Do we need Social Media?

Social Media is taking over the world, but has it taken over your life?

Is it more important than tv for example?

Are you being sucked in to this espace, or how have you managed to get out of the bottle?

The changes in internet and communication technologies are affecting public relations. PR is not dead but PR practitioners really need to adapt quickly to the changes in the industry and to the changes that are happening between the relationships between companies and the public. Even social responsibility programs of companies are affected by social media. Customer service is also affected by the changes in communication channels used by the companies and the clients.

Basically, more pieces of information are accessed by more people now. Whereas companies had to pay good money to be able to broadcast their marketing campaigns, and their other efforts so that more people would know about what they are doing. These days information could easily spread online. There are just some elements that make some information spread more quickly than others but there is always the possibility that the information you want disseminated will spread. In fact, even information you don’t want to spread and would like to keep can spread very quickly. Social media have really made information much harder to control. Information can be free flowing online with different sources and different recipients. Companies cannot control how people make use of social media to spread their own personal experiences regarding the brand.

There are already over Protected content people on Facebook and over 80 million people on Twitter. These people post all kinds of information daily from the food they eat, the restaurants they go to, to the brands of the clothes on their back. People share these kinds of information freely online. People don’t just tweet or blog about the positive things, they can even be inclined to tweet or blog negative experiences. This changes the dynamics between companies and the public.