Social Media.... What will they think up next?

Social Media… What will they think up next?

The purpose of Public Relations is to build relationships with the public. Many people have found interesting ways to build relationships. Social Media has been around for awhile. It started with Xanga and moved to Myspace and now social media website are popping up everywhere. Crenshaw Communications published an article in early January discussing the ten trends that are affecting public relations professionals in 2010. One of the trends is that “influencers will have more influence.” Social media will and has played a big part in influencing others. I think the biggest social media contributor is Twitter.

Many celebrities have twitter accounts and post regularly on them. Twitter is a channel for celebrities to build relationships with everyday people as well as promote philanthropies. For example, Shawn Johnson, the Olympic gold medalist is an activist for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Selena Gomez, a rising Disney star, is an activist for UNICEF and just helped with the UNICEF Haiti campaign. While it is very cool to learn about what philanthropies they support and help out, it is also interesting and fun to read about celebrities as normal people. As a public relations professional I would want a celebrity to tweet about supporting my organization because they are going to have more influence as time goes on. Twitter has figured out the public relations and advertising side of their website because an article from NewsOK came out today saying they just debuted what’s called “promoted tweets.” Twitter is now allowing companies to pay to have their tweets or messages show up first in a search. For example, if a person searched for coffee, Starbucks tweets would show up first.

Social media has come a long way and it is scary to see where it might go. I think Twitter is a great thing. It’s a great way to stay connected to companies, celebrities, and everyday people. Print and broadcast journalism have to compete with the internet. Right now it looks like social media is working in the public relations professional world, but will it always?


Liedtke, Michael. "Twitter to Have Paid Tweets Show up in Searches | NewsOK.com." Oklahoma Top Headlines for News, Sports, Weather, Entertainment and More | NewsOK.com. 13 Apr. 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. .

"Ten Trends Affecting PR Professionals In 2010 « Crenshaw Communications." Crenshaw Communications. 02 Jan. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. .

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