Taking Notes: Press Releases

Following up on my post about taking notes on how interviews are structured, I now bring you a prime example of why public relations professionals should do the same with press releases.

The example I'm linking to confirms that untimely death of a professional hockey player in the middle of his career. In the hockey world, this type of press release might be written a few times a decade. In sports in general, it will probably be written 10-20 times a year. So even if you're not in hockey PR, but lets say in baseball PR, you can still find reviewing this press release useful.

Now I know this example is a depressing example, but tough news is always harder to deal with emotionally and mentally then others. Tactfulness and compassion are paramount and time is often short at best. That's why reviewing bad news examples are more important because they have a sense to be more "on the money".

Again, review it, take notes, and stash it away in a folder labeled "Just In Case - PR". Sooner or later, you'll be looking at this folder for one reason or another and it's always better to be prepared with examples that you have previously found to be a great that look over.

And remember, topics you want to look out for can be about anything - good or bad.

Taking Notes: Interview Preparation

One important responsibility of a good PR department is preparing a subject before an interview. This isn't something that's taught in school and they more you do it, the better you get at it. But that doesn't mean you, as a PR professional, need to actually prepare an interview subject to gain valuable experience.

One exercise that I like to do to watch interviews about important, controversial or breaking news. I try to study the interview process to see how the journalist is shaping the interview, how the questions progress, what types of questions are being asked, etc. I do this so I can have a better understanding of what to expect if I ever have to prepare one of my clients or supervisors for an interview about a similar subject. (I do the same with reviewing press conferences, press and media releases, website/social media coverage.)

"60 Minutes" reporter Steve Croft recently interviewed President Barack Obama about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound and spoke to Poynter about how he structured his interview that the entire world would be watching.

While I will probably never have to prepare the President of the United States for any type of interview, being able to get into the head of a veteran journalist like Steve Croft holds invaluable lessons that every PR professional should take note of.

Crisis Communication & Social Media

I previously wrote about using social media as part of a crisis communication plan. About a month ago, Tonya Garcia of PRNewser tackled this topic using General Electric as an example of how not to use Twitter to deceive the public. More importantly, Ms. Garcia detailed three steps that will help turn a negative PR event into a one that will not sting as much.

The article focused on using Twitter to help set the record straight, but in my opinion other social media platforms can be used just as effectively. For example, Facebook can be used to host Q&A chats and post responses.

The point isn't about which social media platform would work better in this situation, rather this should serve as a reminder for public relations professionals to include using social media as part of your crisis communication plan because it's the quickest and most direct way to communicate with all of your audiences. Just make sure you tell the truth.

What To Do First: Email or Phone Call?

I was taught to always pick up the phone and call a reporter because it's more personal. More veteran (older) PR supervisors wanted me to do the same when I mentioned I was going to email a journalist. Picking up and dialing the phone was how so many PR - Reporter/Journalist relationships were built for many years. But now in 2011, is it better to send an email when reaching out to a reporter/journalist?

It will always depend on the reporter or journalist in question. You might be contacting a reporter who is 75 years old and hates email. Obviously a phone call is better in that case. But how many times have you as a PR professional unknowingly called a reporter who was on a tight deadline to pitch a story? Do you remember how annoyed they were when you called?

This topic was discussed in an ABA Journal article that also had responses to the question.

I'm a big proponent of emailing a reporter first because you give them a chance to read your pitch on their time, one that is good for them. If you do not get a response back, then follow up with a phone call. But maybe first contact doesn't have even have to be through traditional email: You can use Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter if you know how to use it correctly.

The main thing is know how the reporter/journalist wants to be contacted. At first you might not know how. There are websites and programs that try to provide this information for the price of their subscription fee. But you can also try contacting their news desk and ask if they know how.

For me, it usually email first. Times have changed and PR professionals have to change their communications habits as well.

How Stressful Are PR Jobs?

An article on Yahoo! Finance discussed a report that named "Public Relations Executive" as the second most stressful job in America. It feel right behind "Commercial Airline Pilot" and right above "Senior Corporate Executive". The author of the original report cited his main reason as: "Public relations executives are "completely at the mercy of their clients and buyers." I really don't buy it.

A PR job can certainly be stressful, but just as much as any other job. I believe PR jobs are only stressful if your no confident in your ability to connect with people. The success rate for PR professionals are similar to bating averages in baseball: It's a given that you're going to fail more times then succeed when pitching stories and you can succeed less then three out of 10 times and still be great at what you do.

