Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are social instruments of two-way communication. This means, they offer businesses the opportunity to talk directly to their customers, but most importantly customers have the means to talk back to the company too, anytime, anywhere. And this is where the power of social media lies – in communication.

What some businesses get wrong is how social media can only serve as another advertising tool. The reality however is that broadcasting a message and simply selling don’t work anymore. As Brian Solis says: “People are searching for answers and directions, not messages or sales pitches.” It is ‘peer recommendations’ (the reviews and opinions about products and services by other people like us) that we seek on social media and that are absolutely critical to company’s marketing activities for one very simple reason: people trust friends and others like them, not organisations.

Research (see infographic by Hubspot below) shows that 75% of consumers do not even believe ads tell the truth, whereas 90% would turn to friends for brand recommendations and 71% are more likely to buy a product if someone referred to it on social media.

Here are some of the benefits and opportunities of actively engaging on social media that are worth considering:

As the largest social media platform, Facebook has now reached more than 1 billion users worldwide. If the network were country, it would’ve been the third largest after China and India. Imagine what a mix of personalities, interests, understandings and beliefs this massive group of interconnected people contains!

The other day I came across a presentation that shows just that – a classification of the types of people using Facebook to interact with brands. It’s a fascinating and funny categorisation created by the digital agency Soap Creative. According to them there are actually 36 different Facebook fans.

As the agency said, “Like any large ecosystem, Facebook’s billion-strong audience presents a fascinating glimpse into the sheer variety of fans that swarm to brand pages like African fauna around a watering hole. While many are relatively benign, and some are downright pleasant, there do exist various types that have the potential to drive one to drink.”

Here are some of the characters:

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, the list of social media platforms can go on and on... Social media has been so rapidly growing the last few years, becoming one of the most talked about subjects in the world of technology. It has changed the way we communicate, work and build relationships. Social media has been truly revolutionary - some call it 'the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution.'

To show you more about the massive impact social media has had on our lives I want to share with you the updated Social Media Revolution video for 2013. This is the latest version of the very popular video series by Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics, that show astounding facts in the social media development (here are the previous ones: 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012).

Be ready to be shocked!

Did you know that:

• Over 50% of the world's population is under 30 years old? (The majority of them use social media all the time.)
• Each day 20% of Google searches have never been searched before?
• Social media has become the #1 activity on the Web?
• 1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook?
• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé? Some universities have even stopped distributing e-mail accounts!
• Kindergartens are learning on iPads, tablets and eReaders, not chalkboards?
• 69% of parents are "friends" with their children on social media?
• Every second 2 new members join LinkedIn (this has doubled since last year)?
• Every minute 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube?
• If Wikipedia were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long and it would take you over 123 years to read?
• 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations; only 14% trust advertisements?
• 93% of marketers use social media for business?
• Babys in Egypt have been named Facebook and Twitter?

Many small businesses have already experienced the benefits of social media and have started actively engaging with current and potential customers. A new research by VerticalResponse discovered that there's been an increase in investment and efforts in social media marketing by smaller organisations, however they still struggle with the workload and the lack of time.

VerticalResponse conducted a survey with almost 500 small-business owners to find out how much money and time they spend on social media. Here's what they found:

• 43% of small businesses spend 6 or more hours weekly on social media, 7% spend more than 21 hours a week.
• 66% of surveyed businesses are spending more time on social media this year in comparison to 2011.
• 90% of small companies are on Facebook, 70% on Twitter and 50% on LinkedIn.
• 55% of small businesses have a blog with 43% publishing a blog post at least once a week.
• 1/3 of CEOs/owners want to spend less time on social media and focus on growing their business instead.  
• 1/3 of small companies post on social networks every day; 32% post on Facebook at least once a day and 29% tweet at least once daily.
• Finding and posting content is the most time-consuming activity.
• Small businesses are spending more on social media at a faster rate than the overall marketing budget – 22% have increased their social media spending compared to a year ago.
• To publish and analyse their activities 36% of small businesses pay for such services with 57.5% spending $26 a month for it.

The four main conclusions after analysing all data were:

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?