Why I chose Public Relations as a career still remains a vague subject for many. Yet again, why I chose social media as my bread and butter in a market like India, still amazes people. I have to ask why?
For all enlightened minds unaware of Public Relations, it is managing the reputation of a brand/ corporate with constant outflow of information through a perfect blend of creativity in communication. Simple! You have information; you’ve got to inform the masses about it. You’ve got a reputation hitch; you’ve got to set it right through talking to people and using feedback they provide to modify your communications strategy (The Wisdom of Crowds, I tell you!).
Coming to social media, it just gets simpler. I will not brag about what social media is (Just go to our free e-book download, mate!) But here is how it just works better than the above-mentioned offline medium:
• It’s the in-thing! Well yeah! Since every trend, every thought, every discussion that makes a difference to our lives is up there even before it is on the news or in the newspapers (As an offline PR professional, I referred to Twitter religiously to catch up with all that was happening around the world, to gauge what the newspapers would write next). The dynamics of the word ‘fastest news’ have changed (as they have for ‘breaking news’:P).
• What’s working, what’s not? You get to know it immediately. Couple of fiery comments on your blog, and you go –“Well, perhaps I should rephrase this? ” Pat comes the Crowd’s reply- “Dude! I said remove this horrible commercial. Hear me right?” With so much room for heart-to-heart talk between the consumer and the brand that social media offers, any business will have to prove the favourite fact-We’re Listening! This is a must for any business, since the crowds run it!
• Power of Mass Intelligence and Collaboration: Probably where social media does a dance and a hop and a skip while conventional communication stands and stares. A pleasure it is, to see your consumers design products, collaborate for fun and knowledge and come up with new ad-campaigns (Flashback: ITC Bingo Mad Angles)!
• Better and Tangible Results: Looking at sales charts to trace back to what article, and which news worked for your business, is morose, futile and does not reward the efforts of the company or the communications agency (If number of articles, headlines etc. promised to the client could have changed the face of brands, advertising would have had its natural fall way back!). Social media is measurable, more so in terms of consumer reaction to your moves in the market (Flashback: Blogs on HUL changing the age-old formulation of Pears).
But here is why social media will delight focused communication professionals more than anything else: Your efforts translate into direct consumer engagement, not in a news article,the readers of which you wouldn’t have an idea of.
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Tags: mass collaboration, masses, media, offline, public relations, social
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Hi Swati,
I followed your link from buzz (does that mean Google is doing something right?)
Nice article and very succinctly expressed. While I agree with most of what you’ve said, I thought your last point undercut your previous ones.
I’m not entirely convinced that it makes more sense to spend more on social media tools instead of just going for more advertising. Do the people who respond online actually go out and purchase the product? How do you measure that? Wouldn’t sales figures (however morose) be a more tangible measure in most cases?
I’d love to hear your views on that more in depth sometime.
Cheers.
Hey Anandita,
Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciate it. My post is from an agency point-of-view (I had to bring that out more explicitly, though) and personally, I have not seen press articles translating into sales, but here, I can tell you for a fact, the amt of sales generated through social media activities. The tangible part of this is the quantitative aspect of our efforts.
Would love to chat up with you on this at length!
Hi Anandita, let me try to answer that – I’ve been asked similar questions numerous times by clients.
Firstly, internet advertisers dug their own grave by over-emphasising on measurability. Soon clients wanted performance tracking – first in terms of clicks, then leads, then acquisitions! What’s the inherent flaw here? As Jeeves from Wodehouse would say, ‘The psychology of the individual’.
Fact: People don’t ALWAYS require something. If I see a banner for a car today, doesn’t mean I’m going to pick it up. Max, I’ll see it, remember it, and recall it when I’m ready to buy a car.
Social media operates that way. Something that will remain relevant to people who are searching for particular information here and now, and will be around when I (from previous paragraph) am ready to buy a car.
Think of the last time you bought something. It’s quite unlikely that the process started with you clicking a banner online. A banner online is like a banner you see on the road – it creates an imprint somewhere at the back of your mind, and later, when you actually think of buying that product, you tend to recall it with a ‘Oh yeah! Lemme see if I can pick up THAT product’. I hope I make sense here 🙂
Social media tries to push this process along – it goes beyond plain ol’ banner ads and tries to add a personality and face to a brand. So when you leave feedback to a brand, there’s someone human (or something close to it) answering you. Hey, suddenly, a big huge brand has devoted time to you!
Case in point: Dell. Who do SMM brilliantly. Tell them that you love Dell, and they reply back saying thank you.
Another case in point: ICICI Bank. Who leave the same, useless automated message for every complaint: Sorry for the trouble, please contact customercare@icicibank.com.
Social media cannot directly get you sales – and we ourselves are wary of clients who ask for that, and clear the air up – what it can help do is get it into the consideration set, and create a lot of engagement.
So that when the user actually sits down and thinks about which laptop to buy, s/he thinks “Yeah – I’ve seen Dell do a lot of activity online, and lots of people talking about it. That should be good.”
I hope this long, rambling comment actually made sense at some point 🙂
Thanks Deepak.
I see now what the model of operation is here – something that was a bit vague to me to be honest.
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