It's how you handle your successes along with your failures internally that will decided how stressful your PR job will be. And that can be said for every job.

The Misconceptions of the PR

If you’re a Public Relations professional that has ever worked for a private business or organization, you’ve most likely run into the problem of co-workers having no idea what public relations really is. It can come from an executive or an entry-level employee and it mostly like contained the phrase: “Can’t the PR department just do that?”

The art of public relations has been around since the beginning of time – the ancient Greeks and Romans were masterfully skilled at it. But the industry has been given a glamorous (please forgive me) spin in the past 10-to-20 years with TV shows and movies showing public relations professionals sipping martinis with music stars in limos. On his website, Jackson Wightman put together a list of 21 things PR is not and I agree with almost all his points.

My favorite not-to-dos on his list are No. 5 and 6: (Never) Ever guaranteed to generate coverage and (PR is never) Ever 100% controllable.

Just having a story or brand to pitch isn’t enough anymore, even for the best practitioners. It has to be interesting to people who have no attachment to the product. Often, CEO’s/Presidents/Executives think that everyone loves their product and story and have no reason not to and if journalists don’t pick it up, then it’s the PR departments fault. Well, it actually can just be the brand is boring in it’s current state and/or form.

As for No. 6, unless something unethical is going on between the public relations team and the media, chances are a bad story won’t just go away. A good PR professional can share the company’s standpoint and try to show the journalist their side of the equation. But once a journalist decides to run with a story, chances are it will be published. Only in rare instances can a PR pro make a deal to sweep one story under the carpet because they can offer up a bigger story in return in the not-to-distant future.

I would also add a No. 22 to the list: Easy.

Public Relations is not something that anyone can just start doing. I went to college specifically for a degree in public relations. In the last 10-to-15 years, more and more universities are offering specific degrees in public relations as opposed to a blanket degree in mass media and journalism for those who want to go into the industry. A marketing degree might help, but you would still be missing a lot. A degree in finance or pre-law? No thank you. Just because you watched the Sex and the City series or the movie Thank You For Smoking doesn’t make you an expert in public relations.

Public Relations is a lot of things. A lot of good things. But for some reason, as an industry, public relations professionals haven't pitched what their work really is effectively to the outside world. Misconceptions will only continue until we do.

LINK: Perfect PR Pitches

As a guest writer for Ragen's PR Daily, New York Times tech columnist David Pogue shared his thoughts on what constitutes a good story pitch from PR professionals. (Click here to view)


The only way for PR professionals to know how effective they are at pitching is not necessarily to see how often their pitches get picked up by the media, rather to directly ask the journalists they are pitching. Sometimes a PR professional can throw the perfect pitch, but the journalist just doesn't have the time, space or ability to commit to the story. 


But as Pogue illustrates from a journalist's point of view, there is a need for pitches to be unique and have newsworthy elements. Just because you think your pitch relates to something that will interest the general public, doesn't mean it will interest the media. PR professionals have to assume that the journalists they are pitching have been previously contacted about something very similar to what they are trying to sell.

And Pogue is absolutely correct that pitches and press release not only have to be clear and concise, but also unique and interesting.

A Voice to Defend

Social media platforms give organizations (and public relations professionals) a quick and direct voice to the world and that voice could be used to communicate with and to the media.

In the old paradigm, an organization would have to place an opinion-editorial column in a newspaper if they needed to voice their opinion on a subject or defend themselves, usually written by public relations professionals. Today, social media platforms allow organizations to directly and instantly communicate their desires. An important aspect of this is communicating directly with the media, especially if the specific media in question is the intended direction of defense.

In the sports Twitterverse (Twitter Universe), I have seen a more then a few teams defend themselves to journalists on Twitter or Facebook after a story or column ran that they felt was incorrect or inappropriate. Social media platforms give teams a voice to fight back and this is something that journalists didn’t have to deal with as frequently in the past. This isn’t an action I would recommend a team’s public relations staff take regularly, but if appropriate, it can be a great tool for them.

Social media platforms allow for public relations professionals to fight back when they receive media coverage that they believe is in error. This is a dangerous method to use because it is usually public for everyone to see (as oppose to a private phone call, e-mail or letter), but if the timing is correct it is an advantageous tool to use, although one that should be used extremely carefully, selectively and seldom.

