The way people consume news has completely changed since the advent of social media. From being the main source of news and opinion considered, mainstream media comprising newspapers, magazines, television and radio are now named after the news has been consumed online in real time, mainly from social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter Thus, the primacy of traditional media is fading before our eyes.
In the case of India, things are a bit different, as growth in literacy accompanied by growth in purchasing power has seen explosive growth in vernacular print media. However, when it comes to urban centers, social media and social media are beginning to dominate as in the rest of the world. With a huge telecom subscriber base of 933 million, 117 million of whom are smartphone users, the reach of social media and online should not be scoffed at. Internet connectivity as a whole is available to a gigantic 300 million Indians.
However, it appears that Indian PR practitioners have yet to wake up or smell the coffee, as they still spend most of their resources on persecuting journalists representing the mainstream media. With the background pressures that plague many traditional media outlets, the objectivity and professional approach to news entries is often not entirely visible. How many traditional journalists would like to attend press conferences these days? Also, even in the case of one-on-one and interactions, there is no guarantee that the story will see the light of day.
Rather than keep doing things the old-fashioned way, PR professionals should educate their clients about the benefits of online and social PR. Journalists and bloggers on online news portals are generally not only more accessible, but in many cases they can better understand the nuances of the story and can reproduce it better. Plus, they always reach the right target audience. In my opinion, the ultimate PR vehicles are social media with its enormous reach that can be targeted with infinite precision.
There are a whopping 112 million Facebook users in India, 33 million Twitter users, 26 million LinkedIn users, and 5.5 million people on Pinterest. The circulation and readership figures for most newspapers and magazines are almost negligible in comparison. The key to leveraging these outlets lies not in cultivating indifferent and sometimes ignorant journalists, but in the ability to create and publish relevant content on behalf of clients.
This makes the job of public relations professionals much less thankless and they no longer have to deal with fickle journalists and clients simultaneously. Public relations on social media requires the regular creation of relevant content, precisely targeted to the right target audience. There are tools that allow you to publish simultaneously and quickly on multiple sites, while others help you to boost publications. Results are obtained quickly and can be easily tracked and analyzed.
This type of reach is much more dynamic and allows the client to interact with their target audience in real time and in a personal and intimate way. In comparison, the reach obtained by traditional media is very vague and dispersed and one has no idea how the target audience perceives the message. Online public relations really is the not-too-distant future.