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Social Media and the Rebirth of PR: The Emergence of Social Media as a Change Driver for PR

The Emergence of Social Media as a Change Driver for PR

©2013 Academic Paper 127 Pages

Summary

Our world has faced some remarkable changes over the past few decades due to the rapid development of new technology and the Internet. However, a few years back, a new era began, an era where ordinary people have a ‘say’ on every possible matter, anytime, anywhere – the emergence of social media has altered our lives enormously by giving everyone the opportunity to be a publisher and a communicator. This, in turn, has had a huge impact on the Public Relations practice, which has always been concerned with communicating and building relationships with various publics on behalf of organisations. This book describes how exactly social media altered the PR industry and the way practitioners are doing PR using social media in their professional and private lives. It is therefore especially useful to both students and professionals in the fields of PR, Social Media, Communications and Marketing, or anyone else who is interested in learning more about social media's impact on PR.

Excerpt

Table Of Contents


Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review
2.1. Public Relations
2.1.1. What is PR?
2.1.2. A New Definition is Needed
2.1.3. Main Functions and Activities of PROs
2.2. The PR Industry
2.2.1. Growing Importance
2.2.2. Still Bad Reputation?
2.2.3. The Internet Evolution
2.3. Social Media
2.3.1. Defining Web 2.0
2.3.2. Defining Social Media
2.3.3. From Monologue to Dialogue
2.3.4. Traditional Media vs. New Media
2.3.5. Social Media Revolution and the ‘Now’ Factor
2.3.6. Changing Consumer Behaviour
2.4. Integrating PR and Social Media in the Marketing Mix
2.4.1. The Traditional Marketing Mix Today
2.4.2. New Tools for the Traditional Marketing Mix
2.4.3. Integrated Marketing Communications
2.5. Social Media’s Impact on PR
2.5.1. How about PR Theory?
2.5.2. Impact? How? Why?
2.5.3. What is New PR?
2.5.4. Social Media Activities, Tools and Skills for PR professionals
2.5.5. And in Reality – How is Social Media being used by PR professionals?
2.6. Conclusions

3. Research Methodology
3.1. Research Objectives
3.2. Research Philosophies and Paradigms
3.3. Research Strategy
3.4. Research Methods
3.4.1. Quantitative Methods
3.4.1.1. Survey Structure and Design
3.4.1.2. Sampling and Survey Distribution
3.4.2. Qualitative Methods
3.4.2.1. Interview Structure and Design
3.4.2.2. Sampling and Conduction of Interviews
3.4.3. Consideration on Ethical Issues
3.4.4. Conclusions

4. Research Findings and Discussion
4.1. Quantitative Data Findings
4.1.1. Participants’ Profile
4.1.2. RQ1: Impact of Social Media on the PR Industry
4.1.3. RQ2: Social Media Usage by PR Professionals
4.2. Qualitative Data Findings
4.2.1. Participants’ Profile
4.2.2. RQ1: Impact of Social Media on the PR Industry
4.2.3. RQ2: Social Media Usage by PR Professionals
4.2.4. RQ3: Measurement and Monitoring Issues
4.3. Discussion

5. Conclusions and Recommendations
5.1. Main Conclusions
5.2. Limitations
5.3. Recommendations for Future Research

6. References

7. Bibliography

8. Appendices
8.1. Appendix 1: Questionnaire Design and Structure
8.2. Appendix 2: Questionnaire Results
8.3. Appendix 3: Interview Design and Structure
8.4. Appendix 4: Interview Transcripts

List of Tables

Table 1: Main PR Activities

Table 2: Basic Forms of Social Media

Table 3: Interesting Social Media Facts

Table 4: Impact of Social Media According to PR Practitioners

Table 5: PR Communications Models

Table 6: The Old vs. the New Rules of PR

Table 7: Media Relations vs. Blogger Relations

Table 8: Percentage of Average Working Time PROs spend with Blogs and SM

Table 9: Importance of Social Media for the Overall PR Efforts

Table 10: Distinctions between Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Table 11: Advantages and Disadvantages of Questionnaires

