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. 

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: 

I have finally found some time to write this blog post! I’ve been planning it since my dissertation results came out end of July; at first I wanted to just present the survey findings in a text form with lots of explanations, but then I thought, no, an infographic would be perfect. And here it is - my first infographic! It shows in a nice visual way what I found from the survey I conducted with PR professionals earlier this year.

In addition to the online questionnaire I also carried out interviews with PR pros from the UK, some of which I will post soon. So, stay tuned! (update: here's the first interview with Heather Yaxley.)

As for the dissertation, now it’s time to brag a little bit :P I was very happy about my result and the positive feedback I got – my mark was 75%, or a First as it’s called in the UK (for the ones unfamiliar with the UK grading system, here’s a simple grade chart). I consider this an achievement, first because I don’t have much practical experience in Public Relations (or more precisely, didn’t have at the time), and second because I am not native in the language I wrote the dissertation in – English, which is just another foreign language for me.

As happy as I am, I still have a second dissertation to write and one more term back in Germany to finally finish my entire BA degree in International Business. Yes, I know how complicated it sounds…

So, getting to the point, below you’ll find the results of the online survey I conducted for the dissertation, which was entirely targeted at PR/Communications professionals (I have not included the participants’ profiling; however if you wish to have a look, just get in touch with me). Once again I would like to thank all survey (and interview) participants. I admit gathering enough questionnaire responses was one of the major difficulties of the project.

Again, the infographic below only shows a summary of the findings, the actual results are much more detailed and in-depth as all survey questions not only had pre-determined answer options, but also open-ended questions asking for explanations, more details and opinions. Nevertheless, the following should still give you some food for thought.

I have discussed Facebook with many of my friends and work colleagues and quite of few of them have told me “Oh, I hate Facebook!” (to be clear, I don’t!) However, they still use the platform for various reasons, including because all of their friends and family are on it (and not on Google+), or for business and marketing purposes. So, for all of you who don’t like Facebook and/or want to stay in touch with family and family only, here’s JustFamily – a new social network just for family.

You probably ask yourself “Why should I join yet another social media site?” Here’s why according to the founders of JustFamily:

"There are lots of ways to share “what’s happening now” with friends and the world. But family is different. Family is the only social group that cares about the past, the present, and the future. We’re building JustFamily so families can share life together and stay close in a private place, away from work and friends.”

Well, that sounds reasonable to me. Therefore, I decided to join the network and now I want to show you what it looks like and some of its features. The site is very clean and easy to navigate – I assume because it’s supposed to be used by the elderly people of the family as well.