Co-Communications Director of Social Media, Danielle M. Cyr, was recently interviewed by Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly Radian6) about integrating social media marketing into public relations campaigns. Here are some highlights from the interview:
How has social media changed the PR and communications industry?
Social media has significantly impacted PR and the communications industry. Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, became mainstream communication tools for nonprofits and business at a time when traditional newsrooms were shrinking and many smaller communities found themselves without a dedicated print newspaper. This shift laid the foundation for the rise of self-published content.
As social media has become more widely used by businesses and consumer brands, it has also evolved into a real-time customer service tool. Internal marketing communications teams and their agency counterparts now find themselves answering questions and fielding complaints about everything from service outages to shipping snafus and too long lines at the register. This has led to an increased amount of resources being dedicated to online brand monitoring, regardless of whether or not the company is active on social media. Just because an organization isn’t on Twitter, Facebook or the like, doesn’t mean people aren’t buzzing about them – be it positive or negative – on the platform.
Social media’s growth has also inspired for-profits and non-profits to reallocate their marketing budgets. Beyond traditional marketing tools such as display advertising, direct mail, tradeshows and public relations, companies are now budgeting for community managers, social media contests, Facebook and LinkedIn ads, and the list goes on.
