There’s no way around using social media to connect with your target market in today’s online environment where most of your prospects will have a smartphone, tablet or spend a significant amount of time in front of their laptop or desktop computer. If you’re a company that’s looking to stay current and viable in today’s business landscape, you need to understand the thinking behind the catchphrase, social media public relations.
It’s all about building on the old public relations model where you would get a firm to manage the connection you had with a particular targeted group through press releases, radio, other print mediums and even television. Fast forward to today’s hyper connected online world where magazines have been replaced with mobile and newspapers with a variety of modern networking options. Consider these stats about one of the more popular mediums, Facebook.
• Users 18 to 29 on the social media platform have a median of 300 friends and 73% of Americans 12-17 years are on Facebook .
• One of most respected gurus who understands the importance of social media public relations, Mark Zuckerberg, was quoted as saying: “A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising,” when talking about the importance of Facebook ads all the way back in 2007.
There’s an underlying principle here that can’t be ignored and that’s the fact the days of media and advertising being pushed at people are over. Today, the best social media public relations firms understand the need to involve their prospects in a mutually beneficial conversation where the company selling and the consumers buying ride a consensual wave where they inform each other.
Social Media Relations Launch Points
There’s more than a few advantages to these new breed relationships that use social media platforms as their launch point. For the company that’s using Twitter, Facebook and a host of other sites to augment their social media public relations efforts, you can drill deep and find out about your target market’s interests, behavior, connections and education.
Consider just one of the findings that noted research institute Statistic Brain has complied on Facebook. The total revenue for this bastion of social media public relations last year alone was $12,466,000,000 and that’s up from $7,872,000,000 only the year before. That’s a clear indication this is a solvent example of a company that has tapped into a new market and a great indication of how social media public relations can work for you.
