Public Relations. Huh?

The common question when meeting new people. So, what do you study? What do you do?

Response: PR/ Public Relations

We (PR people) usually get a blank stare, followed by: What is that? 

It can be frustrating yes, but just because we (The PR elite haha) found out about this lovely course does not mean everyone else knows about it. To be honest I read about PR by accident. I was reading up on somatology and saw PR in the corner, I read it and the description suited my personality. Outgoing, fun, creative etc so I thought I would take the chance and go for it. 

It all worked out. I love PR. <3

But not everyone knows exactly what we as PR practitioners do. And I try to put it in simple terms. 

Think of it this way. PR practitioners are the middle men/woman between the organisation and the public. We are the communicators. But it does not end there. PR practitioners do a number of crazy exciting things. 

We communicate to the target audience. We communicate to the employees. Both internally and externally. We communicate aspects/of the business. We keep the public up to date about the organisation/client. We create a positive image of the organisation and we take care of the image and reputation of the organisation (or client). We build and maintain relationships. We do campaigns and events for the organisation/client. We get exposure for the business. We manage social media, websites, take note of anything and everything said about the business/ client. 

We are always interested in two-way communication. We love hearing what the public wants and needs. We eat, live and breath the organisation/client.



We write, we engage, we communicate. We do PR. 
We inform, we educate, we persuade. We do PR. 
We are confident, elegant and well spoken. We do PR

For the love of it, yes :) 

TweetDeck vs. HootSuite: The Similarities and Differences

TweetDeck and HootSuite thank you for being amazing and making my life easier. I have no idea why it took me this long to give in. I've always seen people using these two services but thought it was irrelevant and a waste of time. Little did I know that it could change my life!

 

These two services allows you to manage your twitter, @mentions, direct messages, your LinkedIn and Facebook profile. I've navigated through both services and came up with some similarities and differences :) 

Layout: 

Both TweetDeck and HootSuite have similar layout in the sense that they both offer separate columns on the dashboard to manage your messages, @mentions, streams, #hashtags etc.  

Layout of HootSuite and TweetDeck

However, HootSuite seems very intimidating at first because there is a lot more icons and features in contrast to TweetDeck. TweetDeck is much easier on the eye. 

TweetDeck has a little pop up function every time a new tweet is posted , so that you can constantly stay updated. I found this function really cool as I would type my assignments, keep TweetDeck open and just look over to see the new updates. 

However, with HootSuite you constantly have to "refresh stream" in order to see new updates. 

Social media networks: 

HootSuite can be integrated with Facebook profiles/pages/groups, Twitter, Google+ pages, LinkedIn profiles/groups/companies, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace, and Mixi accounts. Although Hootsuite can connect to many more social networks than Tweetdeck can, a free account with HootSuite will only allow you to have up to five social profiles. You need to upgrade to a Pro account if you need to manage more than five profiles.

TweetDeck is limited in this sense. I was not able to connect my Facebook and LinkedIn profile to TweetDeck. However, with HootSuite it was much easier. All I did was click on the "Add Social Network" button on the top right and a list of social networks appeared that I could add. I could choose from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace and mixi

One of the primary benefits of HootSuite, is that it is a web-based application, which means there is no need to download anything onto your computer. This feature makes it much easier for different people to use it on multiple computers.

The desktop application for TweetDeck needs to be downloaded and cannot be used on multiple computers unless it is downloaded on each and every computer.

Personally, TweetDeck was much easier at first but now that I have explored HootSuite I think I will use it more as there are more features to play around with!

Are businesses wasting their time with social media?

The world we live in is very online 'savvy' and technologically advanced and in my opinion, businesses are not wasting their time using social media platforms.  People are constantly on the internet, and even more so social media sites. Facebook alone has over 900 million users, and there are countless other social media tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, to name a few. To back this up, I'm going to give you a few advantages and disadvantages (to keep things balanced) of using social media in businesses :)

With constant engagement and responding to customers, over time businesses will see an increase in revenue due to their online customer service/online presence.

For example: I do this all the time! it is so much easier for me to go onto twitter ask a company a quick question/find out what time they closing that specific day and get an answer. Instead of finding the number then calling the office. When you are on the 'go' like we PR professionals are all the time you want to do things quickly. 

Listening, engaging & interacting with customers in the 'social media globe' is the best way to keep them happy and dedicated to the business and the brand and will improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Social media is an excellent outlet for improving a business's products and services by listening to what the customers have to say about them. Listening and engaging with customers will provide key insights about the quality of products and services and many times offer suggestions or recommendations to improve them.

Woolworths responding to their customers!

Social media can help leverage a business. By putting businesses brand out there across social media sites businesses gain exposure and more and more consumers will be more aware of the brand.

For example: Look at Woolworths, they are constantly updating their twitter, answering questions and interacting with their customers and people LOVE it! They have 58 106 followers loyal to the brand:) 

 

Sure, social media takes a lot of time and customers can openly complain or make nasty comments. However, it can be seen as constructive criticism and this cannot be ignored. If managed effectively one can immediately do damage control and respond and neutralize the situation. 

Social media may open possibility for hackers to commit illegal crime such as fraud, spam and virus attacks. But if the site is secured and managed correctly then no harm can actually be done!

If social media is managed effectively it can really benefit the organisation. Social media is here to stay so why should businesses not take advantage of that? 

Having a presence on a popular social network suggests to people that your business is on the cutting edge or at least is able to keep up with the changing times. Using social networking to promote your business has many advantages but also requires some dedication and work on the businesses part. 

So, I feel it is not a waste of time but I also feel that it should not be the only medium through which organizations communicate. Various target audiences have different needs and resources.