Social Media Use by Journalists Good for the PR/PA practice?

Social media surveys are a dime a dozen these days and with good reason. Social media are hot in the public relations and public affairs profession. Practitioners at all levels want to know how to use them for publicity, marketing, sales, reputation management, crisis communications, and more. And judging by the PR/PA M&A agency business, firms with social media expertise and experience are the hottest prospects around.

And, of course, use of social media by the media is of great interest. How do journalists use these media for developing news, stories, contacts, leads, facts, opinions, and opportunities to spread the word about what they’ve written? What do they think of social media sites?

A survey I did on this subject, pro bono, with Cision, provides interesting insights. It was sent to several thousand media, primarily print. We define social media as blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, microblogging sites such as Twitter, photo/video sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr, and review sites or web discussion forums such as eopinions.com. For a copy of the survey results, go to http://tinyurl.com/yhukr5q

As one might expect, owing to all that’s been written on the subject, an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists we surveyed, 89% turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

While the results demonstrate the fast growth of social media as a primary source of information for journalists, the survey also makes it clear that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media. Eighty-four percent said social media sources are “slightly less” or “much less” reliable than traditional media, with 49% saying social media suffer from “lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards.”

“Mainstream media have clearly hit a tipping point in their reliance on social media for their research and reporting,” said Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision “However, it’s also clear that while social media are supplementing the research done by journalists, they are not replacing editor and reporter reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.”

The survey provides some great news for PR/PA practitioners. To wit: Despite most assumptions to the contrary, most journalists turn to public relations and public affairs professionals for assistance in their primary research. Editors and reporters say they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts” (44%), “answers to questions and targeted information” (23%), and “perspective, information in context, and background information” (17%).

Social media provide a wealth of new information for journalists, but getting the story right is just as important as ever for those who prepare and edit the news. The takeaway for PR/PA professionals: They have a bigger responsibility than ever to ensure that the information they provide journalists is accurate and timely and that they provide access to primary sources that can verify the facts.

Media use of search engines/sites provides a good overview on which sites are the most popular among journalists. Google is the top search engine for online research with all responding journalists using this tool. Wikipedia is second but still used by six out of ten. Here are the stats:

• Google 100%
• Wikipedia 61%
• Firefox 31%
• Yahoo 26%
• MSN/Bing 15%
• Ask 7%
• Blog-only search engines such as Technorati, IceRocket 5%
• Review sites or web discussion forums such as eopinons.com, Ripoffreport.com 4%
• Other 10%

Social media are not the end all and be all for PR/PA purposes, but they have emerged as a powerful communication tool for PR/PA practitioners. Regardless of how they are and can be used, they have become the next step in the development of PR/PA principles and practices.

Knowledge of what they are, how to use them, and how to measure them has become urgent. If PR/PA practitioners don’t become the dominant experts in their use, others like ad agencies and digital design firms will step into the breach and shift the dynamics of organizational communications – detrimentally to my way of thinking – toward paid advertising and marketing.

Is the PR/PA profession up to the challenge? Some practitioners and firms clearly are, but I worry that most, at least in the current marketplace, are not. More has to be done to educate the profession about what’s at stake and what has to be done, individually and collectively, to take control of the playing field.

Don Bates is an Honorary Trustee of the Institute for Public Relations, a public relations and public affairs educator, and senior public relations and public affairs consultant. He also is an instructor in writing and media relations in the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Communications, which he helped to establish.