Social Meda and PR

If you are thinking about making your foray into social media, you need to be thinking PR.

That's right. Just because its on the Internet doesn't mean its all up to your interactive team. Social media is first and foremost about talking directly to your consumer. And the person on your side of the conversation better be responsive, on topic, and conversational (that means not a sales guy). When's the last time you put a programmer in front of a customer?

And it's not a copywriter from your creative staff either. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are plenty of great creative copywriters out there that can do the job. But this is really about public relations.

We talk about Interactive Public Relations with respect to social media in terms of three steps that all build on top of each other: Monitor, Analyze, Engage.

There are many great monitoring tools to help you get an idea of what conversations are happening out there with respect to your brand or product. Google Alerts, while very basic, is a free and effective way to get started. For those who are ready to take the next step in monitoring, I would suggest taking a look at Radian6 (check out my past post on Radian6 here).

While monitoring is mostly going to be handled by an automated service, you will have to handle the analysis yourself. This is where you take a look at the conversations taking place and derive your insights. Who and where are the most vocal communities? What are they saying? Do they like you? Are they looking for different offerings you are not providing?

Finally, engagement is your opportunity to get in the game and where your PR team comes front and center. They will help you respond to these conversations that would otherwise happen without you. They can address false rumor and accusation, provide insight into products or services, enlighten an interested community, and ultimately be the live ambassador to your brand.

Comments

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Yes,I think that Monitoring, Analysis, Engage with respect to social media in public relations is mainly helping in to know the conversations about your product.

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