How Your Social Media Presence Impacts the Success of Your PR Efforts With platforms undergoing constant changes, what's the best way for brands to navigate the social media chaos to maximize their PR efforts?
By Michelle Garrett Edited by Chelsea Brown
Key Takeaways
- Why maintaining an active social media presence is crucial for PR success
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It's time to talk about everyone's favorite subject — social media.
Regardless of how you feel about it, your social media presence CAN impact the success of your PR efforts. If you want to engage in a proactive public relations push, getting your social media house in order is always one of the first orders of business.
Why? Because journalists will check there when you show up on their radar. Nearly 60% said they check social FIRST before writing about a company.
If your social media feed looks like you haven't posted in months, that's not a positive signal.
Related: How Social Media Can Help With PR
Hashtag HELP
While we know maintaining an active social media presence is a boon to your PR efforts, there's no doubt that incorporating an effective approach in your marketing program is getting tougher.
Even so, 60% of B2B marketers say social media is the most effective revenue-driving channel. With younger B2B buyers increasingly coming into play, it makes sense that social is a key factor in our PR and marketing efforts.
Still, changes are happening faster than we can keep up. Established social media platforms are struggling while new platforms continue to spring up.
What's a business to do?
Back to basics
Even as the social media landscape shifts, one thing holds true — if you try to do TOO much on social, you may end up overwhelmed. And, if you're overwhelmed, chances are — you won't do ANY of it well.
The antidote to this? Focus.
Choose one or two social media platforms to focus on. Then, be sure to not only post consistently but engage as well.
For example, as I work in the B2B sector, most of my clients want to focus on LinkedIn. There's a lot you can do there. Yes, posting regularly is important, but engaging in conversations by commenting on others' posts also matters.
What about newer social media platforms?
While some businesses still struggle to maintain a presence on ANY social media outlet, new platforms come along regularly, adding more confusion to the mix.
What should companies do?
When a new social media platform arrives on the scene, if you think it will be relevant for your business, you can grab your preferred handle — but don't feel that you need to jump in fully. Shiny object syndrome is not the answer. A "wait and see" approach may be better, as some newbies quickly fizzle.
One example? Threads, developed by the team at Instagram, debuted in early July. It was off to a strong start but is already seeing some drop-off in engagement (this story says it's lost more than 80% of its daily active users).
I'm not writing it off yet, as Threads recently added a desktop version that might help it succeed (as everyone on Twitter knows, we need an alternative).
Further, the fact that Twitter (now X) is considering adding a paywall for ALL users may benefit Threads.
Related: Want to Do a Public Relations Push? Focus on Social Media First.
Find out where your audience is spending time
If you decide to add social media platforms to your marketing strategy, first think about where your audience spends time. Don't simply follow a hunch. Do some research to find out. Often, companies make decisions without first thinking it through.
Case in point: I was meeting with a client when their social media strategy came up. One person asked about Instagram — as in, should this B2B manufacturing company be active there?
So, I asked an innocent question: if that's where they thought their customers — who are in industries like aerospace, chemical processing and food processing — were hanging out.
Someone answered, "Oh, yeah, that's a good point — we should probably look into that."
My guess? Instagram may not be where these manufacturing folks are spending time when they want to research solutions.
TikTok comes up a lot in meetings with clients, too. In addition to privacy concerns, there's the fact that success there hinges on producing video content. Not every B2B company, especially those that are smaller, has the resources to keep up with that.
And again, we need to always come back to: Is that where their audience spends time researching vendors and solutions?
First, do the research to determine fit before sinking a lot of resources into a channel that may not pay off for your business.
Related: How to Increase Your Brand's Exposure By Integrating These 2 Tools
Focusing on niche audiences
With all this social media upheaval, some businesses are finding success by focusing on reaching niche audiences. As audiences splinter, reaching smaller groups of your key customers will become increasingly important.
Social media is much like the world of streaming and connected TV. As more streaming services arrive on the scene, the audience becomes divided. Brands have to make choices about where to spend their advertising budget.
They'll have to do the same with social media. Conducting research to understand where your prospects are most likely to spend time is of greater importance than ever.
Once you understand that, you can determine how to maximize your budget. As you move forward, be sure to evaluate how things are going and adjust as necessary.
The social media landscape may be constantly in flux, but if you want to engage in an effective public relations program, being present and active there IS helpful.
By researching where those you want to reach are spending time and focusing on those platforms, you can make the social media conundrum a little easier to navigate.