Table 12: Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews

Table 13: Positive and Negative Changes for PR due to SM

Table 14: Key Differences between Traditional PR and PR 2.0

Table 15: Key Advantages and Disadvantages of SM

List of Figures

Figure 1: Dissertation Overview

Figure 2: Areas of Greatest Growth in the Next Five Years

Figure 3: European Communication Monitor’s Three Year Growth Expectations

Figure 4: Shocking Internet Statistics

Figure 5: Social Media Timeline

Figure 6: The Conversation Prism – Variety of Online Communication Channels

Figure 7: Sending a Message through Traditional and New Media

Figure 8: The Word-of-Mouth Opportunities with Social Media

Figure 9: The Online Media

Figure 10: Time Spent Online on Key Internet Categories

Figure 11: The Roles of Today’s Consumer

Figure 12: The New Marketing Communications Mix

Figure 13: The New Grunigian View of Modern PR

Figure 14: Most Important Research Methods for Journalists

Figure 15: New Model of PR

Figure 16: Online PR activities

Figure 17: Usage of Social Media Channels by PROs

Figure 18: The New PR Skills

Figure 19: Social Media Skills and Knowledge of PROs

Figure 20: Private Use of Social Media by PROs

Figure 21: Participants’ Working Experience in the Industry

Figure 22: Participants’ Organisational Employment

Figure 23: Participants’ Current Occupational Role

Figure 24: Has Social Media (including Blogs) enhanced the PR Practice?

Figure 25: Reasons for SM’s Positive Impact on PR

Figure 26: Accuracy and Reliability of Social Media in Comparison to Traditional Media (Newspapers, TV, Radio etc.)

Figure 27: Accuracy and Reliability of Social Media

Figure 28: Cost Effectiveness of Social Media Activities for Developing Relationships with Various Organisational Publics

Figure 29: Importance of Social Media Platforms in Priority Order for the Overall Organisational PR Efforts

Figure 30: Frequency of Social Media Platforms Usage in PROs’ Day-to-Day Working Activities

Figure 31: Frequency of Social Media Platforms Usage in PROs’ Free Time

Figure 32: Purpose of Social Media Platforms Usage

Figure 33: Interview Participants According to Current Occupational Role

Figure 34: Main Categories for RQ1

Figure 35: Key Quotes about SM’s Effect on the Marketing Mix

Figure 36: Main Categories for RQ2

Figure 37: SM Usage at Work

Figure 38: Predictions for the Future of PR and its Challenges

Figure 39: Issues and Challenges for Measuring and Monitoring SM

Acknowledgements

It is a great pleasure to thank everyone who was involved in this research.

Firstly, I would like to show my gratitude to my supervisor, Andrew Morton, who supported me throughout the whole process by not only advising me about what is right and how things should be done, but also by giving me some thoughtful ideas.

I would also like to thank all survey and interview participants for their interest in my study as well as everyone who helped me promote and distribute the questionnaire.

Finally, this research would not have been possible without the constant encouragement of my family and friends. At this point, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to my mom – Teodora Stareva – who showed me how to “lean in”.

Iliyana Stareva

Abbreviations

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1. Introduction

The Public Relations industry has faced dramatic changes in the past few years in terms of new technology and media channels as well as new opportunities for communicating with clients and businesses. The main reason for this is the emergence of social media networking which enabled customers to easily and quickly engage in a two-way communication process with companies. For businesses on the other hand this represents a huge challenge of how to effectively handle the new forms of engagement so that they now realize the increasing importance of public relations as an organisational function. However, social media is still a big challenge for the PR industry itself. That is why this study aimed to research this new development and find comprehensive insights into what exactly happened and how should PR practitioners better approach new media opportunities.

The age of ‘we talk, you listen’ style of company communication is gone; the dialogue with stakeholders is the only way forward, because the emergence of social media has changed the way consumers form opinions and make decisions (Flint, 2009). Therefore, many PR specialists, including Brown, Solis, Scott and others believe that we are now at the peak of a magnificent era for the PR practice. It also means that there are new tools and new techniques needed to meet client’s needs and requirements. Butterick (2011) also mentions that the rise of digital media has transformed our channels of communication and the journalism practice (closely linked to PR), which in turn has had and will continue having an enormous impact on public relations.

