Check this out!
"Some small-business owners, overwhelmed by the time commitment required of marketing their products and services via social media, are hiring consultants to lend a hand," explains Sarah Needleman in a Wall Street Journal article, "Firms Get a Hand with Twitter, Facebook."
"'It's just better having someone dedicated to thinking of stuff to put up,'" said one business owner quoted in the article.
The recent development of firms dedicated solely to maintaining companies' social media marketing, as well as the trend among small businesses to hire PR people to keep after their Facebook and Twitter profiles, is all the more reason why those of us aspiring PR professionals must stay abreast of social media outlets.
This article fits in perfectly with some of the advice offered by Vault Communication's Meg Kane, who spoke at our PRSSA meeting this week. "Be on Facebook and Twitter as if it were your job," she said, "because one day it very well could be."
That is not to say that some businesspeople do not prefer to maintain their own image on social networking sites. "'The idea with Twitter is that you get close to an immediate response,'" one business owner said as for why he wouldn't pay someone else to update his profiles. Doing it himself, he adds, means that "'there's no middle man that has to go check with the company [before posting or responding to someone else's post].'"
Nevertheless, we cannot overstate the importance of being active participants in - and students of - social media marketing. Now more than ever.
Social media is now at the forefront of marketing and public relations activities. I agree with Sarah in her Wall Street Journal article, “Firms Get a Hand with Twitter, Facebook.” Some businesses may indeed need the extra help from hired professionals when marketing their products and services through social media sites.
ReplyDeleteThe power of social media is rapidly flourishing and has now become the way in which we communicate as marketing and public relations professionals. Social media sites allow specific audiences to be targeted at specific times through specific channels. Utilizing social media sites, such as, facebook and twitter, as marketing tools and PR activity, require professionals to be an active voice behind the organizations marketing and public relations initiatives and to consistently provide relevant and timely information, thus, demanding a tremendous time commitment from marketing and public relations professionals.
The hiring of outside help illustrates the breadth and depth of the social media world. It is important for professionals to become familiar with social media sites and understand social media behaviour and the power that it holds. Essentially, these sites provide opportunities for two-way communication to take place between the senders and receivers of information.
We have seen the rise of social media and the penetration it now has on our marketing and public relations initiatives and we can not deter from it. As professionals it is our job to be aware of what is going on in the world around us. If social media is the current outlet for the way in which we target and engage our audience, we must not resist social media but, rather, adapt to our environment (social media sites) and use it as an effective tool to provide beneficial results.
With the surge of social media amoungst our lives and with more businesses getting outside help to manage it’s social media marketing and public relations activities to manage the flow of inputs and outputs, it makes me wonder what the next form of communication will be.