Changing lanes: Social media best practices for PR agencies

August 28th, 2009 by Sharon Harper

Since I wrote my last post, there has been considerable discussion around the topic of PR driving the social media aspects of digital communications. An article by FirmVoice of the Council of Public Relations Firms provides additional commentary on why PR is ideally suited for this role. It also offers the following nine social media best practices for PR firms:

1. Determine audience and objectives first—not social media channels.
2. Focus on building a body of results-driven work—not building your “social media brand.”
3. Innovate and experiment internally—practice what you preach.
4. Offer or attend social media professional development—then share the knowledge across the practice.
5. Instruct and inform—educate clients on social media.
6. Collaborate with clients’ other agency partners—don’t go it alone.
7. Cultivate relationships—not just numbers.
8. Be prudent when it comes to projecting revenue—and measuring ROI.
9. Remember that while clicks may be queen—content is king.

A few of these really resonated with me—particularly #1 because it speaks to the importance of knowing who is talking about your company (and what topics and in which forums) before establishing a social media strategy that ideally complements other marketing efforts.  My colleague Miguel Llano touches on the best approach for doing this in his post about entering the social media scene.

#3 also strikes a chord, as Martino Flynn has experimented with social media, and I’m proud to say that, beyond our Blip blog, we have a successful Facebook page, Twitter account, and Ning social network.

As an integrated agency, #6 is organic to our culture.  We leverage in-house resources—like the technical and web experts in our digital media services team—when working with clients to develop a social media strategy.  It would be a disservice to silo these practices, which bring their own benefits to the table.  And #9 is also important from a PR standpoint.  Planning and developing content is a core tactic that comes first to the technology that enables us to communicate our messages to the influencers who ultimately determine what information will be shared.

— Sharon Harper

This entry was posted by Sharon Harper on Friday, August 28th, 2009 and is filed under Interactive, MF, Public Relations, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.