As social media changes constantly, there is a continuous need to frequently investigate how social media is altering the PR practice which is the main justification and objective for this research. A first step in this study was examining a vast amount of recent literature sources. This critical review played the role of a basis to develop the following primary research and determine its focus according to the identified gaps in the literature. The report presents a number of existing evidence illustrating how greatly social media has changed and continues to change the PR industry.

Another purpose of the study was to examine the reasons for this phenomenon. To do so the research also aimed to investigate how practitioners themselves use social media and how it has been integrated into the Marketing Mix. As Brown summarizes: “Now we are seeing altogether new ways of doing things and new things that we can do” (2009: 92), therefore the research sought to identify these ‘new ways’ and ‘new things’ of how PROs work, but also to find out if social media has affected the private life of practitioners in terms of e.g. if they now spend more time online ‘working’ in their free time. Furthermore, it was discovered in the literature that measuring and monitoring SM and PR activities has been problematic for practitioners, which is why this issue was another research objective.

Since this is an industry level study (Daymon and Holloway, 2002) the focus of the primary research was on professionals practicing PR in any area in order not to limit the research scope and detect relevant findings about the whole industry hoping to provide new insights into the matter that would be of use for further research, but also for practitioners themselves to improve their knowledge and skills in SM.

However, a major difficulty was achieving a high enough response rate in the survey because unfortunately the so needed support by the CIPR and PRCA was not able to be provided.

To gain an overview of the research Figure 1 presents the chapter disposition of the book and what each one includes, forming a logical structure for an easy read and digestion of the academic findings.

Figure 1: Book Overview

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2.Literature Review

2.1.Public Relations

2.1.1. What is PR?

As a discipline, PR dates back to the beginning of the 20th century and is strongly linked to the growth of the media (print, TV, radio, online) when it begins to influence actions, behaviour and policy (Butterick, 2011).

In 1982 the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA, 2012) adopted the following definition:

Public Relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.

Grunig and Hunt (1984: 8) similarly describe PR as “the management of communications between an organisation and its publics.” The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR, 2012) offers another definition:

Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you... It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

PRSA’s definition has a strong implication on the importance of a dialogue, whereas the CIPR puts emphasis on reputation by building and fostering good relationships with various publics. Henslowe (2003) also highlights that PR is about establishing and maintaining a sound two-way communication between an organisation and everyone with whom it has any form of contact.

There are many more definitions of PR. The reason for this is that the industry itself is always changing and adapting to the world and growing power of the media, old and new (Gordon, 2011). However, most of them define it as a discipline that is concerned with the exchange of information (Phillips and Young, 2009) and as a strategic management function that seeks to build relationships with the various publics of an organisation by maintaining a meaningful two-way communication with them. It therefore should be an essential part of the organisational structure that can be truly effective when integrated into the broader business disciplines such as corporate planning, finance, HR etc. (Smith and Zook, 2011).

2.1.1.1. A New Definition is Needed

The emergence of new technologies and media in the last few decades have evoked a new era for the PR practice, which is why in November 2011 the PRSA launched the so called “Public Relations Defined” collaborative initiative, aiming to ‘modernise’ the existing definition (PRdefinition, 2011). From all candidates that the PRSA evaluated, a new definition was adopted in March 2012:

Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.

PRSA (2012a)

2.1.1.2. Main Functions and Activities of PROs

According to Butterick (2011) PR’s primary function during the most of the 20th century was the attempt to get coverage in the media for which the main ability was writing news releases that would serve their purpose to be used in the media. However, much has changed since then. Hence, Fawkes (2012) highlights the main responsibilities of PROs today as follows:

Table 1: Main PR Activities

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For the implementation of these practices new technology has offered new ways of communication such as Web 2.0 and social media (Fawkes, 2012). All these functions and the appropriate tools to fulfil them represent the diverse nature of PR.

