Are you the social media knowledge gatekeeper?
March 25th, 2010 by Lloyd Gofton
We all know every PR agency has a social media section, or at least mention, on its website, even if that only relates to the Twitter account, but to what level are PRs really utilising social media?
I recently came across Michelle Hinson and Don Wright’s paper on ‘The use of social media among PR professionals‘ via K D Paine’s blog, and found some interesting stats in among the results on this very subject. The survey was based on responses from 560 PRs from around the globe, although I suspect the majority were US-based, including members of IPRA, PRSA, IPR, etc.
Some of the highlights that particularly caught the eye were:
• PR practitioners feel that social media’s influence on public relations is growing. In 2007, just over half said that they believed that social media had changed the way their organisations or their client organisations communicate. In 2010 that figure had climbed to 83%, and 96% said they spent part of their average workday working with social media.
• In 2008 just 66 % of respondents said that social media has enhanced the practice of PR. By 2010, the figure had increased to 81%.
• 84% of 2010 respondents encourage research to measure social media impact, but only about a third is actually doing it.
• In 2009, respondents saw search engine marketing as the most important element of social media. This year Facebook and Twitter were seen as most important.
• 64% are using Twitter regularly, which is double to figure in 2009, and 73% said that they regularly used Social networking sites to catch up on news.
The figures are encouraging, and at least show PRs are taking social media seriously, which was a big part of the battle a few years ago. However, in my experience, this doesn’t paint a true picture of the average PR consultant, but more likely the ‘social media knowledge gatekeeper’.
As mentioned at the beginning, most PR agencies refer to social media in some way, through their pitches and in their collateral, many experiment with social media to one degree or other, and some even have ‘experts’ that can be called in to talk the talk in pitches or raise the social media profile of the agency.
Social media knowledge in PR agencies spans a wide knowledge spectrum, from those that are challenging the non-PR agencies (social media, digital, search, conversation agencies) with social media campaigns, through to the traditional PR agencies that, well, are very far away from that.
I put it to the Jury that in most cases, even in some of the agencies that have a good reputation for social media, the knowledge is held by one or possibly two people, and in private conversations they too admit it is difficult to truly get the agency immersed in the conversation online, and how that relates to the conversation offline.
This is the next challenge for PR as a whole, instead of falling into the traditional approach of having technology teams, consumer teams, and following suit by having social media teams, but truly understanding that any PR campaign needs to include social strategies, not separate from the main campaign, but as part of the whole campaign. Until PR campaigns actually span the online and offline worlds, building conversation together, the PR industry can’t say that it is up to speed on social media.
However, that’s not to say this is just an issue with PR agencies, don’t think the same set of circumstances doesn’t relate to digital, advertising and marketing agencies etc, I’m just using PR as a relevant example of knowledge gatekeepers, but I’m confident the same issues apply elsewhere .
Tags: conversation, Gatekeeper, PR, Social media
