Smith, Brian G. (2010). Socially distributing public relations: Twitter, Haiti, and interactivity in social media. Public Relations Review, 36(4), 329-335.
This study explores the influence of social media users on dialogue about organizations during a crisis, and proposes a social model of public relations in which traditional public relations responsibilities are distributed to social media users. This qualitative study of Twitter posts regarding relief efforts following the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, shows that elements of a distributed model include interactivity, legitimacy, and a user’s social stake.
Method
Qualitative content analysis of 1,400 Tweets (collected from keywords and hashtags) immediately following the Port-Au-Prince earthquake between January 22 and February 11, 2010.
Key Findings
- Twitter users appeared motivated to connect to individuals with a common cause, and sought to persuade others about the issue through personalization, self-promotion, and calls to action.
- Twitter users communicated commitments and influenced organizational legitimacy through real-life context, through the communication of messages in ways that organizations cannot.
- Twitter may be more than a message engine—in the context of a crisis, it acts as an engine for issue alliance, as tweets are often interdependent, establishing linked networks of comments and chains of dialogue.
- A socially-distributed model of public relations would be defined as: Online, retrievable communication activities by individuals without recognized stake in an organization, but that reflect on an organization and are facilitated by communication technology and dependent on recognition of the social stake a user or group may risk in communicating a message publicly about an organization or cause.
- Socially-distributed public relations is based on viral interaction (and the forces that drive it), public-defined legitimacy through personalization and personal relevance, and social stake (or the risk a user may take in communicating publically about an organization).
Implications for Practice
To facilitate social distribution of public relations messages, practitioners become accessible resources. Publics have unparalleled reach and access to information, and practitioners can help social media publics sort through the clutter. In this way, information sharing and interaction facilitate relationship cultivation. Practitioners should be well-versed in the online discussions to provide useful insights that fulfill user needs and lead to further interaction (which may be expressed as a user’s decision to “follow” or “friend” the organization or practitioner).
Article Location
The article is available for purchase at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811110000809