Update: April 1, 2011
Along the same lines as the blog post above, social media platforms allow for an immediate avenue of access for crisis communication plans. As part of the old news cycle, responses driven by public relations professionals were at the mercy of the news cycle. With social media, a crisis communication plan can start immediately with your side/response at the forefront of the news. Social media should be part of every crisis communication plan.

Interactions on Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms have created additional direct methods of communications between many groups of individuals that public relations professionals must be aware of. They consist of (in no particular order or terminology): Consumer/Brand, Consumer/Media and Brand/Media.

In these models, public relations professionals are a part of the “brand” and even in the model that features only the “consumer” and “media”, the “brand” (PR professionals) must follow their communication because the feedback going back and forth is important. The image or perception of the brand can also be affected and needs to be monitored as well.

Since the media are on multiple social media platforms, communication directed to and from journalists is increasing due to the simplistic methods social media provides. This pattern shift shows that journalists are not only speaking to their followers and/or fans through their traditional publication medium, but also through social media platforms.

Social media platforms allow journalists to voice their opinion - or additional opinions - on subjects or events they have covered, opined or even have no direct relation to. That last part adds to the monitoring that public relations professionals are responsible for.

Jeremy Porter from Journalistics.com commented in an Internet article:

“What has changed is the direction of the arrows in traditional mass communications model. Back in the day, you had your message, the medium and the mass. Rip that page out of the book and throw it away. Today, you have people interacting with people. It’s two-way, with a lot more listening going on. You still rely on a medium to communicate your message – but you use it to listen now, and there are a lot of media options.”

“Mainstream” Journalists Use Social Media

An early, but crucial battle that social media platforms won in the communications revolution is when the “mainstream” media began publishing news on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. That move signaled to the world that social media platforms are legitimate enough to deliver their most important type of news -- breaking news.

At the same time, using social media platforms have turned the job of journalists from being ready to report the news at anytime to actually reporting the news at anytime on a consistent basis. So not only do social media platforms bring a new breed of journalists for public relations to interact with, it changes the behavior of “mainstream” journalists.

This is another, but important paradigm shift that public relations professionals must be aware of.

Mainstream Media vs. New “Social” Media

Is there a difference between a blogger who has been granted permission to cover an event, sits next to a reporter from a newspaper and updates his blog every ten minutes compared to a person on Twitter who has a large following with a desire to report on the same event?

Determining if there are any differences is one of the first steps in deciding if someone who only uses a social media platform is a "legitimate reporter". That determination will most likely fall on the shoulders of public relations professionals.

Internet websites and blogs have pushed the news cycle from 24-hours to continuous. Social media platforms pushed the new news cycle even further from continuous to immediate. Personal opinions on what a "legitimate journalist" should be or the method of how they report flew out the window years ago when Internet websites and blogs became accepted sources of news.

If the general public continues to accept social media platforms as a source for breaking news, public relations professionals will have no choice but to accept them as part of the mainstream media.

As the communications revolution continues to unfold, public relations professionals must follow how trends are changing and be flexible with them, even if that includes accepting social media platforms as legitimate sources of media.

The Media with Social Media

When the age of the Internet blew onto the scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s with new websites popping up every day, there was a great debate on how they should be treated as legitimate journalistic sources compared to the mainstream media stalwarts such as newspapers, magazines and television and radio stations.

Today, many websites with no connection to the aforementioned media stalwarts are now accepted as legitimate news sources. It was a long, hard battle for Internet websites, but it was a battle that many won. In 2010, a similar battle is being waged with social media enthusiasts looking for accreditation and acceptance as a news source that can report at and from live events.

As they were when Internet websites were seeking acceptance, public relations professionals are at the forefront of the decision-making process that will determine when and how social media journalists become accredited.

So... Should people who use social media platforms as their only means of reporting be credentialed just as mainstream and blogging media?

No "Undo" In Social Media

As quick, instant and easy as it is to send a positive message or promotion on the various social media platforms, it is as just as quick, instant and easy to send a bad one.

Whether intentional or accidental, tongue-in-cheek, politically incorrect, or otherwise, a bad statement can be broadcasted over the Internet via a social media platform. And just as a positive news item can go viral on the Internet because of social media platforms, a poor or mistimed statement can have the same fate, albeit a disaterious one.

Yes, there is a delete button, but that doesn’t erase the statement forever. If just one person sees it and responds to it, it can live forever in cyberspace and still spread. And even if no one sees it before it is delete, web search engines like Google continuously patrol social media platforms and record a history or “cache” of what is being submitted and broadcasted and there is no way of deleting it from there.

