Social Media on an Ordinary Budget

There are some people who see themselves as social media enthusiasts. Others identify as traditional media specialists. I fall into the latter category. However, even traditional media specialists should have an understanding and appreciation for social media. Here’s why.

Social media has been a significant boost to entities in the public and private sectors, not to mention to persons working in the communications and public relations industry. By social media, I am referring to sharing platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Periscope, and LinkedIn, among many others. Many of us use these platforms to communicate who we are, what we care about, and what we believe others should know. Even celebrities and elected officials have found ways to use social media to bolster their personal brands and connect with followers and constituents.

Online social sharing tools are low-cost means of expressing thought leadership, discussing current events, and holding leaders, brands, and celebrities accountable. These tools are effective means of connecting with audiences who respond favorably to interactive visuals such as infographics, photo memes, and animated GIFs. Social media is increasingly important for communicators and public relations professionals, as social networking tools allow PR professionals and others to research journalists, editors, and producers, while quietly learning their likes and dislikes on a host of topics. By following reporters on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, public relations professionals can get a sense of the issues they cover and ones that are of personal interest.

Choose the social media platform that best fits your goal. They all have strengths and limitations that lend themselves to different kinds of communications.

• Facebook allows for more personal interactions as users, reporters included, tend to make more intimate disclosures about their families, personal lives, travel schedules, and other information that one might glean otherwise only through personal relationships with the journalist or producer. With more than 1.59 billion monthly users as of December 2015, Adweek declared Facebook the king of social media platforms.¹ As of February 2017, that number has grown beyond 1.8 billion.²
• Periscope and Facebook Live, two leading mobile live-streaming services, allow users to broadcast events or speeches to a broader audience beyond those who physically attended the event or speech. This gives event organizers a broader reach in terms of sharing their message.
• LinkedIn, which boasts 433 million monthly users, not only allows users to connect with persons in their professional networks, but it also has a publishing feature, PULSE, which allows users to publish blog posts and essays that can then be shared with their networks.
• Twitter enables users to share news stories while making quick, punchy comments on any number of topics. Twitter is also useful in terms of tracking reporters’ employers and beats. For example, you can type in a reporter’s or producer’s name and learn who they work for and, sometimes, their assigned beat. Why is this important? Every communicator has had the experience of attempting to contact a reporter at his or her media outlet only to receive a bounceback email informing them that the reporter is no longer employed there. By doing a quick search on Twitter (or LinkedIn for that matter), you may determine the reporter’s current employer. Twitter boasted 320 million monthly users as of March 2016, according to Adweek.³
• If the target audience for your organization is high school or college students, Instagram and Snapchat may be more appealing, since young people use the platforms in record numbers. Adweek noted Instagram had 400 million monthly users as of September 2015.

While blogging is not a social media platform, it can be an effective way to create and distribute thought leadership online. Blogging is a way of promoting one’s message and can be shared on an organization’s blog, through blogging sites—such as Huffington Post and Medium, or through other social media sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn.

In sum, social media allows users to communicate with people who would otherwise be off limits. Prior to social networks, public relations could easily interact only with journalists whom they knew or journalists whose contact information was readily accessible. Thanks to social media, PR pros can interact with anyone who has a public presence on social networks.

One of the most appealing aspects of social media is that it is low cost. Other than staff time, it costs nothing to develop and schedule Twitter or Facebook posts about your issues. Using Periscope and Facebook Live requires a reliable Internet connection or data usage on your cellphone plan (and plenty of battery life or a charger for longer broadcasts). The costs associated with increased data usage can usually be submitted for reimbursement to your clients or employer, though this should be discussed and approved in advance. Assuming you have or can raise a modest budget of a couple hundred dollars, communicators and small businesses can also take advantage of low-cost Facebook or Twitter advertising to promote reports, events, or campaigns.

Since social media tends to be more visual, infographics, photo images, memes, videos, and GIFs tend to do well. Thanks to improvements in cell phone technology, most cell phones capture not just photos but also videos. This means anyone on your staff with access to a functioning smart phone can assist your organization in sharing visually appealing content on social media networks.

