Social Media and the Importance of Good Media Relations - Essay Example

?The world in the twenty first century is dominated by the presence of social media. Means of communication means have improved a lot since the last century and the media has become an intrinsic part of communication modes. The concept of media relations extend beyond print coverage. The impact of technology can be felt in every sphere of our lives and the workplace is not an exception. With the advent of technology, the usage of internet has become a vast and an indispensible part of any growth-oriented business organization. Technology has made us move ahead and embrace the concepts of social networking (Richardson & Gosnay, 2010, p. 4). The internet facility provides certain larger facilities such as “more efficient forms of communication, unprecedented access to information, and greater flexibility in work hours and locations” (Hearing & Ussery, 2012, p. 35). The usage of social modes of communications has become widespread and the maintaining proper media relations are one of the key concerns of the business houses. “In a social media driven world, the fundamentals of good media relations practice – relevance, authority, engagement and relationship – are more important than ever” (Parker, 2012). This paper intends to deal with the issue of social media and the importance of good media relations practice. Everything that one does online, more precisely, all the activities that take place “in the online environment of a social network” (Amerland, n. d., p.63) becomes a part of social media. The spectrum of social media is quite broad and includes disparate features. It comes in many forms, such as, blogs, micro-blogs, photo or video sharing sites, online publishing sites, customer reviews, social networking sites and several other user-generated contents (Wilson, 2010). People make use of the various internet based applications for sharing information and similar interests. These various websites allow learning from others “or network in an open process” (Zarrella, 2009, p. 3). Social media supplies the connections that help in the formation of the networks (Kabani & Brogan, 2012, p. X). Media is perceived as such an important element in the search engine optimization process that most of the web pages that we visit contain some form of social media. The various social media platforms are reachable from any place and any time by anyone through the access of internet via a smart phone or a computer. The implications of such a vast reach of social media are reflected on the domains of “public relations and communications” (CIPR, n. d.). Journalists use social media for collection of news. These social media are a big ‘source’ of news. Thus on the other side of the coin, social media plays a big role in the process of determination of business performance as well as its promotion such as brand recognition. It creates an authority upon the performance of the businesses as is indicated by Parker. Campaigning and advertisement are done on a large scale over the official websites of the different organizations. It helps the company to reach out to a greater number of people and also make an account of the reviews of the existing customers as well as the responses of the potential customers. The organizations need to “deal with the media” (Giancontieri, 2008, p. 1) and make interactions with the reporters in their own interest in order to promote their business. Establishment and maintenance of “mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its publics” (Tench & Yeomans, 2006, p. 4) is achieved through a very good public relations management strategy. Public relations are a feature of management function in an organization that entails the social media to a large extent. The foundation of public relations as a profession was on the usage of “mass media and media relations” (Duhe, 2007, p. 99). In the wake of the twentieth century the communication environment was dominated by “a limited number of mass media with the large audiences” (Duhe, 2007, p. 99). However this concept has undergone much change in the current century. Public relations help in the management of several issues and also keep the firm responsive to the various public opinions. It also keeps the management abreast of the changes occurring and helps in making proper utilization of these changes for further growth. A well maintained public relation acts as “an early warning system” to the firm and assists the analysts to anticipate future trends in turn helping in making further business decisions (Tench & Yeomans, 2006, p. 4). It is essential to understand the “underpinnings of media relations” (DeSantis, 2006, p. 15). This helps to produce a better working relationship and the better chance of maintaining mutual respect and transparency of the stories that are told. Hence keeping a good media relation is critical to the success of any organization. Skilled public relations professionals uses their ability to unearth the unchartered stories about the “company and its products” (Nayak, 2009, p. 160). They utilize their knowledge of the media to make a match between the stories and the angles that are hunted for by the reporters. The engagement in to different media relations however is not costless to the firm. Every firm has a specific media relations budget which is revised and improvised at different intervals. With its expansion beyond the print media, media relations have become more dynamic at present times. The media professionals work towards making the presentation of information more vivid and audience-specific. The firms require handling of the media relations wisely in order to make an effective media relations budget. An increased proportion of the social interactions that take place today occur through the online social media. There are different types of user to user interaction. Although “the cost of establishing” (Grabowicz et al., 2012, p. 1) a relation in the online social media is not too high, the impact it lays on the organization is of importance. From a study made on “one of the most popular online social networks” (Grabowicz et al., 2012, p. 1), Twitter, it has been found by making an analysis of the groups of network built through the cheapest connections between the users, that valuable informations can also be elicited from this networks. Some users of the site have also been identified “as brokers