Time to Put the PUBLIC Back into PR, Through Social Media

Chapter 10 in Scott's book New Rules of PR and Marketing is all about the public and the consumer in public relations and marketing. In this field we're always talking about how to engage the public and how to keep them connected to our messages, but with social media capturing the attention of our target audiences has gained a lot more ground and has become easier with so many more outlets such as Twitter and blogs.

According to Scott, the best way to target an audience and maintain them is through building specific messages that pertain to each individual buyer, also known as the buyer persona. One of the most important ways to do that is through a blog! They're the best way of reaching organizational goals for reaching customers, and for helping to solve their problems. Having a blog is helpful (and in my opinion Twitter is helpful in this way) because it allows customers to become involved in a conversation with the organization by commenting -- or tweeting -- back and forth in order to answer questions and solve whatever problem a customer might have concerning a product, a company's message or that company in general.

This is where putting the public back into PR comes into play. Through social media we can hear more readily what the buyers are looking for and what they want to see on the company's end in the future. In this way, PR practitioners can tailor messages which in turn, helps create a more specific and accurate buyer persona, which was one of the main points emphasized in this chapter. By answering key questions such as "Where do they go first to a search engines?" "What blogs, chat rooms, online forums and news sites do they read?" and "Are they open to audio or video?" practitioners and marketers can effectively reach out to their public and monitor how effectively that public receives and adopts a specific message. I think this is one of the most important aspects for a successful PR and marketing campaign.