More businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon – but not necessarily on the social media web sites that you may think of at first. According to the study conducted by Michael Stelzer, it appears that 88 percent of businesses are using Twitter (of course), blogs, LinkedIn, and Facebook – in that exact ranking order. I was not surprised by how highly ranked Twitter was, but I was surprised to see that blogs were ahead of Facebook. But then again – I am not because blogs allow individuals to write on various issues that are relevant to them, but they might not necessarily do this in a social networking site like Facebook.
There were other interesting findings to this study, and I think that public relations professionals need to understand the impact that this has on businesses and their stakeholders. Social media is changing how corporations, businesses, and others operate. At the same time, it is changing the public relations industry as well. More specialized firms and agencies are developing and focusing primarily on social media practices for businesses. One of these agencies is iStrategyLab. Their mission is focusing on “developing great ideas that sell your products and services or advance your cause” (About & Contact, n.d.). This is really interesting to see – and I think that public relations professionals need to make sure that they are aware of this.
Well, I best be off to finalize my guest lecture presentation tomorrow. I will be speaking at Lisa Gary’s CCI 150 class on Social Media and Public Relations – I am really looking forward to it! 🙂 Anyway, I hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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