of information between groups” (Grabowicz et al., 2012, p. 1). Twitter mainly focuses on the potential of the platform to create direct communications with the public. However, the most obvious advantage of this social media tool is often overlooked; it can provide immense help in media relations. An overview of the speech presented by the CEO of Realware, Adam Parker, at an event named ‘Media Relations Modernized’ is that Twitter presents a unique opportunity for the PR professionals. This platform acts as a virtual newsroom for them with 80 percent (28th November Event with Realwire, 2012) of the journalists being active on Twitter. The stories promoted over this media can be confidently considered as highly relevant and can be used in the PR activities. The characterization of a tie or social relation can be made on the basis of the strength of the tie or by the position of the tie in a social network. According to a theory proposed by Granovetter, the weaker ties that exist between distant acquaintances in effect serve as bridges helping in diffusion of information across the network. In effect communication occurs across the web between very distant acquaintances or virtual strangers that are connected only through the media of the social networking site. Opinions, news and ideas are shared and re-shared and this process has been termed as social media marketing. In the companies where social media is viewed as a primary public relations vehicle, the public relations persons manage the marketing strategy in social media (Zimmerman & Ng, 2012, p.621). From the individual level to the organizational level; social media in recent decades have reached the level of addiction (Amerland, n. d., p.58). For better or worse, it has resulted in wider spread of information which is on hand helpful for the concerned individual such as an entrepreneur or investor or an organization, and on the other hand is a cause of concern in the sense that the handling of social media has to be done responsibly and cautiously. One reason that calls for cautious handling of social media is that the websites allow information to be posted by the users unanimously and there are “minimal restrictions or oversight” (Wilson, 2010). The contents of these posts are not always reliable. This is because the contents of such posts vary widely and are mostly unstructured. The information can be uploaded in the form of articles, bookmarked links, photos, videos or music. The connections made over the social networking sites are interlinked to one another and extend to the greater circle of connections. Due to this, the relations maintained in the social media tools should be carefully moderated. The effects of mass media can be felt on the political processes existing “in the contemporary advanced democracies” (Helms, 2008, p. 26). The news generated by the media and reported on the social media tools are capable enough to create consciousness in the political sphere. For larger institutions, their operations overseas are powerful enough to have a say in the political scenario prevailing worldwide. The lifestyle of the people is also influenced by the social dictums that are reflected in the social media. The political feelings of the people are modified to a great extent through the images reported by the media. The authority of the social media can be felt in all business perspectives. Conclusion The term social media has arrived from the concept of “aggregation of individuals into groups” (Hinchcliffe & Kim, 2012, p. 132). The connection between the different users leads to sharing of values along with the ideas and information. This makes the companies to think in more serious terms about the utilization of social media in their business processes. The companies sometimes dismiss the smaller social networking sites in favor of the bigger ones. But these sites in most cases create “greater amount of noise” (Sweeney & Craig, 2010, p. 118). Hence from the above discussion one would agree with Parker’s statement: “In a social media driven world, the fundamentals of good media relations practice – relevance, authority, engagement and relationship – are more important than ever”. References 1) Amerland, D. (n. d.). The Social Media Mind: How social media is changing business, politics and science and helps create a new world order. New Line Publishing. 2) Hearing, G. A. & Ussery, B. C. (2012), The Times They Are a Changin’: The Impact of Technology and Social Media on the Public Workplace, Part I, THE FLORIDA BAR JOURNAL, 86(3), pp. 35-39. 3) Giancontieri, D. (2008), Master Media Relations: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Press Coverage. iUniverse. 4) Grabowicz et al. (2012), Social Features of Online Networks: The Strength of Intermediary Ties in Online Social Media, PLoS ONE 7(1), pp. 1-9. 5) DeSantis, C. (2006), Media strategies for CEOs, Policy and Practice, 64(2), pp. 14-16. 6) Social Media In PR (n. d.), CIPR, retrieved on 1 January, 2013 from http://www.cipr.co.uk/courses/social-media-pr 7) Nayak, A. (2009). Fundamentals of Marketing. Excel Books India. 8) Helms, L. (2008), Governing in the Media Age: The Impact of the Mass Media on Executive Leadership in Contemporary Democracies, Government and Opposition, 43(1), pp. 26–54. 9) Hinchcliffe, D. & Kim, P. (2012). Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company. John Wiley & Sons. 10) Duhe, S. C. (2007). New Media and Public Relations. Peter Lang. 11) Zimmerman, J. & Ng, D. (2012). Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. 12) Richardson, N. & Gosnay, R. M. (2010). A Quick Start Guide to Social Media Marketing: High Impact Low-Cost Marketing that Works. Kogan Page Publishers. 13) Sweeney, S. & Craig, R. (2010). Social Media for Business: 101 Ways to Grow Your Business Without Wasting Your Time. Maximum Press. 14) Kabani, S. H. & Brogan, C. (2012). The Zen of Social Media Marketing 2012: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue. BenBella Books. 15) Zarrella, D. (2009). The Social Media Marketing Book. O'Reilly Media, Inc. 16) Tench, R. & Yeomans, L. (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Prentice Hall. 17) Parker, A. (2012). Media Relations Modernised. In: Waddington, S (Ed). 18) 28th November Event with Realwire (2012), retrieved on 1 January, 2013 from http://lincolnmapr.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/28th-november-event-with-realwire/ Read More