The PR industry is changing for good. Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter have completely redefined the paradigm of public relations. A couple of years back, it would have been hard to imagine a micro-blogging service, all of 140 characters messages and that too not landing directly in your Inbox could be used as an effective means for maintaining public relations.Social Media vs. Public Relations
For a long time, social media was viewed as a competitor to conventional PR techniques. When the Twitter user is arise, its popularity increased and it reduced the gap between social media and PR industry. And now, with thousands of Twitter’s PR success stories, it is widely viewed as the best PR technique in today’s age of Web 2.0
Twitter is not a tool to replace conventional PR techniques but it’s a way of augmenting the organization’s PR capabilities. Rather, it helps spread the message to a much wider audience than any other legacy PR mode.
Good Customer Service, Great Public Relations
In order to get good publicity, it is important for an organization to provide good service. Twitter provides an unparallel mode of instant & real-time customer service. Queries can be answered instantaneously and the word spreads faster than wild fire.
Many companies have realized that Twitter is not only a great tool for marketing, it’s also an innovative medium of providing great customer service, thereby leading to a good public reputation and strong public relations.
Brand Monitoring
Twitter is a great place to monitor your brand’s reputation online. You get to know what people are talking about your brand. You can search for people who’d potentially be interested in your brand and reach out to them. Using Twitter’s advanced search functionality and several 3rd party tools, you can determine if your brand is loosing its charm amongst customers and appropriately take corrective action.
Knowledge is Power
The PR industry thrives on knowledge and what better than an easily presentable source of vast knowledge like Twitter. As you follow and interact with more people, you gain more knowledge. Be it peers, competitors or clients, following them on Twitter makes sense as you gain more insights into their opinions.
Twitter is an always online 24 x 7 community with several knowledgeable and thoughtful people, so why not make the best out of it? As a wise man once said, there’s nothing better than learning from the pros.
Bill Gates once said “If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relationships”. I’d rather say “If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it accessing Twitter to build public relations”
source: Douglas Idugboe
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