Professional PR practitioners succeed by informing the press and analysts of up-to-date research results. With new technologies emerging, it is becoming easier to provide this new information instantly through social media. However, now there are increasing amounts of pressure on PR practitioners to provide compelling, quality, and honest information to the media faster than competitors. Many times PR people fail to do proper research to make deadlines of the up-to-date information.
When PR people fail to communicate honest information just to make a deadline, research results get manipulated. If there is not enough time to conduct a full research report, then a PR practitioner will forget ethical standards and make up needed information because they are pressured to have the plan instantly. It is hard to keep up with flow of new information sent out in a press release in a world where anyone can tweet a 140 character message in seconds. In an article found in The Globe and Mail the reporter gives his incite on social media in the PR setting, "while PR isn’t dead, like the newspaper industry, television industry and many other businesses, it won't be able to survive without exploring this new digital frontier." Thus explaining how social media puts pressure on PR.
Although becoming more important, social media cannot be a PR practitioner's main transport to stay up to speed on company news. Research done by Connect2 Communications found in an article in PR News said the press uses social media sites like blogger and Facebook for personal connections and not to catch up on news breaking stories. It is important to do research on the trends of the press in order to capture their attention. Furthermore, without researching the target audience's preferences, a company will waste time and money into a campaign that is setup for failure. It is crucial to effectively use social media to provide the target audience information of new research results.
Sarah Evans, a tech reporter with a keen knowledge of social media was featured in a article in The Globe and Mail . Her incite was very interesting and helpful for PR practitioners. She said, "As a tech reporter, I receive dozens of pitches every week on new gadgets, websites and web services. Each reads pretty much the same way. The e-mail starts with “Hi Amber, I hope this finds you well” followed by four or five paragraphs that are copied and pasted from a traditional press release. These all end up in my trash. It is the rare PR person who actually hunts me down on Facebook or Twitter, or includes some personalization in an e-mail, that penetrates this endless stream of not-so-perfect pitches." This is an example of providing research results using social media effectively.
PR Practitioners should use social media as one way of informing the target audience of research results. It is important to keep in mind the target audience when trying to update the consumer on new information.
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