How Social Media has changed the landscape of Public Relations

1. How Social Media is Changing the Landscape
of Public Relations
Presented By: Tracy Imm, APR
Vision Multimedia Technologies, LLC
www.vmtllc.com

2. Agenda
• A little history and perspective:
– Public Relations before Social Media (the game changer)
• Where we are today:
– How People Prefer to Receive Information Now
– Explosive Growth of Social Media
– Six Myths and Six Truths about Social Media Marketing
– How Brands Converse with Audiences Now
• What it means to today’s PR practitioners:
– Possessing the necessary knowledge and skills to thrive
– Things you can do to gain knowledge and skills

3. Public Relations in 1987
• No Internet
• No cell phones
• No laptop computers or Blackberries
• Relationships with reporters mean everything
• Be able to write a press release and get your
company in the news (favorable coverage)
• Hope you never have to do major crisis
communications

4. Public Relations
before Social Media
• One Way (no dialogue):
– Control the message and medium,
– Create a static website (that does not really say anything)
– Issue press releases on your time (when you decide to
interact with the media and customers)
– Customer service and marketing/communications are two
separate functional organizations (“Just coordinate”)

5. How people prefer to receive information:
– Send me a note on Facebook or MySpace
– IM me
– Text me
– Blog about it and I will pick it up
– Call my cell
– Email me
– Call my office phone

6. Use of Social Media Sites
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
40%
30%
2005
20%
2006
10% 2008
0%
Usage
Explosive growth in social media usage has forever
changed the landscape of public relations, customer
service and business in general.

7. Six Myths about Social Media
Marketing:
Source: Business Week
1. Social Media is cheap, if not free.
2. Anyone can do it.
3. You can make a big splash in a short time.
4. You can do it all in-house.
5. If you do something great, people will find it.
6. You can’t measure social media marketing results.

8. The Six Truths about Social Media :
Source: Business Week
1. While many tools come at no
cost, effectively incorporating
them into your marketing
program requires skill, time and
money.
2. Many people claim to be “social
media gurus” but hype doesn’t
compare to experience.
3. Social media can drive traffic if
people care about your brand.
Otherwise, be patient.

9. The Six Truths about Social
Media: Source: Business Week
4. To be successful, you need a
strategy, contacts, tools and
experience. A combination not
generally found in-house.
5. Until you drive traffic to your
content, no one will know it is
there.
6. There are several methods to
measure the effectiveness of
social media, including Google
Trends, Twitter search, Google
Analytics, BackType and
Compete.

10. What are we doing?
Source:
2009 Forrester Research survey of IT executives in North America and Europe
– 91% read blogs, watch user generated video online or read
socially created content once a month
– 55% were in social networks
– 58% commented on comment in either blogs or forums
– 43% created content online
– 69% consumed online content for their jobs
– 29% were using social networks for work purposes
– 37% were reacting to work related content
– 27% were creating work related content

11. Best Practices in Digital
Communications
1. Use technology to build a strong community around
your brand,
2. Market your products and services smartly through
online communities
– Allocating the right human and financial resources to
these endeavors. It takes people and money.
3. Monitor and track digital activity to measure your
effectiveness.

12. Top 10 Brands who use social
media to engage with customers
1. Starbucks (#1 Facebook brand)
“These companies on average grew 18% in revenues
2. Dell
over the last 12 months, compared to the least
3. eBay engaged companies who on average saw a decline of
4. Google 6% in revenue during the same period. The same
5. Microsoft holds true for two other financial metrics, gross margin
6. Thomson Reuters and net profit.”
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Tie – Yahoo!/Intel
Source:
Altimer Group Study entitled “Engagement: Deep Brand Engagement
Correlates to Financial Performance” (you can download the report from
altimergroup.com)

13. The Convergence of Public Relations,
Marketing, Customer Service, Technology
• No longer can functions be silo organization
• Your communications strategy must support your business objectives
• Technology can be an enabler for your corporate message
• Your customer tells the world how they feel about your brand
• Creating a dialogue with your customers is your only choice
• Social media becomes another tool in your toolkit to support reputation
management and customer service

14. So What Does All this Mean for You?

15. Today’s PR Practitioner
• Command of basic communications skills to include both
writing and oral presentations (not new)
• Possess the ability to pull together effective integrated
campaigns and strategies (not new)
• Have a basic understanding of business principles (not new)
– Who is your ideal customer?
– What do you sell? Why do people or businesses buy your product or
service?
– How do you make money?

16. Today’s PR Practitioner
• Expert in Use of Technology (new)
– Know the basics of Content Management Systems
• You will be managing content for Websites and Blogs
– 76% of all CMS’ run on 1 of 5 platforms—Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla!, DotCMS, DotNetNuke
– Understand what best practices are for Search Engine Optimization
and Search Engine Marketing
• Now considered a basic requirement for some communications positions
– Knowledge of most prevalent Social Media Platforms
• Know how they can be integrated into a public relations campaign
• Know how to set up presence on major channels and how to implement viral
campaigns

17. What to do next
• Evaluate your current knowledge and skill
level (in the areas of writing, technology,
communications principles)
• Recognize what gaps you need to close
• Develop a plan for your professional
development

18. Ideas for Professional
Development
• Join and contribute to a professional association such as
PRSA, IABC, AMA
• Do pro-bono work for a non-profit to get experience in
both public relations and social marketing campaigns
• Create your own “brand” online with LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter
– What do you want people to know you for?
– Recognize that employers research your online profile when
making hiring decisions

19. Ideas for Professional
Development
• Start your own blog
• Learn basic HTML
• Teach yourself basic elements of Open Source
Content Management Systems
• Learn Search Engine Optimization principles and
techniques used for Search Engine Marketing
• Take a graphic design course at a community
college
• Experiment with some of the lesser known social
media tools such as Digg, Delicious, etc.

20. Questions?
timm@vmtllc.com
410.889.7770 x 214
443.562.4847 (cell)