PR 2.0--Lets get Personal
For my job at the Office of Communications and Marketing at Sarah Lawrence College, I work as a Public Relations Assistant to Judith Schwartzstein. Judith, a senior communications specialist, has been working at Sarah Lawrence for 16 years. Today she assigned me a task specifically relating Marketing through Social Media. My task was to draft several Press Snippets for upcoming college events and to distribute on local websites and send to our press contacts. Another example of my day-to-day tasks is to update all social media platforms for my internship at the American Friends of the Louvre, where I have to not only create Press Snippets but condense them into 140 characters for the Twitter handle I created for the company and to create 5 sentence dynamic content to wall post on Facebook. Lately, I have been perplexed with the idea of creating fun, dynamic, and relevant content to the Social Media audience that AFL is trying to reach. The constant condensing, critiquing, and creation of “cheeky” information, was driving me up the wall. Although I always enjoy a challenge in my work, I was starting to become discouraged with my writing. It always seemed to be great in content, but way too long and verbose in sentence structure (according to my supervisor). I had to learn that nowadays people have a short attention span, due to Social Media. One-liners attached with a link to pictures and website, are usually more effective. Learning how to write in different styles is always useful, but does this way of writing serve as an authentic process for me? Throughout class we have been exploring the idea of what constitutes inauthenticity and authenticity on the Internet. Relating that phenomenon to Social Media Marketing and PR has been an interesting concept to tackle. PR 2.0 highlights all the experiences I’ve been having with translating traditional concepts of creating a Press Release and or Press Snippets on various Social Media platforms.
The basic definition of PR 2.0 is, that traditional concepts of Public Relations now do not fit into the new media world that society has created, so PR must adapt to new Social Media norms. A new, inventive way of thinking is needed, thus the invention of PR 2.0
Coined in the 1990’s by Brian Solis, the objective of PR 2.0 was to create a combination of Social Media tools that were available to communication professionals to Market and solidify their “reach” to influencers and consumer audiences. Social Media, in recent times, serves as a direct to consumer approach that allows audiences to openly drive and facilitate communication in their communities. PR professionals are being forced into incorporating PR 2.0 in their marketing and outreach strategy to effectively communicate directly to Web 2.0 audiences, which ultimately raises awareness and a significant increase to brand exposure.
Why is implementing PR 2.0 essential to the survival of Public Relation agencies?
It’s simple. With the masses leeching onto Social Media for communication, tear sheeting and mailing out Press Releases, becomes an obsolete system. Systematically, the spread of Social Media has influenced basic communication to a level where it is expected to send a message though email and not snail mail. The trend amongst PR is solely focusing on using Social Media to optimize PR campaigns and generate more press.
For my next blog post, I will be exploring the impacts that PR 2.0 has made on Public Relations companies.