Who’s right? PR vs. advertising vs. Switched on Media

After a week with Switched on Media I have started to notice differences between the ways agencies approach social media – some say it is an opportunity for a conversation, others say it is another channel to execute the latest campaign.

During my time at an advertising agency I found the approach was to consider social media as another channel for communicating the key messages and/or call to action. For example,  TVCs would be distributed on YouTube or  behind-the-scenes photos of an ad campaign would be posted on Flickr. They experimented more with brands that had a young target audience and were ‘brave’ enough to delve into social media, such as this blog they used for the launch of new energy drink, (Samedi Says).

More recently, I was working at a public relations agency. This experience has revealed that PR professionals consider social media to be a tool for facilitating conversations and creating a two-way flow of information. It is useful in helping these consultants to “develop a mutual understanding between an organisation and it’s publics” (definition of public relations from PRIA). PR agencies love to use social media to spread their message, engage their stakeholders and/or manage a crisis. For example, we used social media to pitch stories to journalists, announce events, manage the flow of information in a public health crisis and promote our client’s corporate social responsibility activities.

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