For entities with limited coffers, social media presents an opportunity to elevate their messages to audiences that could previously be reached only with extensive advertising dollars. Online petitions, for example, can be created with little resources—nothing more than the staff time that it takes to create, post, and share the petition.

While I’ve outlined the numerous benefits of social media, I should also provide some context. Social media is rapidly evolving. Many of the platforms that exist today could be obsolete in a year. One of the keys to being effective on social media is keeping your ears to the ground in terms of identifying and learning about emerging trends. This will allow you to remain on the cusp of innovation while ensuring you can share the work of your organization through timely channels. Doing this requires being in touch with other communicators and social media experts, as well as reading PR blogs and other resources. Regardless of the platform, however, the four principles of extraordinary PR—be credible, creative, responsive, and relentless—always apply. Let’s focus on the CCRR framework as a strategy to promote effective use of social media.

Credibility on Social Media

Social media is not without its caution. It has been said that it takes five minutes to ruin an organization’s brand via traditional media: newspapers, TV, and radio. With social media, one can be compromised in the amount of time it takes to schedule a tweet or post a Facebook message.

How many times have we observed people making inartful, if not offensive, comments, only to quickly delete them after they cause backlash? In 2014, John Charlton, the associate director of media relations for the Ohio Department of Education, sent an inappropriate tweet in response to criticisms about charter schools in the state. The tweet promptly turned into a news story. Charlton wrote, “Guys, it’s after 5 on Friday. Take a break from muckraking and enjoy the weekend. Maybe you can get laid. Lol.”⁴

The goal of the PR staffer is to make not become the news. Rather than successfully handling the critique on charter schools, the media relations director took a personal jab at the critics. The personal jab led to future stories, not on the issue, but on the spokesperson’s comments. This temporarily detracted from his administration’s broader goal. This is a great example of why PR professionals should be careful to maintain their credibility on social networking sites.

Credibility means understanding that while we may maintain personal social media accounts, anything we say can generate critique for the organizations and companies that employ us. Inserting a tweets-are-my-own disclaimer does not give you carte blanche to say anything that comes to mind, nor does it fully protect the organization that employs you from careless comments you may make on your personal account or your employer’s social media account. Moreover, if you commit a crime or are embroiled in a scandal, the media will want to know as much about you as possible. This includes your employer. In describing the incident, the media will invariably connect you to your organization because doing so offers context on who you are and what you’re about.

In the aftermath of a video depicting former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice knocking his then girlfriend Janay Palmer unconscious, the hashtag #WhyIStayed took root on Twitter. The hashtag detailed why victims of domestic violence often stay with abusive partners. Survivors of domestic violence shared heartfelt and deeply personal stories for why they stayed with their abusers. Attempting to “newsjack” or capitalize on current events to elevate their brand, a tweet from the account of pizza-maker DiGiorno used the #WhyIStayed and added, “You had pizza.”⁵

Domestic violence is deadly, and it is never appropriate to make a mockery of it. In this case, the person running the account probably attempted to cash in on a trending hashtag without thoroughly reviewing what the hashtag was about. It was a dark period for DiGiorno and a prime example of damaging one’s credibility on social media.

Creative Uses of social Media

Social media is time- and cost-effective, but you still need to be creative to stand out from the crowd. Being creative on social media can mean coming up with catchy hashtags and clever ways to say things, or using amusing or thoughtful GIFs that convey how you feel and what you want to say with a simple image layered with words.

