What Social Media Is and What It Is Not

Social Media is not a tactic and therefore it cannot be assigned to a specific department such as public relations, it is a tool that allows one to talk to and hear from its consumers. Social Media is so many things- it’s one-part public relations, one part SEO, one part usability design, one part customer service, and one-part sociology. Because of its dynamic make-up it doesn’t make since that people of public relations would be qualified to tackle all of the aspects of social media.

Social Media is beyond that of “typical” advertising and public relations it’s far past advertisements, news releases, and media pitches. For social media to be used successfully it needs to be in an agency of its own. Ignite is a social media agency that pulls specialists from all different aspects from marketing to PR to advertising to tech specialists to work as a team in running social media for a variety of different companies. To find out more about what Ignite does and how they do it visit their website at http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/.

Another reason that social media cannot be treated as advertising and public relations is because of their very different roles in media. Traditional media pushes, whereas social media pulls. For instance sending advertisements, media pitches, and news releases to media outlets is designed to push someone to action. On the contrary, social media leads one to content that is interesting allowing them to pull themselves in if they choose so. Some would argue that pull media is way more efficient than the typically push media, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

Lastly, social media is not a waste of time. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs etc. are all different forms of social media and if these outlets are used properly they can be very effective for a brand of a company. Many people spend time sending e-mails, surfing the web, and using social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, so communicating through social media has created an effective way for reaching key consumers.