The future of PR includes social networking.

The future of PR includes social networking.

By: Lauren Hale

Public relations is a profession that changes over time like a fashion trend. The way of doing something in the past may no longer be effective in the present or future with changing technology and a fast social pace. The picture above is from invisiblepr.com, a public relations site that describes and updates on new trends in society. A new trend in public relations that keeps growing and evolving is the use of social networking online. According to the dictionary, Social networking is defined as the use of a Web site designed to allow multiple users to publish content themselves. Let's use the example of Facebook. This allows you to contact people around the globe and post information for them all to see. The use of Facebook is broad and can be used by small business' to promote their product or by large corporations to show brand identity. Twitter is also a growing network that is used by many professionals around this world. This site allows you to follow people and "tweets" in a specific category. For example, Fitness magazine kicked off a campaign in February to promote their Web site by having people tweet a trend of "I love my body because.." comments. This was a way to market the magazine on social networking as an evolution of women's thinking.

I currently work for a Governor candidate for the upcoming election in Oklahoma. The use of social networking in political campaigns is half of the media and public relations practice. These sites are used to promote news and media coverage that can link viewers to articles and more. Volunteers and voters can follow the campaign on these sites which gives them an inside scoop that you can't pay airtime for.

Event promotion is also an outlet for social networking use. Social networking can be used like an online invitation. On these sites, you are able to send out invites and event awareness to target demographics at the click of a button. The campaign I work for uses this outlet to promote many events that would not get the same coverage if we bought air time or a television spot.

I think that these examples of how social networking is used in public relations shows the impact that it is having and the continuing trend we will see in the future. As long as social networking sites stay free for use and viewed by many, public relations practitioners will continue to utilize this outlet to reach their targeted publics.