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Culture & Religion — September 13, 2011

PR Should Be More Social Media Savvy

Digital fitness–the ability to adapt to changes in the digital environment—is lacking in the PR sector though it was an early adopter of social media. Time to rethink traditional PR tactics.

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What’s the Latest Development?

Director of Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo, B. Bonin Bough, busts PR agencies for not keeping digitally fit—able to adapt to changes in the digital environment—though they were early adopter of social media. The key in moving forward? Understand the science behind technology; know how your consumers consume information; rethink traditional PR tactics; and foster a mindset around experimentation.

What’s the Big Idea?

Community management of fans, strategic partnerships with startups and the chance to purchase some of the latest platforms are opportunities that can grow PR into a tool for grassroots consumer engagement. “How can you effectively utilize a tool if you don’t understand how the algorithm works? …For example, Facebook aggregates its newsfeed in real time according to three factors: affinity, weight of engagement and time decay.”

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