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For there is Social Media there must be Social PR

First it was known as New Media and now we know it as Social Media.

If there is Social Media, there must be Social PR to keep the sphere in its yin and yang balance.

So what is Social Media and Social PR?

The word “social” itself refers to interaction and Social Media must have something to do with interaction.

So Social Media is a medium that provides content creators to interact with readers and vice versa.

Blogs seems to have filled that role nicely.

A blogger creates content and readers comment on that post almost instantly. 

Blogger finds an interesting post on another blog, cuts and pastes the link in a new post. Readers comment on this new link and if they like it, they share it on their on post or even via Instant Messaging.

You get to see the interaction involved but Social Media isn’t just about blogs or bloggers.

There are other forms of the Social Media. You have the Web1.5 version called the forum where interaction is almost instantaneous. You now have Twitter that is microblogging in 140 characters.

YouTube and Flickr are also Social Media sites as there are forms of interaction in such sites. You love the video or photo, you can comment or you can embed it on your own blog to share with others. And there is the link you can share with your friends via email or IM.

Google adwords is also another form of Social Media as you are looking to entice people to click on the ad when it appears from their interaction with Google search.

However the problem here is that many treat Google Ads as a display Ad rather than to entice that interaction, aka click.

Why then isn’t traditional media isn’t Social Media?

I guess its because the interaction between reader and the traditional media is limited or one mostly one way.

Take print for example. Articles get published in print and readers read article. Reader might interact with journalist by emailing thoughts but it seldom gets published and may take awhile before it gets published.

Yes you can share your newspaper, but this sharing universe is usually within the room itself.

Can you search the news in the papers instantly? While if you reading the news for the day, possibly but what about yesterday’s news or the day before.

Print stories are as good as the day it was printed.

Apply this to Radio and Tv and you see that lack of interaction involved.

If Public Relations is about managing the communication between the brand and their stakesholder, Social PR is about managing that interaction between the brand, this consumer content creator and their readers.

I guess when traditional PR goes into the Social Media space, they stop at the presentation of the brand to the blogger and it ends when the blogger post the article out.

Social PR has to go beyond that and create that interaction.

For example, for events with bloggers, I usually take photos of bloggers in action and post it in a Facebook album. The bloggers are free to share the photos and tag themselves in the photo. This itself is interaction.

Hence, that could possible explain why for events for bloggers, it also about the experience.

A blogger event have to give the bloggers opportunities to interact with the brand or what is being launched.

Spokesperson should interact with bloggers not about asking what they think of the event, but treat them as customers and ask what will make them buy the product, to turn a want into a need.

This is what Social PR is all about. Creating and managing the interaction between your client and the audience.

Is this what Social PR means to you too?

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