The role of social media in PR campaigns

Burberry social story

 

Social media impact on public relations practice has grown up rapidly and organizations started to see the importance of it.

Social media is important because:

• Improves creativity,
• Drives the media traffic, visits on company’s website, mentioning their names on social media channels helps for brand management and improves the reputation.
• Social media is forcing PRs to be more transparent and accountable. People have opinions, which are very powerful and influential. So sending the right, clear and understandable message can boost the popularity and reputation.
• Helps to build connections and improve relationships. Having contacts is a powerful tool, is about sharing knowledge and experience which can be useful in building up reputation and have a better idea how to reach people (The Drum, 2012).

The best example how social media is important and how it is beneficial to business is Burberry’s social media campaign.

Burberry introduces an innovative social media campaign which purpose was to reach their audiences and interact with them in a more personal way (Guardian, 2012). Burberry CEO, Amanda Ahrendts, says: "I grow up in the physical world and I speak English. The next generation grow up in digital world and they speak social" (Burberry social story, 2012). She explains that if the

organization wants to reach its publics, they have to speak the language their audiences speak. They chat with their customers online, they make it more personal, they gain understanding what their customers and employees want. According to Amanda "the most importantly it has been the greatest reunite of the culture of any platform we have ever put in place". Wherever the customers are in the world and if they speak about Burberry brand, they are able to hear and listen via social media. The video shown below explains Burberry social story and how social media is important for their brand development and building on stronger reputation.

Encouraging creativity in PR

“Hot brunette wanted for 2014!”

Gerald Abrahams decided to have an attention and to find a girlfriend in a completely different and creative way. On the 7^th of January, 2014 Mr Abrahams decided to fulfil his new year's resolution to find romance after he hit the streets with a sandwich board declaring: 'Hot brunette wanted for 2014'.

I saw this guy in Piccadilly Circus standing in the middle of the street with this huge sign and I thought that it is just a joke for the New Year. Later on, I found out the rest of the story. He told the Evening Standard: 'I just needed to do something different for 2014. I’ve had enough of internet dating and thought this would be something light-hearted that people might find amusing and bring a smile to their face.' In addition, Gerald told Absolute Radio that he didn’t enjoy “unproactive” internet dating, claiming “I felt I just needed to do something a bit more imaginative and get out there”. Unfortunately he didn’t reply to any of email he received. But he got a lot of attention from public, social and local media which wrote his story and spread it out.

This was one of the examples how to be creative and how to encourage people not to be alone, find their other half and be in love. This can be used by dating sites as an inspiration how to be different and creative.

As a result, his story was in Metro, Evening Standard, Daily Mail, The Telegraph. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were full of comments and pictures of the guy and the board.