2.2. The PR Industry

2.2.1. Growing Importance

The PR industry is nowadays an important worldwide multi-billion dollar industry and is regarded as an integral part of both businesses and governments (Corporate Watch, 2003). Just in the UK it is responsible for £6.5 billion turnover, employs 47,800 people, in-house, out-of-house in consultancies or as freelancers, and contributes ca. £3.4 billion to the country’s economic prosperity and £1.1 billion to corporate profits (CEBR, 2005).

The importance of the profession has been remarkably influenced by the demand of the 24 hour media for content (Butterick, 2011). Various studies are expecting the future growth of the industry, especially in online and digital.

Figure 2: Areas of Greatest Growth in the Next Five Years

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Figure 3: European Communication Monitor’s Three Year Growth Expectations

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2.2.2. Still Bad Reputation?

For years the industry’s weakness has been its own reputation. Many think of PR simply as ‘spin’ or ‘propaganda’. According to Davis (2007: 3) ‘spin’ is a synonym of “deceit, trickery or, at best, exaggeration, wishful thinking or fanciful interpretation.” Often journalists and other influencers are unhappy with the “inauthentic, disingenuous, and “spamlike” ways of pitching them” (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009: 6).

Because of this many regard the industry as unethical (Brown, 2009). This, in turn, reflects to the major misunderstandings of the profession and lack of respect for it, which to some extent depend on the fact that there is still no equally recognised PR definition by all PR bodies. Nevertheless, according to Key Note (2007: 1) the industry is becoming more professional and is being considered as “the guardian of both brand and corporate reputation.”

2.2.3. The Internet Evolution

Thanks to the Internet communication is now possible anytime, anywhere, no more just face-to-face. It is instantaneous and the importance of the geographical location is highly reduced (Davis, 2007). The Internet has now become primary information source.

Figure 4: Shocking Internet Statistics

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Historically, PR used to provide the link between the supplier of a product, service etc. and its customer; now, it is the Internet (Phillips and Young, 2009). Press release distribution became easier, and cheaper – via emails (Yaxley, 2012). As The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger, 2011) expresses:

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations.

2.3. Social Media

2.3.1. Defining Web 2.0

Chaffey (2009: 22) defines Web 2.0 as “a collection of web services that facilitate interaction of web users with sites to create user-generated content and encourage behaviours such as community or social network participation, mashups, content rating, use of widgets and tagging.” One of the biggest advantages of Web 2.0 is that it allows UGC and mashups, i.e. the ability to integrate content from different networks, e.g. Facebook can include YouTube videos (Phillips and Young, 2009). Moreover, Web 2.0 facilitates a dialogue, which also generates a much quicker and cheaper customer feedback (Smith and Zook, 2011). Solis and Breakenridge (2009: 2) argue that the Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O’Reilly, was not only the “rebirth of the Web”, but also a catalyst for the major changes happening to the PR industry.

2.3.2. Defining Social Media

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010: 61) define social media as a “ group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. ”

Figure 5: Social Media Timeline

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Scott (2011) describes SM as the way everyone can participate by sharing ideas, thoughts and context and so can build relationships online, which is why he compares the term to a ‘cocktail party’. Similarly, according to Wikipedia (2012) SM includes “ web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue” through various forms such as magazines, forums, weblogs, micro-blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating bookmarking.

Figure 6: The Conversation Prism – Variety of Online Communication Channels

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Table 2: Basic Forms of Social Media

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2.3.3. From Monologue to Dialogue

According to Brown (2009) people are engaging in the social web with others like them by not only consuming content, but also sharing ideas, interests and recommendations. Likewise, Solis (2011) also implies:

Social media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.

The advantage for brands by participating in those dialogues is that engagement builds trust, relationships and loyalty, but on the other hand it also requires a “genuine, dedicated, proactive, and value-driven effort” (Solis, 2007: 5). Even if organisations are not participating in the conversations, they are still happening, with or without them (Solis, 2011). The time of the top-down communication is over; there is no longer just B2B or B2C communication, but B2C2B and C2C (Brown, 2009).

