Now that you’ve seen the survey results of my dissertation about social media’s impact on PR, it’s time to post some of the interviews I conducted with PR professionals from the UK.

The first one to go online is my interview with Heather Yaxley – a ‘Public Relations hybrid academic-educator-consultant-practitioner’ with more than 25 years of experience in the industry. Besides working as a consultant and a part-time lecturer at Bournemouth University, Heather is also a CIPR Fellow and Accredited Practitioner as well as a honorary member and director of the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association Ltd. She is co-author with Alison Theaker of The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit – a must read for anyone in PR. You can check out Heather’s blog here http://greenbanana.wordpress.com/ and follow her on Twitter @greenbanana.

Q: How do you think the emergence of social media changed PR? Is it a positive or a negative impact and why?

Journalism and Public Relations go hand in hand. Journalists need PRs to provide them with stories, facts and figures and access to spokespeople etc., whereas PRs need journalists to feature these stories in media outlets to gain exposure. However, in today’s world, strongly dominated by social media, journalists can themselves find plenty of information online and often so they come across such on social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn.

According to a research by Cision social media has become an embedded part of the daily work routine of UK journalists with the majority of them using two or three social media tools regularly for professional reasons. (Below you’ll find a webinar that talks about the findings in more detail.)  

This in turn is not much of a surprise – we’ve all seen how traditional media has been struggling because of the growth of digital. But is print really dead? Is the future of journalism digital? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Undeniably though what matters for journalists is not so much the source (print, digital or social media), but the quality and reliability of the information from that source.

Understanding the implications of social media’s impact on journalisms, as Cision calls it ‘social journalism’, can provide PROs with more effective ways of pitching journalists and building good media relations.

Here are some of the most interesting findings that PR professionals should take into account before approaching the media: 

Video is everywhere. More and more people view videos online on a daily basis. By 2015 online video watching is expected to double. No wonder YouTube is the third most visited website in the world and the second largest search engine after Google. Even video creation has become much easier with all these new gadgets and phones that allow us to make videos in a fairly good quality anywhere, anytime.

From a business perspective, video is becoming a must in marketing and PR strategies and campaigns to improve brand awareness and promote products and services.

But why video?

Simple. It’s a more compelling and interactive way of creating and sharing content that’s more engaging than plain text is. In the world of social media solely broadcasting a message is no longer effective; however storytelling is. Telling the story of your brand, your products or services through video can be way more exciting for your audience that is often not patient enough or doesn’t have the time to sit down and read through a lengthy product/service description. Demo videos for example are a great way of showcasing how your products work - something text often cannot explain well enough.

What’s more, videos can create a unique viewer experience much more realistic and life-like than text because they communicate feelings and expressions that can be easily perceived by yout audience. This is where the power of web videos for brand lies – in the ability to show their “human” side to build loyalty and trust. And by that, videos can be a great promotional campaign to boost your overall PR and marketing efforts.

Besides increasing online brand presence and consumer engagement videos can also improve SEO efforts - the chance of your business to appear in the first pages of a Google search. Most importantly, inspiring, provoking and funny videos are often shared, liked and commented by your audience, which can potentially make them go viral. 

A research by Dunkin’ Donuts and CareerBuilder shows the PR industry is the 4^th most caffeinated industry in the world! Apparently PR professionals rely a lot on coffee throughout the workday to keep their productivity and increase their energy and motivation, with 63% having two cups or more and 28% drinking three cups or more a day. How interesting!

These results come from the US, but in my opinion they’re transferrable to the rest of the world. However, with one exception – the UK, where tea seems to be very, very popular. For example, at the PR office where I work now half of the team drink tea and no coffee – that’s certainly impressive, don’t you think?

I am a coffee addict; I love the smell and the warmth! But I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of coffee I have a day and to choose decaf instead whenever possible. I guess that’s what many PR pros have been doing during the past 12 months too, because last year the PR industry was not the forth, but the second most caffeinated industry!

Does this make PR a stressful profession? I’ll leave that for you to decide. 

Pinterest has been gaining more and more popularity not only among individuals, but also businesses  using the platform to engage with their audiences and effectively promote their products/services.

As a brand it’s not always easy to keep up with social media and be ‘available’ and active all the time. Tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and inbuilt scheduling options such as the one on Facebook have allowed companies to automatically share content on their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn platforms with pre-determined posts.

Scheduling in advance is now also possible for Pinterest with a new tool called Pingraphy, which makes it easier for brands to manage their Pinterest accounts and reach their audiences at all times. It can also save them time because as we all know pinning is very, very time-consuming and is also addictive – once you start, you can’t stop and so you spend even more time pinning.

What’s great about Pingraphy is that it’s free and easy to use. Just with a few simple steps you will be able to schedule your pins for the entire week or month and make sure you are always active on Pinterest to engage with your followers.

Sounds good? Here’s how to start scheduling your pins: