Why social media should be administered by PR professionals

As mentioned in a previous post, social media is quickly becoming a key way of communicating with clients, customers, potential customers, stakeholders, etc. It's quick, it's instant and it can be used to direct audiences to specific information:

• A website
• A media release
• A video
• etc.

The potential for bringing companies, public figures, non-profit organizations and others closer to the public is fantastic. But so are the dangers. A tweet gone wrong can undo the reputation of a brand that's been around for years.

It's all very well to say that things can go wrong, but what can cause IT to hit the fan?

1. Quite often feelings get vented online via social media sites. It's easy to let people know when you've had bad customer service or if a product you've bought doesn't live up to how it was billed. Companies are wise to monitor what is being said about them or their products in the online world. They can then use social media to engage people, set the record straight, and prevent negativity from tarnishing the reputation they've spent years building. It should also be noted that it's wise to respond to negative comments in the online environment with factual answers that aren't influenced by emotion. What you say online tends to stay around for a while and could end up coming back to haunt you in the future.
2. It's fine to have an opinion on a topic. And everyone enjoys a good discussion of differing viewpoints. However, it might not be the best idea for you to use your corporate Twitter account to discuss controversial issues. You have to keep in mind that your personal views might not entirely mesh with that of your customer base. You wouldn't want them to stop buying your products or services simply because they have a different point of view on something that's in the newspaper.
3. Along the same lines, if you are representing an organization that has to work with multiple levels of government, it's probably best not to get involved in online discussions about politics and endorse specific candidates. At the end of the day, you have to work with whoever is elected. Such antics could leave you with accusations of partisanship, conflict of interest, and (if you hold public office) dealings with an integrity commissioner.
4. Some organizations have multiple people who tweet on their behalf through the corporate website. As long as these people are well versed in what the organization's social media goals are, this could work. However, I have heard of situations where employees have mistakenly logged into the corporate account thinking it's their own and sent out tweets that reflected badly on the company. These mistakes can happen, even to the best of us. How you handle the response to such situations is what can make or break you.

At the very least those who are using social media to build relationships with customers and potential customers need to talk to a public relations professional about key messaging, how online communications fit with ongoing communications and marketing initiatives, and a protocol for dealing with social media gone wrong. At Strategic Communications Solutions PR, we treat this the same way we do our traditional media training sessions - a seminar involving interactive demonstrations, discussion and case studies.

In an ideal world, when we - at Strategic Communications Solutions PR - are working with clients who want to use social media as a communications tool, we include it in the communications plan as a tactic that is used to implement strategies geared towards reaching particular goals. While we've tutored many clients in how to use social media themselves, we also manage a lot of client accounts for them. We are able to do this because if flows easily out of our key messaging sessions where we develop the core information to communicate on behalf of a client. Once we've refined a client's key messages, we can present them from multiple different angles. This serves to keep the messages fresh and also reinforces them at the same time.

Where an individual might be tempted to send/tweet a response immediately, we act as a filter - a kind of 'sober second thought - mitigating the risk of damaging tweets or messages.

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