PR Week recently surveyed 128 clients drawn from in-house communication, marketing, and digital departments to ascertain to what extent they are now (or plan to) integrate digital social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.)--which, by definition is only available to those online, by via broadband at that--into their existing operations.
A Given
Two-thirds of those surveyed were well aware of the movement and saw its potential; they in fact see social media as a "real communication and business opportunity."
Still, the remaining one-third were still on the fence, and wanted better (and harder) figures backing the value of social media to a company's PR efforts.
Ninety percent of those surveyed opined that social media should be integrated into traditional communications departments.
Use
Nearly thirty-five of respondents said that social media is now a core part of their PR and communications strategy, twenty-eight percent said social media is an element of their current campaigns, eighteen percent are using social media on an ad hoc basis, fifteen percent have experimented with it, while five percent have yet to touch social media as a channel.
One View
Simon Warr, Board Director for communications and public affairs at Jaguar and Land Rover found "these results surprising. It is hard to say whether people are seeking ownership or trying to avoid ownership [of the social media channel]. The other part that is surprising is that more people are not of the same view as me--that this is cross-functional. The challenge is how, as an organization, you coordinate and align all that activity and ensure that you are speaking in a consistent voice and are not duplicating efforts and spending.
"There may be a difference, for example, between the types of social media monitoring that HR and PR are employing. You have all these different functions that will have a degree of engagement around them. Each will probably say they should lead it and others should follow. You need to make sure they are all singing from the same song sheet. It would be odd to end up saying PR has the lead for social media or marketing has it.
"It transcends structure."
Not Going Away
I believe the bottom line here is that social media has now grow from a grassroots phenomenon to a corporate fact, much like radio or television grew from novelty to mainstream and with that brought corporate PR and marketing along.
Of course--and the report does not cover this--social media does not reach everyone. However, the demographics of those reached (and they are in the majority) is quite well charted, and can so be tailored to when addressed.
Endorsed by Potential Profit
You know that a trend has grown main stream when corporate lookouts see profit, and so begin to exploit it. And if this approach proves successful, perhaps it will be an impetus for corporate support/investment in bridging the divide completely--so that profit can be made on the other side of the gulf.
