Social media is for building relationships and not pitching products, cisionwire.com reports.
A new survey by Cision claims that 80 per cent of PR professionals use social media marketing to develop relationships, build trust, maintain transparency, share news or to solicit feedback.
Just 13 per cent used the medium to pitch new ideas or products, with most preferring email to generate new business.
When quizzed on their preferred tool for social networking, 34.4 per cent cited Twitter; whilst Facebook was favoured by 29.3 per cent and LinkedIn by 23.2 per cent. Google+ was last of the mainstream social networks, gathering just 4.8 per cent of the vote. The remaining 8.3 per cent preferred blogs or other social platforms.
A total of 65 per cent of the PR professionals questioned also said they dedicated time specifically to cultivating a social network. 12.6 per cent of these said they dedicated four or more hours a week to social networking, whilst 30.5 per cent set aside two to three hours and 23.3 per cent did so for one hour.
Speaking to globenewswire.com of the results, director of product strategy for Cision, Jay Krall, explained: ”It’s no surprise that Twitter is emerging as the top choice among PR professionals for interacting with the media and influencers.
“Twitter is immediate, intensely personal and enables communicators to easily build relationships and engage in real time with an enormous network of contacts.”
