Social Media Webcast

This week I had to do a webcast for one of the modules in my course. This was the brief:

You are the Social Media Strategist within a PR agency. The MD of the agency has suggested that you produce a short webcast to the agency’s current and prospective clients that introduces them to certain key aspects and issues regarding social media.Your webcast is to address the following areas:

1. What is social media, why is it called socia media?

2. What are the sociological and cultural concepts behind social media and what is their relevance to PR?

3. How will the agency be using social media?

4. What are the benefits to the client?

5. What are the negatives to the client and how will they be dealt with?

Please be kind enough to excuse my poor editing skills :)

Social Media Effects on Stakeholder Magagement

There are different ways in which an organisation can segment its stakeholders and that can depend on the type of the organisation and on the type of campaign. One way to segment an audience is by using the power/interest matrix (see below) which groups stakeholders according to the amount of power they have to influence others and on the level of interest they have on an issue:

This matrix is useful for identifying any blockers or facilitators to the communication efforts and to point out the amount of time and effort that the organisation would need to spend for each group. The power of stakeholders may come from internal or external sources to the organisation and this is where social media come into play.

Social media have given power to people who were not considered so powerful or influential in the past. People on social media monitor organisations and evaluate their behaviour constantly. Using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Blogger, individuals can publicly address any issue of their concern and easily influence others and gain their support. Social media are also favoured by activists and other organisations that aim to expose organisations, as they provide easy access to a large audience and can be used for mobilising groups of people against an organisation.  

Ultimately the basic theory of stakeholder management has not changed as an organisation still needs to identify and group its key stakeholders. What has changed though is the distribution of power among stakeholders and levels of influence. In order to prevent any issues from arising, organisations need to be proactive; they need to engage with key players through an open dialogue (through social media) and keep them satisfied by providing them relevant information and taking into account their feedback on various issues.

Blogs and the 'Social Media Era'

It's no news that nowadays social media are overtaking traditional media. Don't get me wrong, traditional media will always have their place in the PR toolkit. However, social media provide new opportunities for organisations to interact with their publics in a way that was not possible before. With social media you can reach a wide audience, quite easily, with a fast and cost-effective way. Most importantly though, it can raise your brand awareness.

Blogs are a very popular example of social media. A blog can help an organisation communicate it's messages while at the same time allowing people to give feedback and share their own ideas through comments. This  helps to create and maintain a relationship between the organisation and the audience, which is what PR is all about. Therefore, a blog should be treated as face-to-face communication.

For more information about blogging (and a good list of do's and dont's), check out this presentation:

Blogging and video workshop

View more presentations from Matt holland.