Strategic PR: 1. Using Social Media

as PR ToolsBy Hoem Seiha

H/p: 012-699-553Email: entrepconsulting@gmail.com

Public Relations is the dynamic process of engaging your company with the public by keeping them being informed about your company’s news, policy, promotion.

Effective public relations campaigns are usually enabled by low cost strategies rather than advertising plans that need a large budget allocation.

Introduction to Public Relations

Earned Media versus Paid Media

Public relations is different than marketing, which is about getting people to buy something, typically with advertising campaigns. Those cost money.You can -- and often should -- do public relations without a spending a dime for advertising.

That's why public relations people often talk about "earned media." You don't take out ads in the newspaper, on the radio or on television. Instead, you earn stories and coverage.

But earned media cuts both ways. Just as you can earn press coverage for good things, you earn it for bad events, too, and how you handle bad news matters. A lot. Just think about Nixon and Watergate. It wasn't the crime that brought Nixon down -- it was the cover-up. The bad PR.

How You Earn Coverage: Your Public Relations Tools

Here are some of the tools in your toolbox:To inform: fact sheets, press releases, press conferences or town hall meetings

To persuade and inspire: speeches, letters to the editor, guest columns, radio talk show appearances, newspaper editorial board meetings

Multi-media: photos, charts, web sites / blogs, film clips, radio public service announcements and social media such as facebook or twitter.

When your goal is to inform people about an issue or event, public relations has a lot in common with journalism. 

When you're trying to persuade, public relations leans on the ancient art of rhetoric and the modern science of persuasion.  

Informing versus Persuading in Public Relations

Using Social Media as PR Tools

2.7 million is the number of Cambodian Internet users estimated by the end of 2012.

Did You Know?

742,220 is the number of Cambodian people using Facebook (5% of the whole population) by the end of 2012.

Facebook Stats

1 million is the number of Facebook users estimated by 2013.

Did You Know?

44,071is the number of frequent LinkedIn unique visitors in Cambodia.

LinkedIn Stats

Social Media is wide reaching, decentralized, constant and cheap.

What’s good about social media?

For business, a common mistake is to treat social media as a monologue, and to make it self-centered.

Social media isn't about you. It's a dialogue. Why would an average person read what you're saying? What would they get out of it?

Nobody wants to read that you're in a meeting, or just walked into Starbucks to get a Grande soy latte with a shot of vanilla.

What’s not about social media?

The best use of social media is to give your audience something. Inform them. Entertain them. Give them news they can use. Ask questions. Break news by announcing things on Twitter or Facebook first. Put videos on Youtube they can't get anywhere else.

What to do with social media?

Wall posts allow you to share your thoughts to your network and people connected to your network. For business, post only about your expertise and thoughts in relevance to your business, products and services.

Posting

I’m the best salesperson in Cambodia. Instead, use:

The best deal I’ve ever done with my sales job is this new contract I’ve just signed.

Beware!