Figure 7: Sending a Message through Traditional and New Media

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Social media and Web 2.0 have altered the entire media landscape by putting the power of influence in the hands of normal people who want to share their feelings, opinions and experiences (Solis and Breakenridge 2009a) and by this new media plays the role of an extension of traditional word-of-mouth communication (Hollensen, 2011; Mangold and Faulds, 2009).

Figure 8: Word-of-Mouth Opportunities with Social Media

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2.3.4. Traditional Media vs. New Media

Newspaper usage is declining – only 19% of Americans, aged between 18 and 34, might look at a daily newspaper (Butterick, 2011). TV is still engaging, but people have a wider choice and have found new, different channels to watch TV at their own time and disposition (Brown, 2009). The same author argues that the Internet is not a medium and is way more complex than traditional media, combining two very important ‘features’ – allowing traditional channels to migrate and reach new audiences as well as providing completely new media platforms where companies and customers can interact. Information now seems to be coming to us rather than us finding it (ibid).

Figure 9: The Online Media

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2.3.5. Social Media Revolution and the ‘Now’ Factor

Social networking has now become the number one content category in worldwide engagement and accounts for 19 percent of all time spent online – this activity has more than tripled in the last few years (ComScore, 2012).

Figure 10: Time Spent Online on Key Internet Categories

Twitter, for example, is now considered as a “news network” because it has become the distribution platform where news breaks first (Wallblog, 2011). In the same video Gerd Leonhard, a famous futurist and keynote speaker, expresses his opinion that Twitter will become even bigger than CNN because it only takes ca. 40 seconds for news to be tweeted right after it breaks. In the case of Osama bin Laden’s death it only took 26 seconds.

Table 3: Interesting Social Media Facts

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All this data indicates one very important aspect of SM – things happen in real time; news breaks in seconds, not hours or days.

2.3.6. Changing Consumer Behaviour

75% of consumers do not believe traditional advertising, whereas 71% are more likely to buy a product if someone referred to it on social media (Ragan, 2012). What is happening now is a “transfer of control, from the few to the many, from the corporations to the masses” (Brown, 2009: 157). Nevertheless, SM still “feels like the Wild West” for many brands and they are not comfortable participating in an “environment where the consumer talks back” (Brown, 2009: 16, 18).

Solis (2011a) calls this consumer influence ‘collective intelligence’ because:

Businesses are no longer the sole creator of a brand; it is co-created by consumers through shared experience and defined by the results of online searches and conversations.

Today’s consumer is not passive, but active and has multiple roles (Solis, 2011a).

Figure 11: The Roles of Today’s Consumer

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The biggest issue, however, is customer dissatisfaction being made public everywhere because dissatisfaction with a product, service or brand is usually expressed much more strongly than its counterpart (Brown, 2009). Nevertheless, even negative feedback can be ‘positive’ – companies can learn how to improve their products or services very quickly, but only of they listen to what their customers are saying.

2.4. Integrating PR and Social Media in the Marketing Mix

2.4.1. The Traditional Marketing Mix Today

In the Traditional Marketing Mix (Advertising, PR, Sales Promotions, Personal Selling and Direct Marketing) PR was considered until the 1980s as just a support for marketing through media coverage and seen as ‘free advertising’ to encourage sales (Davis, 2007: 13). However, the current shift from one-way towards two-way conversations and the increasing customer demands for constant interactions has given PR a considerable advantage over marketing, advertising etc. (Hutchinson, 2012) because it not only focuses on establishing relationships with the end users, but with all other stakeholders and therefore plays a huge role in reputation management (Butterick, 2011).

2.4.2. New Tools for the Traditional Marketing Mix

Marketers can no longer ‘buy influence’ (Brown, 2009: 85). Smith and Zook (2011: 4; 9) argue that social media is a ‘game changer’ because the customer has become a ‘partner’ who drives the business forward, i.e. has higher levels of involvement. They also argue that in order to actually allow this process, marketers nowadays must integrate both the old ‘outbound marketing’ (advertising, direct mail, telemarketing etc.) and the new ‘inbound marketing’, which enables those conversations between the customer and the organisation to happen via social media.