Every Tweet, Facebook or LinkedIn status update must be made carefully and when statements are made through social media platforms, public relations professionals must as certain they are appropriate just as if they were going in a press release.

Always Being "On"

While the evolution of social media has many exciting advantages, it also has carries some drawbacks. Public relations professionals must be aware of the negative aspects of social media because they can be just as harmful as the advantages can be helpful. The drawbacks range from being on the preverbal corporate clock every second of the day to producing statements that reflect poorly on the image of organization or company.

24/7 & Every Second Counts

It goes hand-in-hand with the continuous news cycle and takes the 24-hours a day, seven-days a week approach of the Internet to a new level. Whether it’s the media, consumers or rivals in the business field, everyone is always “on” in the social media universe. And because one of the advantages is being able to "respond" quickly, a public relations professional must be able to deal with any type of negative situation just as immediately while using social media.

And just as having a message go viral can be a great for a company or organization, it can just easily be disastrous with negative attention. Since social media platforms are continuously growing with users, the effects of a negative viral event could have a crippling effect.

Adam Singer of The Future Buzz pointed out there are "400 million active Facebook users ... 50 million Tweets per day ... 133 million blogs that create 900,000 blog posts every 24 hours ... and around 77% of internet users read blogs…" 

With that information in hand, it's important to remember that people tend to notice the bad more then the good. There’s a lot of people on the Web to see the bad news if and when it hits.

Want to go Viral?

In a time when the word “viral” is associated more with a “web sensation” then a disease, it is important for public relations professionals to be able to take advantage of using the Internet to form connections with unintended consumers. Having a video, game, picture, or some other type of item "go viral" allows for opportunities for those types of connections.

Remember the Dancing
Baby from Ally McBeal
circa 1996?

From a PR perspective (but also true from other perspectives), having an Internet or news item go viral on the web means the reach has surpassed its intended audience and is now being reached by consumers who were not originally targeted thus being viewed by thousands or millions of people in a short time period. If the message is positive, then the company or organization has hit the jackpot.

Designing something specifically to go viral is extremely difficult and predicting what Internet surfers want to spend their time looking at is just as, if not more, difficult. In the past few years, social media/networking websites have allowed things to go viral on the Internet easier and occur everyday.

While designing a viral sensation on the Internet might fall on the shoulders of a marketing department (if it's even visible or possible), public relations professionals should be able to identify opportunities if a positive viral item falls into their lap and then be able to promote it and gain further traction and publicity from it.

Of course, further promoting the viral item would only be a plan of action if it's positive. If the viral item is negative, well, that's a whole other discussion.

Instant Reactions and Statements

Imagine something newsworthy just happened to your company, organization, etc... Good or bad, it doesn't matter for this exercise. As the public relations official you feel a statement needs to be made, so you draw up a press release to send out to the news desks or make phone calls trying to book your CEO or president on a TV or radio station. Your problem? It takes time to issue a press release or book a radio/TV spot (then get on the air). And in all that time, there's still not statement from your office.

Social media has an answer to the problem we've all had at one point or another.

Just as social media platforms created a continuous news cycle for journalists, it also created a platform and news cycle that allows for instant reactions and statements from companies and organizations via the public relations staff. 

If at any time good or bad news breaks, a savvy public relations professional would not need to reach out to the news media to react with a comment, statement or their side of the story. Instead, social media platforms allow for public relations professionals to release their message directly and on their timeline and terms. This development is different from issuing a press release because only the media would receive the message whereas social media platforms are open to the public and media and consumers can receive the message instantaneously and simultaneously.

The same can be said about running promotions: instant, short-term and long-term. To get a promotional message delivered, public relations professionals no longer need to rely on the media to convey it or hope the intended audience visits their website in a timely fashion. Social media platforms allow for instant connections to an audience that is directly interested in the promotion message with results that can be measured just as quickly.

Want Better Measurability?

Any PR pro has been asked this question by a superior or co-worker when presenting or pitching an idea: "How many people are we going to reach?"

You can quote circulation or ratings, but the bottom line is that the ability to measure reach is limited with "traditional" media.

Social media changes that. Social media platforms and measurability are almost synonymous with each other because every platform has some type of count for friends, followers, connections, replies, link forwards, etc.

