Public Relations and Social Media

Sometimes the world of public relations can become a world of stress when the outcome to a situation is not exactly what you planned for; or, when you have a situation handed to you, the PRP, and you have this massive job of getting it done and quickly. In history, there have been plenty of PR faux pas and they have costed companies business or worse, their reputation.

Social media has become a great tool for everybody. Companies use it for marketing, public relations , keeping up on current events, music, etc. If you have a message to get out there, even if it's for personal usage, then social media is most likely your best friend. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest, etc have become assets for companies, especially marketing and Franchise PR Firms who want a free, easy way to do what they have been doing for decades.

When you have a mistake in PR, you have to be proactive and not wait to respond; waiting to respond or denying a response to a situation, it makes the situation look a whole lot worse, this is especially true when the PR faux pas happens on social media and/or the way to fix it is via social media. Every major PR firm knows that the best way to start a good response to a situation is to gather the facts, understand what is going on, and issue a response of integrity. Firms know that people who do not respond to a situation often have something to hide, or, they are irresponsible at conducting themselves, either way, it is not a good way to keep a good reputation. If the best way to keep your good reputation is to own your mistakes and the consequences, then that's what you have to do. Crisis Management teams know they have to be on top of their game and not slack off if they want to succeed, same applies for any other firm.

Social media is a great tool for PR firms since Twitter is designed for things like conversations about companies and especially for companies to interact with their followers/consumers. Unfortunately, companies have to be careful how they handle designed hashtag conversations on Twitter for PR purposes because they can go wrong quickly. When this happens, make sure to watch the conversation and where it is going before it goes wrong. If it does go wrong, then be proactive and try to correct the conversation.

A good idea for PR via social media is to organize things on a social media site, for example, if a company is releasing a new product, you can give exciting teasers for the new product via social media. With so many people on social media, they will definitely see it and react to it. If you are wondering if your publics will see the efforts, yes. The answer is yes. Every demographic is on social media of some kind and is on it at least a few times a week.

Whatever you do on social media for PR purposes, make sure you know what you're doing and that you have a game plan, and a back up for when things go wrong.