Overwhelmed by Social Media

    My Facebook status this week read "overwhelmed by social media". Sometimes this is how I feel. But lately, I am realizing what a crucial part of communication social media is becoming and the best ways to incorporate it into my career and an organization's public relations strategy. I wanted to share what I have learned just this week about the impact social media is having, plus what I have gathered from social media websites and RSS feeds I follow:
    I attended a PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) presentation given by Rebecca Dohrman, Purdue University Doctoral Candidate, this past Wednesday. I was encouraged by her presentation as she explained how organizations best utilize social media. She presented several examples of organizations who are using blogs or Twitter to relate to their customers. For example, ComcastCares demonstrates how Comcast is using twitter as a way to provide quick and reliable customer service to their customers. Rebecca also showed us one hospital who uses their twitter to update their followers on how long their current wait time is to see a doctor. Who has time to check their twitter on their way to the emergency room? While few people would check it before they go to the ER, the hospital has the potential to attract more clients to their ER because they are constantly providing their twitter followers proof of their consistently low wait times and great customer service. Organizations can use their social media sites to maintain a good reputation with customers.
    For those of you who have not heard of Google Reader, I urge you to check it out.  I simply made a list of sites and blogs I'd like to follow and now I receive updates from each and every one of them as they are posted. It's so convenient to navigate and have the option to choose what I'd like to read on one page versus having to manually google search each site or blog.
    One twitter I follow via Google Reader is Samaritan's Purse. I'd like to comment a bit on how well they use methods of social media to communicate and promote their various projects. Samaritan's Purse, an international relief organization, uses their twitter well in 3 ways:

1. They consistently update their Twitter. As a non-profit organization, it's important for them to let the public know exactly what they are doing to benefit the world. It's easy to see they are involved and committed to providing help in the face of every natural disaster and situations involving extreme poverty and devastation. Receiving constant updates from their twitter page lets donors and supporters of the organization know exactly what is being done with their resources and how to they can help.

2. They use their Twitter to point to news, Facebook updates, and other blogs being written about them. For example, they were able to post a link to Michael W. Smith's Blog Post about relief work being done to help victims of the Haiti earthquake. I have seen various tweets about things I was involved in when I worked in Aurora, Colorado as a media intern for Operation Christmas Child, one of their various projects. For example, they posted links to K-Love Packing parties and links to newspapers who published information from the press releases we media interns wrote.

3. They Use their Twitter as one place to consistently post useful information for those who participate in their various projects. Their Followers are able to use their Twitter as the place to go for the most up-to-date information of Samaritan's Purse projects around the world. For example, they tweeted the most recent information about where volunteers could bring their packed shoe boxes. They also tweeted information for where to donate to help Haiti Earthquake victims.

To sum it up, organizations can use social media to promote their organizations. It's a simple way to utilize public relations via social media, but has the potential to build a great reputation and keep the organization's supporters in the loop.