Impact of Social Media on Public Relations Strategies
Social media has become a valuable tool in public relations since it is the direct voice to speak to the public. Social media has changed the whole scenario of associating and engaging. It has also changed the methods, plans, channels and the strategies used to run campaigns. Social media aids the brands to market their businesses, solve queries and issues of the customers, as well as assist with branding and creating an identity for brands.
Some of the ways social media has impacted public relation strategies are:
From traditional based to social media based:
Social media has come up with new methods of creating relationships with brands. From spending huge budgets on traditional advertising mediums like radio, TV, print and billboard coverages, all it takes now is understanding and satisfying the needs and wants of the customers with comparatively a defined budget and more clear social media strategy. Case study: The Coca Cola name campaign — In the PR and advertising world, that campaign is still one of the most successful campaigns because it was heavily utilized by social media. All it took was people finding their names on bottles and posting across all the different social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. There were even hashtags to follow the trend ShareACoke.
Communication channel with the customers:
With the advancement of social media, the communication between customers and brands have gotten a lot easier. Customers now have direct access to put their suggestions, reviews and queries on the posts created by a company on various social media platforms.
Reasonable and quicker PR campaigns:
Social media campaigns do not require a huge budget to be recorded as successful. If the right strategy is followed and if the posts and videos are made to suit the interest of the targeted audience, then organic engagement will follow in a huge way.
Public relation maintained by involvement of people:
Communication is a lot more effective when it is responsive, which is done on social media platforms. By replying to the tweets, commenting on Facebook posts and YouTube videos and reposting the content relating to the campaigns. Customers feel involved in the discussion that relates to the products and the brand. Their problems and doubts relating to the products are solved through this which helps to maintain good public relations in the end. Case study: The MTN porting campaign ft Hafiz Oyetoro (Saka). After the advert and PR campaign went viral, a lot of customers camped in the comment sessions of MTN asking for further details on how customers could port, and this information was provided in no time.
Easier to create PR with larger audience:
Social media has helped many brands to reach global level because of the marketing and viral tendency that it has. Any picture or video on social media can be made viral across the globe if the content proposed is attractive and has a viral component in it. Social media makes it fortunate for certain brands who have made the right strategies and efforts in that direction to create successful PR campaigns.
Chidinma Anya is an intern at Redrick PR and a communication enthusiast. She watches a lot of TikTok and enjoys reading African literature.
