Business Studies

Promotion and Advertising Topic 6 Q2 How has social media impacted public relations?

ANSWER

Public Relations and Social Media

Over the past years, public relations have been transformed immensely with different emerging aspects of technology and communications. The growth of social media has also seen a significant increase in communication between people. Social media has encouraged customer focus, where many brands have been compelled to start concentrating more on their clients and creating a positive relationships. Consumers can now access social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to sound off a bad customer experience. Therefore, businesses can use social media to enhance their business as a whole and focus more on meeting consumers’ needs. Social media has also impacted public relations through embracing a 24/7 engagement (Allagui & Breslow, 2016). Brands have been subjected to opportunities of engaging consumers on several channels. These platforms have also increased consumer service expectations. Gone are the times when clients could only encounter brands during regular business hours.

Social media has also enhanced public relations by providing two-way communication. In the past, communication was a one-way street where industries and other organizations put out their content to customers with zero public avenues to engage with or respond to the distributed content frequently. Now, customer can engage brands and their content through leaving comments, liking, and sharing. This allows the media outlets to understand how their ads and content are significant to the masses and increase visibility instead of ancient times when effective commercials and ads could only be measured in sales (Jiang, Luo & Kulemeka, 2017). Social media has also made public relations affordable to small businesses. Years ago, public relations industries and specialists frequently operated with politicians and large institutions with the financial capabilities to spend for brand management and crisis communications. Today, small businesses can incorporate adequate personnel with the needed qualifications to manage their online presence.

References

Allagui, I., & Breslow, H. (2016). Social media for public relations: Lessons from four practical cases. Public relations review, 42(1), 20-30.

Jiang, H., Luo, Y., & Kulemeka, O. (2017). Strategic social media use in public relations: Professionals’ perceived social media impact, leadership behaviors, and work-life conflict. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 11(1), 18-41.