Social Media Benefits All: Comments on Classmates Blogs

Whether we use social media for research or not, it still remains a prominent part of most peoples' everyday lives. Though its original purpose was meant for connecting people to one another, its functions have diversified and multiplied over the years.

One excellent function of social media for public relations use is damage control. Sam's Blog shows a great example of how a clothing company was able to use their social media  outlets to fix a problem they had not intended to cause. Often in the world of fashion, designers and advertisers both get attacked usually for the tiny sizes of the models, but as Sam uncovered in the case of Ann Taylor LOFT, they were able to do a quick turnaround to the complaints of customers. Back in the day it may have taken days or maybe even weeks to fix the negative feel that customers got from an advertisement, however with technologies' help and the advent of social media within hours a company can explain themselves and reach a large amount of their audience when trying to do so. It was a brilliant idea of whoever at Ann Taylor LOFT corporate offices that thought to use Facebook to show that the pants they were advertising can be worn by women of any size. It was even more clever of them to use women who worked in the offices themselves. Here, Ann Taylor LOFT was able to bring their clothing lines' image back to a positive light by utilizing the speediness of social media to get their message out.

Another great function of social media for public relations is its use for advertising and especially endorsements. If you've played around on Twitter for even five minutes, I guarantee you have probably been exposed to some sort of advertising or promotion through tweets. Celebrities use social media outlets such as Twitter to build their image and brand. In her blog, Laura discusses how celebrities are able to use social media as a public forum to build themselves as well as their careers. Many advertisement and endorsement checks to celebrities are now made to them for simply tweeting about a specific product.

Social media has added a new platform to communication, and best of all it's completely free to use. The idea of free makes social media an even more useful tool for public relations research because it limits the some of the high costs there exists when conducting research. Social media not only serves functions for public relations research, but it also serves several other functions within the field, including those discussed above of damage control and advertising, celebrity endorsements, and celebrity branding.

The Research Report: Social Media Style

Of course research is important, but if we do not provide the results to anyone, than what purpose did the research serve? So how does one go about writing a research report? When discussing research in social media in particular, it is important to remember the principle rules of research report writing.

The first biggest concern I have when using social media in research and as a professional tool is the difference in the written language. Social media is a casual world, where proper spelling and grammar are not considered priority when posting something. However, when using social media for professional purposes, such as in public relations, it should become priority even if it is not the norm. When transferring research from the social media outlet to a research report, one must keep in mind that in order for your research to be taken seriously, you need to write in a serious manner. Although you may get caught up in the casualness of social media, it's important to realize that the way you present your research results will impact how the results are received. If you are hired to be a Social Media Manager for a company or organization, and you are asked to provide the results of certain new programs you've put into place in a social media outlet and you present your work with terms such as "u" instead of "you" your work will not be taken seriously. Although it is acceptable in social media outlets to write like such, when using it for professional matters, it should become a habit to treat your writing there like you want your writing of your research report to look. This will help ease the transition from social media results to research report writing.

Another thing to take into consideration is the language of social media itself. With outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, we have terms such as "like or dislike," "write on wall," "tweets," "@ people," and "tweeple." There is obviously no way to replace these terms with more formal terms when presenting your research results, however not everyone is keen on social media. Not everyone is familiar with the terms used on social media sites, therefore when presenting research you should not assume your audience understands what you mean. This is also true of research lingo as well, but here I am focusing on the social media lingo. Make sure when using such terms, you explain their significance and meaning to make sure you are understood.

Social media can be very fun, but when using it for a public relations purpose, you should always remain professional!

Research Ethics in Social Media Measurement: The good and the bad

Now that social media is being used for marketing and public relations purposes, well we have to know how to measure our successes and our failures. However, one question pops into my mind after reading up on research ethics for my Public Relations Research course: How do we accurately evaluate our research on social media without running into ethics conflicts?

One major problem with evaluating social media results is what our book called “respondent study risks.” In simpler terms this means, what if our respondents are not giving us true answers? What if respondents’ answers are lies, and what if they identify themselves as a demographic? That right there is one problem in the realm of ethics with social media. Some more interesting problems with measuring social media are discussed here.

However, not all is bad when questioning ethics within social media evaluation. One great advantage of working social media into your research is what our textbook refers to as “respondent recruitment.” Respondent recruitment is being able to get people to take part in whatever study you are doing. If you are conducting a study by using social media as a tool to do so, getting respondents is easier because you are reaching so many more people, and you are also allowing people the option to participate or ignore it. This works in favor of positive research ethics.

Because social media is so new, and even more new as a tool for marketing, research, public relations, and advertising, it has not been tweeked perfectly to provide accurate research information. As its use continues to grow these issues could possibly be fixed, allowing social media to become a more dependable research tool.

Research For Social Media Use in PR

For my blog I am focusing on the use of social media as a tool for public relations practicioners. In its original plan of use, social media was meant to connect people to each other through the use of the internet. It was simply a new means to communication. Over the years, more and more social media outlets have been created, and with these evolving outlets new uses for social media have come to exist. Advertising, for example, has been affected by the social media outburst. Websites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter have boosted the space and outreach of advertising. Being that social media attracts such vast audiences, I’ve even heard of grandparents using Facebook, it allows companies to reach larger, more diverse  audiences. It has become a part of our everyday lives that brings a sense of unity because we are for the most part interested in using our social media outlets. In the public relations world, social media is a fairly new tool.

I am personally interested in the use of social media for public relations purposes because of my history with social media. In an internship completed during this past summer (Summer 2010), I became a Social Media Manager for an entertainment news website. The website of course already had existing social media accounts, but there was no one person to focus on establishing the company’s brand in the social media world. While working on establishing a social media department for the website, I had to figure out how to connect what the website stands for to what the people in the social media world want to be exposed to and indulge in. The initial purpose of using social media was to increase the number of visits to the site. Over time our goals changed and grew regarding what the expectations were of social media use. I can securely say I left the website at the end of my internship with an established social media department, however, I did not have the full capacity knowledge of research to leave them with more proof and numbers as to the success of the uses I implemented for them.

Therefore, given my recent experience with social media, I am interested in exploring how to do adequate research regarding its use in public relations, while I gain valuable knowledge in research throughout the duration of this course. I would like to be able to know that if I went back to the website I interned for, I would know exactly how to research and evaluate the program I created to how things are done now and the results of it all.