2.4.3. Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) means “integrating all the promotional tools so that they work together in harmony…with one voice all the time” (Davis, 2007: 135). Here, effectiveness is the main advantage because a message from a single channel has far less credibility than a message from multiple sources (Brown, 2009). In theory, such integration sounds credible; however, in practice it often happens that one of the elements, usually marketing or advertising, achieves the highest budget share, and the rest simply support this one aside (Fawkes, 2012). Nevertheless, new technology and media are now being used across the boundaries of the communications mix, namely for all promotion tools, because SM enables companies to better reach their target audiences well beyond the traditional media outlets (Tench and Yeomans, 2009). Reason for this is that social media replaces mass communication with networked relationships (Gordon, 2011). This necessary consistency of social networking with the use of the traditional IMC as a new paradigm results from the phenomenon that SM is perceived by consumers as more trustworthy than corporate messages transmitted via the traditional mix (Hollensen, 2011). Therefore, Mangold and Faulds (2009) argue that social media is a hybrid element of the promotion mix that combines the traditional IMC characteristics (organisations talking to customers) on the one hand and an extended form of word-of-mouth (customers talking to customers) not controlled by marketers in terms of content and frequency.

Figure 12: The New Marketing Communications Mix

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2.5. Social Media’s Impact on PR

According to Richard Edelman, CEO of the world’s largest independent PR consultancy Edelman, social media has altered “the nature of how we do what we do” (Curiosity, 2012). It is a ‘shift from pitching to participating, from selling a story to telling a story’ (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009a).

Table 4: Impact of Social Media According to PR Practitioners

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2.5.1. How about PR Theory?

Many claim that the emergence of social media has changed both PR theory and practice. New technologies have allowed the practice to better develop a dialogue with its publics, evolving towards Grunig’s two-way symmetric communications model (Theaker, 2012).

Table 5: PR Communications Models

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Figure 13: The New Grunigian View of Modern PR

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2.5.2. Impact? How? Why?

Solis and Breakenridge (2009a) argue that what actually caused the reinvention of PR by social media was UGC. It changed the “dynamics of influence” and put the power in the hands of ordinary people (Solis, 2011). Therefore, PROs must now engage in the conversation through the various new channels and tools. In this sense, Solis and Breakenridge (2009a) furthermore argue that in the world of Web 2.0, content is no longer king, but conversation is.

Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor in English literature and a philosopher, once proclaimed: ‘the medium is the message’. Nowadays, the medium has become the message (Brown, 2009) because SM provides PR with additional channels to instantaneously communicate with target publics (Franklin, 2009).

Brown (2009) calls the described new development a ‘communications upheaval’ more significant than the printing press. According to the author companies themselves used to decide on a desired image and PR had to just present it. Now, however, they have lost that control and this image is directly built by the consumers.

Scott (2011) explains, PR used to be almost only about media relations – if you had a good story, you had to pitch it to a reporter; then if he/she liked it, he/she would write about it and so people would find out what is happening with organisations. Today, companies can directly and in real time communicate with buyers and other influencers on multiple social media platforms (ibid). Reaching target audiences has become easier not only locally, but also globally. Furthermore, many journalists do not just wait to receive press releases, but find these on their own on the Social Web.

Figure 14: Most Important Research Methods for Journalists

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On the other hand, in terms of PR UGC can often be considered to have an inbuilt credibility gap (Tench and Yeomans, 2009). There is a lack of control of what is being said online, which is a major concern for PROs and organisations (Gordon, 2011). PR professionals can only partially control UGC by designing and hosting websites, wikis, blogs, Facebook and Twitter presence etc. and trying to engage with consumers to react (Guth and Marsh, 2012). Still, the demand for 24 hour stories and content in the media is a major challenge for the industry (Butterick, 2011).

