Page 36 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

company’s or a brand’s objectives. Many PR professionals also understand how
bad press and traditional PR disasters can be amplified by social media if not
addressed immediately.

But life isn’t that simple, and the relationship between public relations and social
media is a complex one — which is something that the savviest of PR profession-
als understand and have always understood. Public relations is fundamentally
about managing the press (mainstream or alternative) and pushing a company’s
communications agenda out to the world as much as possible. Whether it’s the
mainstream or alternative media, it doesn’t matter. From a public relations pro-
fessional’s perspective, the press is the press, and they’re only as good as their
ability to amplify a company’s message. That’s where the problem lies.

When we look at marketing and how it harnesses social media, some of its core
tenets are in conflict with public relations. For example, social media marketing is
about social influencers influencing each other through social media. The focus is
on the social influencers influencing each other and not on the PR professionals
influencing people in the social media realm. The difference is that as consumers,
we’re trusting and depending upon each other more for advice than on large cor-
porations. The PR professionals, for all their sincerity and skill, will still push a
company’s message as forcefully as they can — and in that, it conflicts with social
media marketing. But still, here’s something extremely important to consider:
The more forward-looking public relations experts approach PR from a broader
communications perspective and have taken the time and energy to understand
the space deeply. Those who do that are much better equipped to understand and
market through social media than other professionals.

Is there a remedy for conflicts between departments? Not necessarily, but as you
deploy social media marketing campaigns, be sensitive to the fact that your goals
and aspirations may be in conflict with your PR organization if it hasn’t embraced
social media or social media marketing. Have a conversation with its staff early
on, find ways to collaborate and delineate boundaries, too — who does what, who
reaches out to whom, and how much space is given to authentic social influencers
to do the influencing versus the PR professionals. And as you do this, keep in mind
that for many PR professionals, social media marketing is an evolution of
PR. That’s a good thing, providing for even more opportunities to collaborate.
And, of course, remember that you may have peers in the public relations depart-
ment who could teach you a thing or two about social media marketing as well!

Online advertising

When it comes to buying online advertising (also referred to as digital media plan-
ning and buying) on websites where your customers spend time, social media mar-
keting plays an important role. Online advertising is about identifying websites that
your target customers visit, buying ad space on those websites, and then

20 PART 1 Getting Started with Social Media Marketing