Managing Social Media with Public Relations

In this lecture, we discuss what public relations is & why it is so essential to social media.

We then chat about pr principles and their importance to the digital space. Following this, we examine the difference between PR & Marketing and ask whether we can have both.

We then look into strategies and their importance, including SWOT Analysis and SMART Goals; you are then encouraged to produce your own for your business in this Lectures activity.

What exactly is PR?

Firstly, public relations or (PR) is about the relationship with your public.

It is defined as managing the spread of information between an organization or an individual and the public.

It involves building and maintaining positive relationships with various stakeholders, such as customers, investors, employees, the media, etc.

The primary goal of PR is to create a favourable image of your business in the eyes of the public.

This can be achieved through various activities such as media relations, crisis management, event planning, community outreach and… social media.

The PR Principles that I have found to be most effective are principles dating from the 1930s by a pioneer in PR, Mr Arthur Page.

He came up with seven principles that he believed should guide the practice of public relations.

He emphasized the importance of honesty, integrity, customer focus, long-term thinking, employee engagement, and maintaining a positive attitude in public relations.

These principles continue to be influential even today.

Marketing and public relations are important aspects of a company's communication strategy, but their focus, objectives, and tactics differ. Marketing is focused on promoting and selling products or services, while PR is focused on managing the company's reputation and relationships.

As PR is focused on managing the reputation and relationships of the company and marketing on promoting and selling products or services, this makes room for either a foundational PR campaign running at all times and perhaps an embedded marketing campaign to highlight a seasonal or opportunity product, such as the sale of an item.

The role of digital PR in modern-day communication strategies is becoming increasingly important as more people spend time online and engage with digital media. Online PR allows organizations to communicate with their audiences in a more targeted and personalized way through a variety of digital channels.

By conducting a PR SWOT analysis, a company can identify areas where it needs to improve its public relations efforts and develop strategies to leverage its strengths and opportunities while mitigating its weaknesses and threats.

You may have already heard of SMART goals.

They are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives that help guide the planning and execution of public relations/social media activities.

If you haven’t already paused this lecture to look at your strategies and goals, I strongly encourage that now before you go.

Remember the famous quote from Napoleon Hill, Plan your work and work your plan.

Once you have completed this activity, please progress into the next section, where we really get into your content creation.

In this lecture, we start the content creation and batching expedition.

We look at content ideas that are based on PR principles. We then consider planning and make a note of the logistics. We then finish this lecture with a practical activity.

That's all the theory out of the way. Now we get into the fun stuff.

Firstly, we look at Arthur Page's Principles and how they fit nicely into your monthly social media content plan. And then, we will look at quick though-storming for the month's content and everything we are going to need to create the entire post in logistics and planning. And then, lastly, we will finish this lecture with a super quick practical activity.

So now, we look at resources. We look at what we need to create these posts.

Have a try this basic practical activity.

This lecture discusses images and image collection and why photos are so important.

We look at what stock images are and then the concept of starting an opportunity folder. We look at some basic image editing, and then I introduce to you briefly the idea of utilising your staff as ambassadors. We then finish this lecture with a fun, practical activity. Let's dive in!

In this lecture, we discuss all things image collection and fundamental editing of images and again utilise staff as ambassadors.

Having good images for social media is super important for so many reasons for building your brand, engaging with your audience, and achieving your marketing goals.

Stock images are pre-existing photographs, illustrations, or videos that are available for license and use by individuals or businesses such as Canva image library, Shutter Stock and a whole heap more. Taking your own images means capturing your own unique photographs or videos, and that's the key. My advice is to keep things looking as authentic as possible. It's important to carefully consider the pros and cons of each option and choose the approach that will best support your business objectives.

If you are capturing images from your phone, for example, if you have an 'opportunity' moment, get out your phone and take an image. First and most importantly, make sure that your camera lens is clean.

I suggest basic image editing using your camera's in-house editing options. There are many other options, but again, in keeping things simple, use the available resources you already have. You may be surprised by how much image editing you can do on your device.

Is there an opportunity to offer your staff an incentive? This section discusses the option of using your staff to capture images as simply as possible.

Here is a practical activity to enhance your learning.

In this lecture, we start the copywriting for your content. We look at what we can do if we struggle with the dreaded blank screen syndrome and what additional resources we can use. We then discuss utilising your existing community engagement, and again we chat about your staff as ambassadors using a mini-interview format.

By this stage, we have examined PR principles and why they are essential to your social media. We have created an outline of what we want to create and thought about capturing or acquiring the needed images. Now we are at the content creation stage, or what we call copywriting.

Some industries have user manuals or such items that may assist in your ideas for your copywriting. Alternatively, you may use AI or artificial intelligence to expand your content idea.

Welcome to ChatGPT for content creation! Although ChatGPT can speed up your content creation process, it is still recommended that you modify the ChatGPT results. This will avoid the 'cookie-cutter' feeling that is starting to trend on social media. Remember to remain authentic and be mindful of your business's reputation.

