Carrot Creative Blog

PR and social media is a strong interest for Carrot Creative. We work with PR agencies all the time discussing social media strategy for some amazing clients. We realize that PR has completely shifted with social media.. Campaigns now include Facebook, YouTube & Flickr as line items. Pitching reporters on Twitter is not uncommon and blogging has become a necessity rather than an added item. Social Media Is the Responsibility of Public Relations.

There’s an old saying that “No Press is Bad Press”— I don’t think this is from a PR person because honestly, bad press is a PAIN. It adds additional effort to fixing the problem and long hours of figuring out how to attack the crisis. But, with social media enabling a message to travel far and wide, add comments that are sometimes not moderated, how do we look at bad “press” when it ends up driving awareness?

While many brands are scrambling to get online and in “social media” (we have the privilege of working with many of them–woot!) sometimes it’s good to just step back and cover the basics, do the little things first and then expand to something bigger based on event or launch timing, market need or announcement.

Last night The Grammys proved that the “little things” work with a simple social media campaign targeting Facebook and Twitter to update users in real time of red carpet photos and videos.

Photo Courtesy of The Bitten World.

You can thank the fact that today is National Pie Day for the witty subject line. But, it’s true. Pie is more than the filling and I doubt anyone can say that they eat pie for only the dry top layer. So, where am I going with this?

I’m linking social media and pie. Yes. It’s happening. Just like a pie, you need every ingredient to make it the best that it can be. The filling is what makes it, but you can’t leave out the crust or the
topping. In fact, to some people it’s not even a proper pie if you don’t put whip cream
on it. Same with a communications plan, you need all of the ingredients for it to work.

I’ve had some discussions lately about the changing landscape and the need for social media for brands as well as who is the “right person” for the job of managing the social media campaign. Is it the advertising agency? The PR agency? A whole new type of agency or specialist that has yet to emerge?

Andy Sernovitz, contributing writer for the Smart Blog on Social Media has a great take on this and who he think should be running the social media world: PR executives. As Andy says, “PR executives make the best social media executives. There is a similar mindset. Traditional media relations requires finding the right influencers, building trust, and sharing credible, relevant stories. Translating those actions to social media — replacing reporters with the bigger community — is exactly how to run a great social media program.”