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.