinating
events and normally just connect with your customers/public. The main
difference between PR and social marketing is your audience on social media is
diverse and large whereas in traditional PR your audience was mainly select
internal and external people who were important movers and shakers for
networking and monetary reasons. This means social media is a slow-burner when
it comes to relationship building and it will require more time and effort than
traditional PR to make a big force change. 
.” People on social media do not require a company to have a
certain position/perspective or a catch/attraction or the hard sell for
companies products or services. People on social media would like is for the
company online to have a clear, consistent message and a clear tone of voice.
If company’s do change perspectives on social media posts then there is now a
backlash and people are getting annoyed/irritated at the changeability and will
likely see your company as fake and will go elsewhere. Social media marketing
is much more active and interactive then traditional PR where messages are
considered mainly in a reactive way. PR has peaks and troughs connected to key
events and campaigns whereas social media requires concerted and sustained
effort and time on a continuous basis to grow and preserve and you will lose
likes/followers/subscribers if you turn social media content on and off.

In
conclusion, there will always be a need for public relations to be about
selling the products and services of a company; but, for longevity, this needs
to be mixed with cultivating meaningful customer relations (online via social
media for example). This is supported by P.J. Kitchen, P.J and E.Uzunoglu (2015) in their book; p17- The
solution to the challenges of the modern-era communications era is in these
authors opinion an  integrated
communications solution combining digital media (Social Media etc…) and
traditional media (press, TV, radio etc…) this view is supported by M.Stelzner (2014) who says that to build
relationships you need a combination of offline and online techniques. 

References

• Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital Marketing. Pearsons.

• CHAFFEY, D. and SMITH, P.R., 2017. Digital
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• Charlesworth
  A., 2014. Digital marketing: a practical approach, Hoboken: Taylor
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• CHARLESWORTH, A., 2015. An introduction to
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• Deiss, R and R, Henneberry; 2017 Digital
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• Kelleher, T, 2015.  Everybody’s
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• Kitchen, P.J andUzunoglu, E Integrated communications in the postmodern era. 2015. Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

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