Public Relations, Social Media

Are you wondering how you can integrate social media with public relations?

Instead of waiting for the media to write their story, organizations are choosing to share those stories via social media.

In this article I’ll share four ways you can use social media to support and enhance your public relations.

#1: Include Social Sharing With Press Releases

If you need to write a press release, find a way to support and extend the message via social sharing.

Keep in mind that journalists rely heavily on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to source and research stories. When you share your story socially, you are meeting them where they are instead of interrupting them in their inbox.

For example, a story about a charitable contribution would translate very well to video (building up your YouTube channel). Or you can share data via an infographic that fans can pin, tweet and share from your blog or Facebook.

The marketing team at Halogen Software tries to . The company released an industry report in June 2014 and added social components with a Twitter campaign, an infographic and a blog post.

#2: Create Social Campaigns Around Customer Case Studies

Most PR teams create customer case studies to highlight successes and build credibility. While some customer stories make a good write-up, most people aren’t willing to invest the time to read long-form articles. Instead of sharing the full case study on social media, pick out the key facts from the client’s success story and highlight those across the board.

Thanks to Microsoft technology, Sarah Churman was able to hear for the first time. The company knew showing instead of telling would elicit a stronger emotional response. They gave the story life by sharing a video of Sarah hearing her first sounds.

The next time you’re gathering customer testimonials and writing case studies, interview your customers on-camera. You can share the video on YouTube and choose the best quotes to share on Twitter or Facebook.

What do you think? Which traditional public relations tactics do you still use? How have you used social media to enhance those tactics? We’d love to hear your ideas and feedback. Please share your comments below.