2.5.3. What is New PR?

Solis and Breakenridge (2009a) offer the following definition for new PR:

PR 2.0 is the realization that PR now has an unprecedented opportunity to not only work with traditional journalists, but also engage directly with a new set of accidental influencers. We can now talk with customers directly (through social networks, wikis, micromedia communities, online forums, groups, blogs, and so on)... New PR’s goal is to understand the communities of people we want to reach and how to engage them in conversations without marketing at them.

Figure 15: New Model of PR

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Table 6: The Old vs. the New Rules of PR

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2.5.4. Social Media Activities, Tools and Skills for PR professionals

Social networking has become a PR pro’s personal operating system (Solis, 2011). Hence, PR must learn to listen and correspondingly respond forgetting about traditional pitching and moving forward to conversation-based interactions that form personalised relationships. To do so, Solis and Breakenridge (2009a) point out that PROs should master new activities such as blogger relations, social media releases, corporate blogging etc.

Figure 16: Online PR activities

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PR is no longer just about audiences, but about people; not just about new tools, but about relationships because “in the social economy, relationships are the new currency” (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009a). PR practitioners have to ‘go’ where customers are, using the appropriate channels to reach them; those channels now still include both traditional and new media (ibid).

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Figure 17: Usage of Social Media Channels by PROs

For companies losing control over the message also means that customer experience plays an ever greater role in brand reputation. Therefore, corporate communications has now become a necessity, because both the media and various publics are asking a lot more questions and a lot more often than ever before (Henslowe, 2003).

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Figure 18: The New PR Skills

Because of the vast amount of new communication platforms, there are no longer just traditional releases, but also customer-focused releases, SEO releases, social media releases and video news releases (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009a). Furthermore, as a primary information source, online search is still extensively happening and has led to the emergence of a new PR skill – search engine optimisation (SEO), predominantly content driven (Yaxley, 2012).

Table 7: Media Relations vs. Blogger Relations

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However, this variety of channels has made it difficult for PROs to determine which ones are most influential and effective. Furthermore, the number of active users on the various networks indicates an information overload which makes it even harder to engage and make an impact (Yaxley, 2012). This complexity results into difficulties measuring and monitoring PR activities which makes it even harder for the industry to prove its effectiveness.

2.5.5. And in Reality – How is Social Media being used by PR Professionals?

According to Key Note (2007) there is a lack of skilled and trained professionals. Many practitioners admit that social media has had a huge impact on PR, but just a few feel confident employing SM strategies for PR. In CIPR’s Benchmarking Survey, 23% of members admitted that their knowledge of SM was limited (ComRes, 2010).

Table 8: Percentage of Average Working Time PROs spend with Blogs and SM

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Table 9: Importance of Social Media for the Overall PR Efforts

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In the European Communication Monitor, many practitioners admitted that social media is still a big challenge (Zerfass et al., 2011) mainly because they cannot keep up with all new platforms being introduced constantly, which also represents a difficulty deciding on which to focus.

Figure 19: Social Media Skills and Knowledge of PROs

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Another reason, as Solis and Breakenridge (2009a) point out, is that many PROs simply do not ‘bother’ to take time to build those relationships and engage with the public . A role in this also plays the poor use of those channels in their free time.

Figure 20: Private Use of Social Media by PROs

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Many say social media should be measured; howeve, just a few are actually doing so (Wright and Hinson, 2010) – for example, only 21% of organisations measure the ROI of their SM efforts (Society for Human Resource Management, 2012). As Scott (2011) points out, the problem is that PR practitioners still only measure traditional media, but forget to evaluate the ‘value of sharing’ content online. Companies still rely too much on ‘imperfect’ influence scores such as Klout[3] or PeerIndex[4] that do not really tell anything about how digital influence is actually created and used (Solis, 2012). Some tools, as for example Google Analytics[5], Facebook Insights[6], Google Alerts[7], Radian6[8] etc. (PRDaily, 2012b), have been gaining importance among practitioners. However, those predominantly focus on quantitative findings, whereas PR has a lot to do with qualitatively orientated efforts – e.g. forming opinions – that are hard to measure and evaluate.

