Attending Advertising Age’s Digital Marketing Conference, Steve Rubel reports attendee sentiment regarding “management” of social media, tweets, “Where should social media lie? Audience poll: 53% in marketing, 5% say in PR, 9% say customer service and 33% say some new division.”
We think the figure for PR is very low. In my opinion, the function of public relations is best equipped to handle the world of social media. Or at least they should be. They are the folks who, in the past were charged with disseminating and “controlling” what’s said about a given brand in the press. With a fews tweaks to the practice, they are the ones who should help enable and encourage “conversations” which occur about a given brand in the press and on the multitude off social networks.
Far more than marketing (assumed to be mostly advertising) which is charged with delivering a brand’s message through commercial channels, public relations has and will continue to be charged with guiding and influencing a brand’s message in “unpaid” editorial spaces…including the explosion of social media spaces. To us, it just seems a more natural transition from what they already do versus asking ad makers to suddenly stop making ads and start “joining the conversation.”
