Our daily lives revolves around technology and a large portion of us can't envision going a day without logging on the web or utilizing our mobile phones. New media has turned into a standard in our social order and the public relations sphere, with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and numerous additionally holding a unique and essential part in the everyday lives. The thought behind new media is to empower public relations practitioner to cut across channels and is all about engaging with individuals, holding conversations not relying on press releases and launches.
From my opinion, handling new media should not be taken care of lightly by public relations practitioners. As the PR 1.0 changed into PR 2.0, there are many challenges faced by public relations practitioners in handling negative environment of social media. Any company or an organization should not ignore the negative social media, as it would bring harm to its image and reputation as a whole that will automatically affect the sales of the company. A good example of PR practitioners taking negative environment of the new media that dealt a great damage to the company/organization would be like what Syahmi had reviewed under ‘The One With The Applebee’s Social Media Meltdown’, on ‘the third mistake’.
There are five reasons why ignoring negative social media is a bad idea and why the CS and PR executives who follow this policy have an expiration date on their careers: (http://socialmediatoday.com/paulkiser/383408/5-reasons-why-ignoring-negative-social-media-career-ender-vp-customer-service)
1. A negative Social Media comment is forever. It doesn't fade and it doesn't go away.
2. A negative blog can and will be found by any Google search of your company. Why would a CS or PR executive let people who search for their company be exposed to everything said by the people who hate you?
3. Bad comments on Social Media are cumulative. When someone is mad at your company they will search to find other people who feel the same way, and then you have a movement of people who are united against your company.
4. Waiting to address bad publicity only makes a company look like they are hiding something when they finally do publicly address the issue, which is a lose, lose, loser in damage control.
5. Once a company wakes up and realizes that ignoring bad PR is a stupid idea, how long will the implementer of that policy have before the company seeks someone who is smarter about handling negative Social Media?
Should every PR department have a ‘Technological PR’ branch just so that they can cater to the masses by using new media? Yes, I believe so. The fact that a company or an organization can reach to millions of people without having to spend so much is a definite bonus. Literally by having a person in charge as Technological PR under the PR Department would bring so many benefits to the company or an organization.
I personally think that the best advantage of having new media in the public relations work sphere that trumps above the rest is the ability in communicating with the consumers and vice versa. What else that is more important than the consumers? Visibility? Speed? Credibility? Transparency? Internal assurance? None, it all revolves around the consumers. There are many ways for public relations practitioners to communicate effectively with the consumers by using new media, some are through: brand awareness, message broadcasting, and one-on-one communicating in forums or comments.
New media has contributed to many positive things to the industry, but also it is additionally affecting the public relations circle negatively. In my own view, the availability of new media means that each and every one of the PR practitioners can be a publisher, editor and a journalist. Public relations practitioners no longer hold the word ‘PR’ alone when they are immersed in social media platforms.
The dark side of new media towards the PR industry is the crucial and suffocating time period that a PR practitioner has to deal with. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and no holiday. Sounds great? A new role for PR practitioners has formed, scanning every single thing about your company/organization that’s being mentioned on the Internet at every second. If a PR practitioner missed in dealing with a hate comment by a consumer for a short period of time, the world will take notice and the company/organization better start preparing for ‘war’. Luckily there is RSS, luckily.
What I further think about the bad effects that new media brought towards the PR field is that, the transparency. Sure, being a PR practitioner with ethics you must not tell lies and cover ups, but there are white lies. White lies that benefits all, the company, consumers and stakeholders. But with the emergence of new media, companies/organizations are basically doing businesses under a microscope of the eyes of the world. What the PR practitioner does, what the person in the company does, especially all the wrong steps taken, would all be transparent to everyone. How to cope this matter? Just admit the wrong doings and divert for the best.
To conclude, there are many more sides of new media in the public relations sphere. Public relations practitioners must use new media to its full advantage as it is easier, not time consuming and cost effective for a job to be done, but one must take notice in handling the bad side of it. Like what the article had mentioned, the best key in dealing with negative new media is to have a proper-constructed strategies of which I couldn’t agree more. The arrival of new media has changed the terrain of PR roles over the years and has questioned whether the traditional media is better than the new media?
The big question is, should public relations practitioners use new media as a platform in solving the issue of bad effects of new media towards public relations field? Irony. Let’s leave that to the imagination…. or we can freely discuss below!
Written and expressed by,
Mohd Ihsan Mohd Noor.
Based and inspired by an article on: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/03/21/impact-social-media-public-relations
Syahmi’s review link: http://www.thisisfivesee.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-one-with-applebees-social-media.html
ihsan you pretty much explain abt everything already. so i'll jump straight to your big question, new media as platform in solving the issue of bad effects of new media towards public relations field.
ReplyDeleteok.
i'd say, why not. you finish it the way you started it. new media is very important and seems to remain relevant for many more years to come. you dont wanna lose your credibility handling the virtual world over just an issue.
Should public relations practitioners use new media as a platform in solving the issue of bad effects of new media towards public relations field? If you guessed YES then DINGDINGDING!! Hahaha. But yes, I think yes. In my humble opinion, I agree with this statement. Using new media to solve something caused by new media is not contradicting. Neither is it complementing. But it can be done. Like what Shila said, new media is very important. There's no escaping it now. Just imagine, if not social media, what would you do?
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