Sharing and reposting your communities post about your business, providing you have their permission has many advantages.

Community engagement in social media refers to the active participation and interaction with your audience on social media platforms. There are several key benefits to community engagement.

Writing styles on social media platforms can vary significantly depending on the platform's culture, audience, and purpose. In this lecture, Mia and I discuss different writing styles commonly used on some popular social media platforms.

Canva is a popular online graphic design platform that allows users to create a wide range of visual content, including social media graphics, presentations, posters, logos, and more. I welcome you to go check it out and have some fun designing.

Instagram and Facebook Stories are a feature within the social media platform that allows users to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. They appear in a slideshow format at the top of the Instagram and Facebook feeds.

Stories have become more popular due to their casual nature, as they only last 24 hours.

Instagram and Facebook reels are entertaining videos. Reels are similar to TikTok videos, offering a way to create and discover engaging content in a vertical, full-screen format. In this format, you are given what I call a 'creative free licence'. You can be as creative as your imagination allows.

So, now that you have your staff's image and mini-interview from the script you modified and handed them, you can expand this to suit your needs.

In this lecture, we look at scheduling, but first, we look at # hashtags. We then break down the scheduling using simple tools, and once you are confident that your content is ready, we look at the practical activity, which will be your batch scheduling.

You have just covered a lot of ground. Now we look at bringing all the elements together and start to schedule in Facebook's Meta Business Suite.

But first, we discuss the use of hashtags in the mix. Hashtags are important in social media because they serve as a way to categorize and organize content.

Now for batching your content, all we need to do is start scheduling.

Many apps and programs can help with scheduling. However, we use Facebook's Meta Business Suite to keep things simple. Meta Business Suite is a powerful business management solution.

For our next activity, to assist with your learning, we are going to schedule some of the posts that we made earlier, and then I encourage you to schedule all of the content that you have made here if you are happy with it, of course.

Just when you thought we had finished! In this lecture, we discuss how important ethics are to your business. We then quickly chat about issues and crises online and some fundamental ethics. Again we chat about your staff as ambassadors but in ethics. We then follow this lecture with a quiz.

In this section, we start to discuss ethics in social media.

Ethics is vital to your brand and reputation management for so many reasons.

PR crisis communication, for example, in the digital space, involves managing a crisis situation that arises through digital channels, such as social media or online reviews.

Remember that social media is social. It is two-way communication.

If you have received a comment on a social media post, reply as soon as you can with similar. Remember that all reactions to your community are a reflection of you and your business.

Brand reputation is your asset and number one biggest priority. Reputation and respect are harder to win back than keeping it off high stands in the first place.

We have discussed a few times already about your staff or community driving your social media. Positive responses from your community will result in momentum. This lecture contains a bonus idea for you.

Here is a quick video quiz for you to enhance your learning.

In this last lecture, we look at figures, analytics, data etc. and how they fit in with your original strategies. We then finish this lecture with a video quiz.

Looking at your analytics, can you recall that SWOT analysis we did earlier and those SMART goals we did as well? This is where we can measure what we have done alongside that.

What we want to see in our data is that our efforts align with our goals.

Once again, there are many programs and apps you can subscribe to assist with identifying your analytics. Since we are using Facebook's Meta Business Suite, in this lecture, we go back over there and have a look.

But before we do, why conduct regular and routine analytics?

Measuring and analysing social media and online PR performance is critical to understanding the effectiveness of our efforts and making data-driven decisions to improve our results.

Digital Security Basics for Social Media Management.

In today’s digital landscape, protecting your online presence is essential, especially when managing social media accounts for businesses. This section will provide an overview of digital security, focusing on safeguarding vulnerable individuals, identifying and avoiding scammers and spammers, and responding effectively to security breaches.

If you suspect that your account has been hacked, take immediate action:

1. Change Your Password: Use a strong, new password and update it on other accounts if they share the same credentials.

2. Enable Two-Factor Authentication: This adds an extra layer of security to your account.

3. Report the Breach: Contact the platform directly to report the incident. For example, Facebook has specific resources to assist with compromised accounts. For Businesses in Australia, you may also need to contact relevant government bodies.

4. Check for Unauthorised Activity: Review account settings, posts, and messages for suspicious activity and remove unauthorised devices from account access.

5. Inform Stakeholders: Let your clients or audience know about the breach, especially if their data might have been affected.

For further resources, visit www.cyber.gov.au and relevant agencies for international businesses in Australia.

Congratulations, you have come to the end of this course.

Before you go, let's recap with a fun, quick quiz on the main elements of what PR is in the social media space and the steps to batch-creating.

Bringing all these elements together will save you time and money and greatly help in your reputation management. Keep an eye out for future courses that will assist with your business's online reputation.

Lastly, here is a fun video quiz to enhance your learning.