Social Media: PR’s Growth Factor

By Kate Urbach, Wednesday, June 20, 2012, at 8:30 am.

[Originally posted on Euro RSCG’s Social Life and Social Media blog.]

If we want to characterize the growth in many industries as slowing to a plateau, then the PR industry’s growth might be best described as mountainous. Whether we recognize it or not, there’s a change in our society that is turning people into social networking machines, leaving PR front and center in this exciting new world.

I find myself fully immersed in the social media lifestyle, constantly plugged in to the latest media channels. Being able to get the latest news or gossip almost instantly is both fascinating and satisfying to me. After a long day of school or work, I almost immediately go to my iPhone or computer to find out what I missed. Sometimes when I go without checking my Twitter or Facebook accounts for just a few hours, I almost feel overwhelmed by the amount of material I have missed. It can be unnerving to know how much information you can miss in such a short period of time.

I have even begun to incorporate my social networking sites into college classes: I use them as a tool to create discussion rooms for study sessions and group projects, and I once had to develop my own YouTube video to discuss the benefits of using the site as a networking tool in business and academic settings. Companies can benefit from including social media in their daily routine as a way to reach a larger audience. They can take a lesson from PR, an industry that has welcomed this phenomenon to reach target consumers.

It was this openness to social media, in fact, that spurred my interest in the PR industry. PR is all about balance—PR practitioners have to understand all industries to engage with the public and present new information in compelling ways. The practice of PR is constantly changing and evolving to the newest social media trends, and that’s what makes it so exciting!

It is crucial for PR professionals to be active social media users and develop and maintain online media channels; after all, almost everyone in our society participates in online social networking. In a lot of ways, social networking is designed for the PR industry; that is, it allows you to get information to the public faster than before to present constituents with the most recent updated material. I mean, think about it—can you imagine what it would be like if social networking was never developed? I know I sure can’t.

[photo: creativecommons.org/daniel_iversen]

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