Jan 17, 2023
Let’s be honest: Social media is sexy, and so is the discourse surrounding it. From the latest TikTok trend to Elon Musk taking over Twitter, there always seems to be something new happening in the digital world.
Social media is full of “influencers” with millions of devoted followers, and those influencers can have more of a public platform than Fortune 500 CEOs and elected officials in many cases. (Don’t look now, but Kylie Jenner has more than 372 million followers!)
Still, public relations practitioners should be careful about getting too caught up in the social media craze. Yes, the digital aspect of PR is important, and increasingly so. By now, we all know the value-add of influencer marketing – the strategy whereby brands partner with those who have engaged social media followings. Influencer marketing is often described as the contemporary version of product placement, further blurring the lines between paid and earned media, given that it’s more of a paid advertising tactic (paying influencers to endorse products).
But there’s more to PR than the digital universe. It is my opinion that the ultimate influencer for PR practitioners to leverage is still traditional media. After all, PR budgets seldom include paid influencer marketing, so professionals in the field need to be creative about promoting their clients in other ways. The original way – and still the most important way – comes down to traditional media.
The article read in this episode originally appeared on the Forbes Agency Council CommunityVoice™ in November 2022.
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