Is it advertising? Marketing? Public relations? Is it something entirely different? Personally I think there’s a case to be made that social media IS entirely different… But that’s for another day. For today the question of which traditional practice belongs in social media is increasingly germane as budgets are allocated to the elusive “social media” campaign and marketers, advertisers, and PR practitioners alike are jockeying for position.
To begin somewhat cheekily let’s dissect the term, “social media.” Sounds sort of like a combination of “society” and the “media.” In fact, it could very easily be reiterated as a combination of the “public” and the “media,” wouldn’t you say? Makes me wonder, had the industry simply coined the Web 2.0 phenomenon “Public Media” rather than “Social Media,” would this three-legged race between PR, marketing, and advertising even exist? Who would argue that a new iteration of the media (blogs, user reviews) and the public (social networking pages, user-generated content) was anything but public relations? Assigning an ad agency to manage your Public Media campaign would be like aiming to get a spot on the Today Show and deciding that a billboard en route to NBC studios was the best method of attaining it.
For a starting point let’s create a working definition for business’s role in social media. How about:
Fostering an organization’s ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values.
If that works for you as a definition for a business’ place in social media then read no further. In actuality, that is the definition of public relations as set forth in Robert Heath’s Encyclopedia of Public Relations. You’ve got to admit it bears a strong resemblance to what most organizations ought to be striving for in social media. That said, it is true social media campaigns require skills commonly associated with advertising and marketing as well. Who then is best suited to take ownership of the campaign at large? Wikipedia defines the three practices as follows:
Advertising is a communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. Many advertisements are also designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of brand image and brand loyalty.
Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers’ wants, focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to mold the consumers toward the products or services offered. Marketers are tasked with creating consumer awareness of products or services through marketing techniques.
Public relations (PR) is the management of internal and external communication of an organization to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities.
What makes social media interesting is that a successful campaign involves understanding consumers and molding them in a way that aligns with your product (marketing), managing communications to create and maintain a positive image (PR) and informing consumers about products or services (advertising). Likewise the skill sets associated with practitioners of each – research/demographics (marketing), communications/messaging (public relations), and creatives/collateral (advertising) are all valuable in the social media realm. Let’s look at what each practice contributes to a social media campaign.
Marketing: Understanding your audience and molding your consumer has historically been a complicated process. Traditional focus groups, surveys and research were time consuming, expensive, and had the potential to be entirely misleading if not handled expertly… That was of course before the web. These days web analytics can tell us exactly who is visiting a website, with what frequency, which pages are most popular, what the site’s overall demographic is, where else they go online, what keywords they search for, which brands they have an affinity for, how much time they spend online, etc. etc. etc. The available information is akin to Best Buy taking a three-page survey of every single person who entered their store, regardless of whether they made a purchase or not, and cutting up the data a dozen different ways. The marketer’s responsibility in defining the consumer and discerning his or her wants is significantly lessened thanks to technology.
Advertising: Designing creatives and collateral that are visually compelling will always be an important part of communications. In social media, that need is expanded because almost all aspects of a campaign require graphics, flash, and even video content. However, this is where the role of an advertiser is more a necessary evil than a central component of a social media campaign. Social media revolves around UGC – User Generated Content (all of it altruistically branded, compelling and extremely viral of course), which extends far beyond the company’s resources to create itself. Advertisers are limited to what I call BGC – Brand Generated Content. This content has its place, but at the end of the day it is still content that is created by the brand (be it by the company or its agency) and pushed in front of consumers just like traditional advertisements. Extremely well crafted ads can spawn spoof UGC content, but for the most part advertisements are a brief, self-serving announcement with little opportunity for interaction or sustainable engagement. This is exemplified in Wikipedia’s definition of advertising:, “…informing potential consumers about products and services,” is a pervasive mentality in advertising that allows little room for dialogue. If you haven’t seen the humorous YouTube video on “The Break Up” with advertising, check it out.
Public Relations: Managing communications to create and maintain a positive image – the hallmark of PR professionals, is the strategy on which all good social media campaigns are based. The influencers may have changed from journalists to bloggers or other social influencers, but the strategy is still to reach those influencers with a compelling message, have a dialogue, and foster a positive public image. The promise of social media is dialogue with consumers – the advertiser’s role neglects this promise and the marketer’s role is lessened thanks to technology. The PR practitioner’s role in crafting a message, building relationships with key influencers, and fostering a positive public image is the cornerstone of a successful social media campaign.
To come full circle, admittedly social media campaigns do require aspects of all three traditional practices. However, the strategy and campaign ownership needs to come from the public relations practitioner. Still not convinced because you have a great viral video created by your Ad agency? Fantastic! Give it a shot; try posting it to YouTube without creating any dialogue or developing a communications strategy. Next step? Cross your fingers. That’s about the best you can do. If you want to reap the rewards of true engagement with consumers you need to leverage that content as part of a properly conceived dialogue with relevant influencers. If you want to reach the end game of serving as a branded conduit for meaningful consumer-to-consumer dialogue that messaging strategy needs to be executed with perfection. Brand Generated Content is great as a starter log, but communications managed by PR professionals is the match that has to touch all corners of the wood pile before you can really get a fire going. For a list of other peoples’ position on the subject, check out the following:
http://buddingpublicrelations.blogspot.com/2007/08/advertising-and-pr-in-social-media.html
http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2007/08/is-social-media.html
http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/11/13/social-media-pr-advertising-or-none-of-the-above/
http://getgood.typepad.com/getgood_strategic_marketi/2007/10/the-lines-they-.html
http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/2007/10/pr-will-lose-social-media-to.html
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