2.6. Conclusions

Many authors and many researchers have been examining the influences of the Social Web on PR. They all agree SM has altered the PR practice because it has enabled a better reach of target audiences and a direct, real-time communication that builds relationships. PRSA’s annual surveys for example provide valuable insights into the quantitative side of the matter. However, it would be interesting to also perform a more in-depth research and illustrate the implications of the new trend on the life of PR practitioners, both working and personal, e.g. what exactly are their activities and how much do they interfere with their private sphere.

Because of the very nature of social media, i.e. constantly changing, all the discussed implications must be researched on a very regular basis. New social networks are emerging every year and some of them have a major influence on the PR practice, e.g. Pinterest or the new Facebook Timeline. PROs cannot be sure which communication channels, tools and platforms will be relevant in 2020 (Phillips and Young, 2009). Examining social media’s impact on the PR industry in 2016 for example would show very different results than today (2012) because the media landscape is evolving all the time.

While these literature sources very well present the changes that happened and highlight what PR practitioners should be doing, it seems that utilising social media is still a big challenge. The lack of knowledge in SM, which in turn reflects all current measurement difficulties, suggests that the exact same matter on SM’s impact on PR will be of interest for quite a while in the future in order to research the causes for the shortage of skills as well as the measurement issues and how to find the best solutions to solve them. Nevertheless, the indicated literature is an excellent starting point to understand the new PR industry.

3. Research Methodology

3.1. Research Objectives

The research seeks to investigate, describe, analyse and explain how social networking and online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter etc. have altered the Public Relations industry during the past few years and the way and for what purposes PR specialists are using those new tools and channels. This means that the research is of exploratory and descriptive nature, i.e. is trying to portray and clarify an understanding of a specific issue (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007). With regards to the defined research objectives and according to the identified gaps in the literature the following main research questions (RQ) were formulated:

RQ1: How has the emergence of social media changed the PR practice – is it a positive or a negative impact?

RQ2: How and why are PR practitioners using social media in their working activities on the one hand, and in their free time on the other?

RQ3: Why measuring and monitoring PR and social media activities are a big issue and what tools do practitioners utilise to solve this?

3.2. Research Philosophies and Paradigms

Historically, the world of PR knowledge and research has been dominated by the positivist (or realist) view (Daymon and Holloway, 2002). The reality is therefore independent of the ones involved in it and would rely on objectivity (ibid). This, in turn, is characteristic for quantitative studies where generalisation is possible. However, as the research seeks to also examine how PROs themselves think social media impacted PR, i.e. personal opinions, and what their working and personal experiences in terms of it are, another paradigm is of importance, namely interpretivism (or phenomenological paradigm). It emphasises that the research is conducted among people rather than objects because they themselves are ‘social actors’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007: 106). Therefore, the best suited approach is the inductive approach by first collecting and analysing data and after that formulating a hypothesis (ibid).

[...]


[1] CIPR is the professional body for PR practitioners in the UK.

[2] PRSA is the world’s largest organisation for PR professionals.

[3] http://klout.com/

[4] http://www.peerindex.com/

[5] www.google.com/analytics/

[6] https://www.facebook.com/insights/

[7] http://www.google.com/alerts

[8] http://www.radian6.com/

Details

Pages
Type of Edition
Erstauflage
Year
2013
ISBN (eBook)
9783954896783
ISBN (Softcover)
9783954891788
File size
9.9 MB
Language
English
Publication date
2014 (February)
Keywords
public relations social media social media for PR social media’s impact on PR social media and public relations

Author

Iliyana Stareva graduated with a Double Degree Bachelor in International Business from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund (Germany) and Plymouth University (UK). She currently works as a Social Media Account Manager at Brandzeichen – a PR and Social Media Consultancy in Düsseldorf (Germany). Iliyana blogs about PR, Social Media, Communications, Business and Sustainability at www.iliyanastareva.com. You can find her on Twitter @IliyanaStareva.
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Title: Social Media and the Rebirth of PR: The Emergence of Social Media as a Change Driver for PR
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127 pages
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