There are many channels of communication available in the PR industry, and exponential technological advances providing us with more and more ways of staying connected, it is inevitable that this will only boost the opportunity to communicate with the public. Resources such as the press, publishing, television, radio, internet, word of mouth, and much more, allow Public Relations practitioners to form a relationship with the public.
Selecting the most appropriate channel of communication relies greatly on factors such as the demographics of the target audience, the campaign budget, the image of the company, etc. For example, a fashion company may be more interested in using print publishing to produce glossy magazines showcasing their brand and products, as well as the internet to provide a constantly accessible and updated gallery of their stock. However the fastest growing channel of communication recently, that is becoming a more and more commonly used tool and has sparked interest and discussion in the PR industry, is the world of social media.
Within the past decade, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and many others have been attracting users from teenagers, to small private companies, to huge worldwide corporations. And considering they provide people with the opportunity to connect, interact, and form a relation to billions of people with just a click, it’s no surprise why. Social media arguably has limitless potential for industries to send and receive messages to the public, and this is particularly the case in PR. With the example of Facebook - What was originally created to be a social website in which university students could make friends, has now evolved into a worldwide internet giant that is used for PR and marketing by companies big and small.
Social networking offers many benefits when used as a channel of communication. Statistically, it offers the great advantage of fast, cheap and easy communication to a large percentage of the public. “Social networking is still the fastest-growing active social media behaviour online, increasing from 36% of global Internet users to 59% managing their profile on a monthly basis by the end of 2011.” (Pring, 2012) In 2012, Facebook alone had over 30 million unique users from the UK, which means that “the proportion of the UK total population registered with the site is fast approaching 50%.” In the same year, the social website Twitter showed ever gaining popularity, with the number of users “more than doubling from 12 million to 26 million.” Tumblr also demonstrated growing dominance over the internet, after being awarded “Neilson’s third quarter report putting it at #2 in the UK by page views” in 2011. (Rose, 2012)
Considering this, social media offers a desirable attribute of being a voice to a large chunk of the UK population. Setting up a user account costs nothing and one can register in less than a minute. Furthermore, networks like Facebook and Twitter offer the availability for businesses to pay to advertise and have their products or services pop up to specific users who have shown interest in similar material in the past. This means that the task of creating a strategy for reaching specific groups of people, who would be interested in their company and potential customers, is already done for them.
One example of a successful and effective PR campaign that was based on the social networking website Twitter, was that of UK phone company Orange. They created an active, engaging and entertaining page that offered twitter followers the opportunity to add a little drama to their summer by giving their tweets the ‘Blockbuster voice-over treatment’. All users had to do was to include the hash-tag #thissummer, and write about their plans for the summer holiday, and Orange would take it, generate a dramatic voice-over and reply. Additionally, Orange hosted the voice-overs on its Blog, which helped to produce a stronger online presence and encourage more users to get involved. “Not only did this keep followers engaged with the brand, but it was fun, shareable, and in line with the brand's communication image.” (Sorenson, 2011)
The boom of social media over the past decade offers the advantage to the PR industry, of them having the ability to take a more active and assertive role in communicating with the public. “To say that social media has revolutionized the public relations field is a bit of an understatement. In the past there were two ways to influence your target markets, either through advertising, which lacked credibility, or via the media, which provided credibility but little control. Getting a journalist to tell your story meant letting them tell it their way, which didn't always benefit your organization. However, with the advent of social media, organizations can reach more influencers – directly and at a lower cost – than ever before” (Ann Willets, Utopia Communications). Expanding on this, social networking provides the PR industry the chance to communicate with the public without relying on a middle man to tell their story for them. It provides a more active role in forming a relationship as the risk of the message being distorted by misunderstanding or misrepresentation by the publisher is eliminated.
However, on the other hand the occurrence of bad reviews or dissatisfied customers becomes much more of a problem when published on social networking sites, due to the much larger audience. Whereas previously an unsatisfied customer would potentially complain to some close friends and family about their criticisms, they would possibly only have the power to influence the opinions of a handful of people. But nowadays a Facebook status, Tweet, negative Blog or even Instagram picture can catch the attention of thousands of people in a matter of seconds. This means that one complaint no longer affects a few people; it could affect anyone and everyone.
