PR: What’s Social Media Got to Do with It?

How do PR and social media intersect?

If you think about the big picture, if you’re in business, then you’re trying to sell a product or a service.

And they say that in sales, it takes an average of getting in front of your customer nine times, before they are ready to buy. They want to buy from someone they know, trust and like, and a relationship takes time to build.

The Essence of PR

Public relations is one way of getting your message in front of your target audience,  because PR is about building relationships with your customers through the media. With PR, you use newspapers and magazines to reach your target audience.

What social media has done is, it has allowed you to build the relationships directly with your customers and influencers, as well as directly with the media themselves.

For example, everybody is on Twitter — including reporters in your city, Oprah, Ellen, almost any celebrity you can think of. They’re starting to get on social networks like Twitter. Suddenly, a barrier has been removed that was previously there. Journalists, editors and producers are more accessible now through social media.

If you’re on Twitter, check out Media on Twitter. It’s a database with thousands of reporters. You can see at a glance their Twitter names, their title and who they work for. This is a media list, which in the past you had to tediously compile yourself, or would have to pay a lot of money for. Now you can find journalists on Twitter and talk to them directly.

In Conclusion

Social media is getting yourself some PR in the online world. You can create your own content and broadcast it yourself through your blog, through your networks, through You Tube and other “channels”. At the end of the day, social media is a method of communicating. Social media tools facilitate this communication and to be effective in social media, whether you are a marketer or a business owner, you need to be able to communicate your key messages well. Just like in traditional PR.

Your Thoughts?

How will you be doing PR differently? Will you use social media to reach out to the journalists who may be interested in your business? If so, what challenges do you think you’ll face to do so successfully?

Please let me know in the comments below, and I’ll do my best to address your concerns.

Image from Crestock Royalty Free Photos

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Elena is founder of a technology PR agency that works with startups to billion-dollar companies. She is passionate about helping marketers and small business owners with practical publicity strategies.

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