In September 2016 Keith Lamont Scott was shot and killed by a police officer, prompting protests in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was working to highlight the experience of clergy who witnessed the fatal shooting of one of those protesters. The media was reporting that the shooter was a fellow protester, but some clergy members questioned that account. It was 9 p.m., far beyond the usual time for sending press releases. Nonetheless, I drafted a press release and distributed it through the normal channels to reach the media. The press release questioned police accounts of the shooters and identified clergy who were near the protest site in Charlotte and who were available for media interviews. One of our leaders, Pastor Michael McBride, took a photocopy of the press release and shared it on his Twitter account. Almost immediately, my phone rang with reporters and producers wanting to speak with the clergy leaders I’d referenced in my press release. From 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. I fielded interview requests and staffed actual media interviews. This technique of tweeting out the press release (in addition to sending it through the more traditional channel of email) proved incredibly effective. Notably, the cost was minimal, requiring just a computer, Internet connection, Twitter account, and time.

Relentlessness on social Media

Relentlessness on social media is about tracking the journalists who write or report frequently on your issues. It’s about ensuring your organization is utilizing the various platforms to elevate your issues and campaigns. It’s about targeting influencers as well as journalists. By influencers, I am referring to people with large online followings who can influence others. Influencers can help you amplify a message by retweeting your tweets or liking and sharing your posts on Facebook.

On June 27, 2015, just a few days after a white man sat through a bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and then murdered nine African American churchgoers, Charlotte activist Bree Newsome traveled to South Carolina and removed the Confederate flag from outside the state capitol. Following her act of resistance, I drafted a blog post on women’s leadership.⁶ My essay was posted on Huffington Post, and I later tweeted it from my Twitter account. Grey’s Anatomy actor and Advancement Project board member Jesse Williams then tweeted my blog post to his then 1.8 million followers. I received more retweets from his single tweet than I’ve ever had since opening a Twitter account in 2012.

Relentlessness is also about continually tweeting out and posting articles, editorials, and opinion essays that are favorable to your work. For example, once you land a story on a campaign, tweet the story out while tagging the reporter who wrote the story and the outlet that employs them. When you tweet or post the story don’t focus just on the headline. Read the article and then tweet or post the most compelling piece of the story, something that would inspire readers to read the article or watch the media clip in its entirety. Further, if you or one of your principals has a TV interview, capture the interview and post it on your YouTube channel and Facebook page. This creates evergreen content and allows you to connect with a broader audience.

Responsiveness on social Media

PR pros spend significant time chasing reporters and producers and trying to get them to focus on the issues they are promoting. By tweeting about our issues we can easily attract the attention of the media. Once their interest is piqued, reporters may request an offline discussion to receive information. I should note that I’ve received media inquiries after I’ve posted things on social media and also after my bosses or colleagues posted noteworthy items on social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Once a reporter or producer reaches out on social media, they should receive a timely response. If the topic they’d like to discuss is not one that advances your issue or cause, you might acknowledge their request and refer them to another organization for comment. Or, you might simply let them know that you have no one available to speak with them at that time. You could also try to get the reporter to pivot to an angle that is more closely aligned with your campaign or issue. You can do this by letting the reporter know that your spokesperson is not able to speak to the issue they’ve raised, but you’d be happy to discuss current campaigns. If the reporter or producer contacts you about something you’ve tweeted or said on a social media network, the interview should be a slam dunk—so long as your tweets are in line with your organization’s position. (See the previous section on credibility.)

The Bottom Line on Social Media

At the beginning of this chapter, I mentioned that some of us see ourselves as traditional media specialists, and others, social media strategists. If you, like me, fall into the traditional media category, you should still incorporate social media into your communications outreach plans. I typically draft a communications plan, outlining campaign goals and the communications tactics I recommend to accomplish those goals. I’ll then turn the communications plan over to the social media staffer for their input and feedback. This ensures a well-rounded communications approach.

The advent of social media has been a tremendous boon to PR professionals. I offer many examples of just how important it has been to the success of some of my campaigns not only in this chapter but throughout the book. By applying the CCRR framework, you can use social media platforms to elevate your message. You don’t need a multimillion-dollar PR budget to find success in social media—or traditional media, for that matter. By utilizing social media platforms such as Facebook, Facebook Live, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Twitter, you can invariably learn more about the reporters you are seeking to engage and further highlight your organization’s work. The bottom line? Social media helps ensure you get your message out.