Companies need to not only be constantly prepared and updated for such an instance, but also have procedures in place that can sufficiently assess and manage this crisis in a swift and effective manner. This relies upon social networking sites being regularly studied, maintaining a constant online presence and leaving customers the opportunity to voice their displeasure to the company. Crisis management could come into effect in this scenario, in particular recognising and admitting an error was made, apologising and making actions to ensure that not only does it not occur again, but also that it does not drastically affect business.
One example of the level of influence social networks can have on business and public image, was in the case of Andrew Sharman and his complaints about a Thompson Holidays trip to Tunisia. After failing to hear back from the company when he wrote to them personally, Andrew took to the internet to vent his annoyance. The Blog “proved so popular that over 10,000 people read it and when surfers typed in the search terms 'Thomson Tunisia trip' and 'Thomson Tunisia review' the Blog was at the top of the search results, ahead of the holiday company's site.” “It wasn't until after he had told Thomson about his Blog's success that it offered him a £595 refund on his £900 holiday.” (Woollaston, 2009). In this example, poor research and management of Thompson’s online public image resulted in them being criticised and having the complaints read by thousands before being dealt with. Crisis management was exercised ineffectively until such point that more damage was done than was ever necessary, and this was all possible by the influence of social media.
There are also many other methods of communication available to the PR industry. As mentioned before, the previous method of communication that was commonly used by PR agents was the printing press. Journalists are a vital tool within PR, as they provide a source of media and advertising to a wide audience, whilst we provide them with a story to fill their pages. Both Journalism and Public Relations offer each other the advantage of easing each other’s job tasks. This was much more the case when newspapers were relied upon as being the most commonly used form of media.
However with the growth of technology taking over the business of the newspaper industry, more and more journalistic roles are being made redundant, and PR roles are becoming more in demand. This means that the task of communicating to the public now is in the hands of public relations staff, as well as constructing the message and ensuring useful feedback is gained. According to investigative reporter Nick Davies, there was an “invisible moment at some point in the last decade when the number of PR people finally exceeded the number of journalists” (Meghji, 2010)
Alongside the print press, multimedia such as TV and Radio are considered to be huge sources of news and therefore a great PR device. Although TV advertising is often an expensive process to produce and air, the benefits of the size of the audience often make this worthwhile. It is also possible to gain free advertising by contacting news channels and enquiring whether or not they would be interested in reporting on it. Following from this, radio communication is often a less costly method of expressing a message to the public. However, it faces the problem that advancements in technology have left the radio as less of a widely used tool. People have access to their own music wherever they go, and this often dominates the business of Radio Stations.
Word of Mouth can also be an extremely advantageous tool in Public Relations, as it generates a fast-spread public communication device without requiring vast amounts of effort. Press releases often generate word of mouth as they suggest a level of gossip information that is new and interesting. “Because of the personal nature of the communications between individuals, it is believed that they are more credible. Research points to individuals being more inclined to believe work of mouth marketing than more formal forms of promotion methods; the listener tends to believe that the communicator is being honest and doesn't have an ulterior motive.” (Wikipedia, 2012)
One example of effective word of mouth communication is by Japanese clothing retailer ‘UNIQLO’. The store has a campaign in which they tell loyal or high profile customers ahead of time, about when a temporary pop-up store is going to open in their city. “If the store is opening on Friday, these lucky few will know about it Thursday evening. The only real benefit of this knowledge is that they get to be the first one to tell all their friends, earning them immediate coolness points.” (Creative brand communications, 2008)
However, word of mouth is often an unreliable method of communication that provides little feedback and is difficult to track the level of public interest or knowledge. Therefore, it is most useful when either combined with other forms of communication such as visual messaging (billboards, flyers etc.). Also, negative news tends to be more in the public interest and travel more effectively than positive news, so it is likely the gossip on the street isn't always what you ideally want the public image of your company to be. Negative messages cannot be spotted and dealt with in the same manner they can on social media, so it is difficult to change the public opinion.
Overall, there are many things to consider when assessing methods and modes of communication used in the PR industry today, and with technology continuing to advance every day, it is better to adapt with the times than get left behind.
Thanks for reading, over and out.
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