With social media taking up so much of PR time, should you ditch traditional media?
Over the past three years, there has been a clamour from clients for digital strategists driven, in our view, by the erroneous view that social media is more important than traditional media.
At MediaWise, we strongly believe that social media has to be part of an integral communications strategy rather than have its own strategy. To carry out social media in isolation of broader PR is inviting trouble and far too limiting. It is not a silver bullet.
Social media is made up of many components, just as traditional PR is. When it comes to raising a profile, this is our advice:
Twitter is used by journalists for story ideas and to promote their own stories. They expect to be contacted.
Facebook is used by journalists for their own private use not for professional reasons and we advise that you never cross the boundary.
LinkedIn is gathering momentum as a way of exchanging ideas as well as CV connections.
Periscope gains ground in getting noticed by local TV reporters.
All of the above are fine for reaching journalists but it won’t necessarily deliver the overall audience a client would expect.
This is why you have to maintain contacts outside social media, and continue to provide quality content that they are interested in, that their audiences want and in a way that is easy for them to use.
The channel is not as important as the quality of the content and your ability to deliver the goods in the right way to the right person and on time.