The marketing and communications world has changed more in the past five years than it has in the last 20. Due to technology and the explosive popularity of social media, today’s home product marketers and public relations practitioners must walk a fine line between new and traditional mediums when communicating with their target audiences. As such, social media marketing tends to fall under the umbrella of public relations, vastly changing the role of modern-day PR professionals.
Despite the challenges of creating a balance between shifting job responsibilities and time spent on social media versus traditional communications, PR professionals actually have the upper hand in the new wave of communications. As more and more customers flock to social media for news, interaction, sharing, dialogue and engagement, PR professionals have enhanced opportunities to connect with the audiences they have spent their entire careers trying to reach. How exciting!
And as skilled, professional communicators, public relations practitioners are the most qualified group of individuals to handle social media marketing for your businesses. They are strategic, well versed in your company’s key messages, and trained to deal with a variety of internal and external audiences including the media and your important customer audiences. They operate within a strict code of ethics and understand the importance of the distribution of immediate and relevant information to a variety of target audiences – all within a tight time frame.
If you’re in public relations, embrace the change. Remember that social media puts the focus back where it should be – on the public. And if you are a home products business owner or executive, remember to leave social media up to the experts, not the interns!