Now for the first time, public relations professionals have the ability to see in real time how many people are being reached with a specific placement. These “followers” on any social media platform usually have some level of interest in the subject they are following, so not only is placement on a social media platform as good as a specialty publication, the transparency exists of who actually is absorbing the placement.

In a numbers orientated business world, public relations professionals who reach out through social media platforms now have the ability to quickly and accurately measure the audience that is absorbing the information.

This is a new lifeline that PR pros would be foolish to ignore.

Using Social Media to Make Connections

Social media platforms offer an avenue of communication for public relations professionals to make contact with or reach out to journalists in any realm of publication. Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace offer the opportunity for these connections to be made in non-pressure situations.

Instead of a potentially uncomfortable or ill-timed introductory conversation via a phone call (we've all had more then we would like to admit), connections between public relations professionals can be made through social media platforms. Then, when the situation presents itself, a public relations professional has a means to contact the journalist they are attempting to reach out to for a particular story or event.

Public relations professionals must be able to use social media platforms as a way of communication. Not only is it simple, quick and direct, it is now becoming a preferred way of communication as opposed to cold-calling.

Advantages of SM (Cont.): Social Media = Increased Contacts

More Outlets to Reach Out

Complementing the advantage of the social media news cycle are the advantages that social media platforms and blogs provide as additional media outlets to pitch products and/or stories to. Public relations professionals have been able to reach out to blogs for at least five years, but every day gives birth to more blogs that are accepted as legitimate sources for news and commentary just as a newspaper would be. As such, public relations professionals must stay on top of new, legitimate blogs as resource to reach out just as they would with new print publications.

As reaching out to bloggers has become a commonplace practice for public relations professionals, contacting Tweeters (a person on/using Twitter) is the next big step for public relations professionals. While Tweeter could be anyone, public relations professionals can concentrate on print/web journalists, bloggers or savvy social media users that have a large following to reach out to with story or product ideas. If pitched successfully, a Tweeter with a large following can deliver a quick news tidbit, opinion and/or website link about a company or organization. Depending on the size of the Tweeters following, this information is directly delivered to consumers as quickly as hard breaking news can be.

My Take: A Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. user makes a conscious decision to follow someone on that service and as such they tend to accept their opinions at face value. So if the Tweeter recommends a website or product, their followers are more likely to, at least, check it out or look at it then if they went to a third party news source that offers less interaction between author and reader.

Even with the limit of 140 characters on Twitter, a well-placed Tweet can provide as much or better exposure then a commentary in a print publication. Pound-for-pound, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms hold their own for product placement.

Advantages of Social Media: Continuous News Cycle

Social media platforms offer many advantages that public relations professionals not only should take advantage, but also must take advantage of in order to stay with the innovation curve of the trade. These range from changes in the new cycle, reaching out to and making new connections with the media and to producing instant statements to the world.

The Continuous News Cycle

One aspect or feature of using any social media platform that stands out among others is the quickness of being able to share and spread information. The information being shared could be personal, opinion based or most importantly for this topic, news worthy.

Here's one take: Any type of service that allows a reporter to deliver breaking news to thousands/millions of people in literally two seconds is going to stick around. Social media platforms such as Twitter - or Facebook with its status updates - has the ability to deliver information to an unlimited amount of people simultaneously.

What makes this different from television or a news website is that social media platforms aggregate information from different sources into one place, meaning, a user on Twitter can be following numerous news reporters and Twitter’s website or a Twitter application or program will continuously compile the Tweets of everyone who they are following and deliver the information in one place. Facebook’s interface or feed is very similar. Instead of watching multiple news channels on television or constantly refreshing or visiting multiple websites, a social media user can view information from several sources at the same time and in one place.

Why is this an advantage to public relations professionals? It is an advantage because social media platforms allow for quick, easy and mass dissemination of news and/or press releases to an audience either through news reporters, fellow followers (through forwarding, ReTweeting) or the company itself. Just as the Internet threw out the traditional 24-hour news cycle, social media is retransforming the Internet news cycle which is no longer limited to the time of how often a website is revisited, but how often any news organization updates one of its social media feeds.

Some Effects of Social Media on PR

The responsibilities for implementing, overseeing and running a companies or organizations social media strategy or set-up are usually assigned to the public relations or marketing departments. One recent study estimated that public relations or marketing departments control about 90 percent of corporate social media platforms with the other ten percent consisting of a department specifically created for social media. Whenever a company or organization makes an official statement of any sort, the public relations staff is usually involved and that’s a big aspect of the overall plan of action. Even in instances where a marketing or new media department generally oversees social media platforms, the public relations staff is involved in some way, shape or form. After all, any message sent across a social medium platform can be interpreted as an official statement.

