How Social Media has complicated Public Relations

Zachary DePiore

zacharydepiore@gmail.com

 

Public Relations jobs have been significantly affected by social media in the past couple of years. It has only made the field of Public Relations that much more important. However, it has also made maintaining a truthful image (and combating fake news against an organization) increasingly more difficult and complicated.

On one hand, Public Relations has never been made easier. Now more than ever, there is an increasing amount of platforms to get messages across to the mass public. Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are now being utilized by numerous PR firms. Many of these didn't exist before the 2000s -- some of these platforms are not even ten years old.

Another huge benefit to these platforms is the time frame in which announcements can be made. According to an article from 5W Public Relations, social media has significantly contributed to the popularity of the 24/7 news cycle. 

Getting good press out to the public for companies is no exception to this new method of communication. PR executives can tweet a message out at any time in the day, and it's almost a guarantee that people on Twitter will look at it. On top of that, this method is highly interactive. PR executives can actually observe just how many people have seen it and "liked" it. The same people can also give immediate feedback by commenting their thoughts and opinions.

Picture source: Imperial College Health Centre, United Kingdom

However, social media has also brought a plethora of new problems to the PR world as well. Even as the possibility for spreading good information increases, along with it brings the increasing possibility to spread malicious news. 

The proliferation of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda are allowed by the current unmoderated aspects of the platforms in use. It's become that much easier to slander an organization, make up facts about an organization, and to make these things public for everyone to see. As long as people are connected to the internet, it is possible to be fed false information. Before social media, it wasn't nearly as easy. 

To make matters even more complicated, fake news are just easier to spread. According to Agility for PR solutions, an MIT study found that fake stories are 70 percent more likely to spread than true stories. It seems as though outlandish statements made in the media (regardless of whether they are true or not) are more interesting to the majority of people.