People Involved:
Marketing Department v. Social Media Department
My Experience:
Marketing, public relations, and advertising have changed
drastically over the past decade. Ten years ago, advertising and marketing
consisted mainly of traditional marketing. Bloggers and social media experts
did not exist and were most definitely not considered professionals. Press
releases were not uploaded to social media sites, and advertising was not
instantaneous like it is in today’s world.
Here is a link to an interesting article that demonstrates how PR and
marketing have changed over the past 10 years:
http://www.marketingeggspert.com/10-ways-pr-has-changed-in-the-past-10-years.
During my senior year at Boston University, I was fortunate
enough to attain a PR internship at a luxury hotel in Boston. This was my first
real world experience mixing my two passions together, public relations and
hospitality. One of the important lessons I learned during this internship was
that social media played an important role in public relations. Everything we
did had some sort of connection to social media. Google+, Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, and Instagram were all essential tools to the PR and marketing team.
The PR department, which consisted of a manager and assistants that worked with
social media, promoted packages and events on different social media sites. They
were always trying to come up with a new and cutting edge marketing strategy to
release on social. Everyone on the team used social media, and they worked
together to execute strategies. This opened my eyes to the modern day world of
PR and marketing, and I loved every bit of it.
During the second half of my senior year, I accepted an
internship at another top-notch hotel in Boston. I was the PR intern. During my
time there, I saw a different aspect to PR and marketing. The PR manager worked alone and her strategy
was not as social media based. The marketing and PR strategies and executions
were on a much smaller scale. She did not try to use social media to enhance PR
and marketing or to appeal to a more social savvy audience.
Now that I am a working professional in the PR and marketing
world, I have truly entered the world of modern day marketing. My entire agency
is social media based. Everything we do involves social, and we are constantly
brainstorming ideas on what else we can do to enhance the world of marketing
and PR with social media. All of our clients are ready to jump into the social
world and depend on us to use our understanding of social media to interact with
customers.
Comparing and
Contrasting:
Throughout my different experiences in PR and marketing, I
have been able to see companies use both classic and social media marketing. In
my own opinion, I prefer the new social way to the classic methods. I think
that advertising is evolving into a social media based business. Everyone has
access to social media, you can reach large audiences with it, and you can
create a personal connection with your target audience by using it. I also think
it is more cost effective. Social media is a wonderful tool that should be used
to its full capacity. That being said, I think we are in a transitional phase where
certain people prefer the use of classic methods, while others have fully
jumped onto the new social train. We are also in a time where the younger
generation is familiar with the new social way, and the older generation has no
idea how to use social media. Those people tend to prefer to find out news and
information via newspapers, radio, and ads. Since we are in this transitional
phase, I think we can use classic methods and new social media together to keep
everyone interested.
Both classic and social media marketing are alike in the
sense that they are trying to reach a target audience. Both methods are trying
to get a message across and connect with the audience. The difference between
the two methods is that the new social media method allows businesses to
directly connect with the consumer in real time. In classic marketing, the
people in the PR department and agencies are involved in marketing. The
consumer is on the receiving end and has a passive role. The social media user
is involved in social media marketing. This creates a more personalized
experience that can be catered to a specific user just by simply commenting
back to a post on Facebook or re-tweeting a tweet. It allows marketers to focus
on the interests of the user and promotes brand loyalty. I also feel that there are so many fun and exciting
ways to market on social media such as holding contests or personalizing your
brand with user generated content. At my job, one of my clients includes a very
well known cafe. Each week we try and use at least one user generated photo to
try and create a personalized approach to our marketing strategy and make the
user part of the experience.
Which approach do you prefer, classic or the new social
media marketing?
Availability: During
Work Hours v. Permanent
Another great aspect of social media marketing is the fact that
you can do it from anywhere at anytime. In classic marketing, advertising can
only be done during office hours. Meetings have to be set up, and reaching a
target audience is done on a superficial level on a billboard or in an ad in a
newspaper, or with a telephone call. With that kind of marketing, it is
difficult to be able to work at home or away from the office.
In the world of social media marketing, reaching your target
audience on a personal level with a simple comment or post can be done at any
time of the day and at any location. As I stated above, the agency that I work
for is social media based. There are many instances where co-workers or myself
receive a notification, message, or post that needs to be responded to rather
quickly. It is not detrimental if it is not responded to right away, but it
adds a personal touch when we respond quickly. It is extremely convenient that
we are able to just log onto our computers and with the click of a button,
reply a personal post back to the user. It is an aspect of my job that I love.
We also have clients in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia that work different
hours than we do. We manage their social pages and often have to work according
to their hours when speaking to our point of contact at that specific location.
The easy access that exists on social media is extremely convenient and makes
our job that much easier. We are also able to respond at a quicker pace than if
we were only able to work during office hours. The ability to be available to
social media users at all times is an important aspect of social media
marketing.