It wasn’t imperative for public relations professionals to know much about social media ten or even five years ago, let alone be involved in the planning or dissemination of a social media platform initiative. Only recently have public relations professionals been forced to monitor social media platforms for mentions or hits just as they would if their company was mentioned in the New York Times, Time Magazine or on CNN. As similarly to as when e-mailing a press release became an accepted and commonplace practice, a paradigm shift has occurred for public relations professionals with social media. But unlike the shift to e-mailing press releases, the social media phenomenon that has come about in the last few years is multifaceted to the “nth” degree.

In addition to monitoring the various social media platforms for company or organizational mentions and hits, it is just as imperative for a company or organization to be involved in the social media universe. Being directly involved with a Facebook page or a Twitter account presents the ability for a company or organization to have control of all of the benefits that are available in the social media universe. Even in instances where a marketing or new media department oversees or controls the social media platforms, public relations professionals can still use social media to their benefit and growth of the product they are promoting.

While there are many benefits in the social media universe, there are always disadvantages or consequences that public relations professionals must be aware of. These are just the general effects of social media on the public relations industry. The rest of this exploration on the effects that social media has on public relations will investigate the advantages and drawbacks that public relations professionals face everyday in the social media universe. Understanding the general effects of social media is not enough for public relations professionals because a proverbial star-chart of the advantages and drawbacks of the social media universe is needed to stay on course for today’s public relations expedition.

Identifying Social Media

The first step for public relations professionals in understanding how to use social media to their benefit is identifying what exactly can be used as a social media platform.

There are dozens among hundreds of websites and programs on the Internet that can be classified as social media platforms, but not everything communication-related can be classified as social media. Social media heavyweights consists of, but not limited to, websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace. The middleweight social media platforms range from, but not limited to, websites such as LinkedIn to del.icio.us to Classmates.com. These are examples of social media platforms being a commonplace for anyone on the Internet to visit, develop their own identity, share it openly with others and connect and network with others.

A Facebook page can connect hundreds of people by common education networks or similar interest groups. A YouTube channel can connect people across the world with common interests. A Twitter account can disseminate news or updates to millions of “followers” in less then two seconds because connections were made based on like interests.

However, not everything on the Internet where communication takes places can be considered social media. For example, instant messaging (using programs such as AOL/AIM, Yahoo! Messenger or iChat) or e-mail group lists (where users sign-up for e-mail updates on a regular basis) are not examples of social media because even though the number of individual communications can increase, those platforms cannot grow beyond its means.

Social media can be found anyplace on the Internet where one platform is used to make connections or networks with others that has the potential for exponential growth. Once identified, public relations professionals can use social media platforms as a device to communicate not only with their intended or targeted audience (including consumers), but with journalists and maybe more importantly with a non-targeted audience that has been introduced by accidentally networking.

An Introduction to Social Media

Not since the first pitch letter was e-mailed or the first press release posted on the Internet has the public relations industry encountered as big of a paradigm shift as it is currently seeing with social media. A web search on the Internet for the definition of the term social media will populate hundreds or thousands of answers varying in terminology, length and detail making it difficult to narrow down a singular meaning or concept into one or two sentences. The experts of social media will each have their own definition and that will be different then the Average Joe’s who is using one social media platform to discuss the topic on another social media application.

Since there is no one particular, widely accepted definition, I will define social media for the purpose of my exploration into the topic as a person or entity using a Internet platform, application or website to communicate, connect, discuss or network with an audience ranging from a single person or group of people which may or may not be an intended or have a specified target. Or more simply, social media is a vehicle in which people communicate with each other publicly over the Internet.

An important aspect of understanding social media is that it does not consist of any one specific medium to communicate over the Internet. At the same time, social media does not include every medium or method of communicating over the Internet. A social media medium is using a platform over the Internet to communicate with a group of people that can continuously grow and evolve along with the platform itself and has public characteristics.

As the Internet continues to evolve, methods of communication through that medium expand anywhere from simple to more complex and many of these methods fall under the social media category. Furthermore, anywhere that communication exists is an opportunity for information to be exchanged, and as such, public relations professionals must not only be aware of what social media is, but how it effects their profession, how to utilize it to their advantage to get their message across and be aware of its benefits and drawbacks.