"For us in the social media industry," writes Laura Fisher of Simply Zest, "we’ll all be familiar with the landgrab that’s currently going on. Ever since the concept of social media emerged, different industries have tried to claim it as their own, be it marketing, PR, advertising or search."
But a study by the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism says PR is winning the battle of social media budget control.
Here's the break down:
- 25.4% of corporate participants in the survey gave 81-100% budgetary control of social media to PR/Comms.
- 12.6% claiming they gave the same amount of control to marketing,
It looks like PR is winning. No?
Because social media lends itself to providing conversation platforms, no surprise public relations professionals are better at this, and senior management has taken note. Interesting, however, I maintain that social media marketing is different than social PR. Here's why. Different segments of communication take a different approach to social media. Web designers build apps, PR invites bloggers to a launch, and advertisers dump money into buying their fans.
So what does this mean for public relations?
Some might ask: "Who owns social media, then?" And the problem is in the question. Everyone owns social media. So PR should continue to do its part well -- building, growing and maintaining relationships and community -- and work with web designers to create apps, and marketing people to buy fans.
Besides generating revenue for our clients, the bottom line for PR professionals using social media is to leverage it to create easier communication channels between stakeholders, publics, and organizations.
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