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#OMG The sky is falling.
Probably not.
That’s because social media may have a credibility problem. According to a study in Communication Quarterly, readers found Tweets less credible and less important than the same story on nytimes.com. http://bit.ly/1KoLVWJ
The problem? Oddly enough, social media got too serious.
Although some platforms started out being serious from their inception – for example LinkedIn as a corporate networking tool – others have evolved from their original standpoint. Facebook has moved drastically from being a college social network to a channel with hundreds of millions of users. Corporate Facebook pages are now standard marketing, with budgets being allocated to their management and boosting posts to millions of consumers with targeted banner ads.
That’s why we don’t believe the messages anymore. They’ve been made to gain our ‘Likes’ and hopefully go viral.
There’s a difference between: THE SKY IS FALLING! & 5 INDICATIONS THE SKY IS FALLING
Blogging covers the spectrum of credibility.
While it’s great that blogging allows people to share their thoughts and opinions about anything to anyone, it’s not a platform that guarantees credibility all the time.
A credible blog is one that cites sources, hosts authors who are respected or well-known in their field, is relevant now and is consistent. It is the responsibility of every credible blog or blogger to continue what they start and make plans to consistently share useful information with the audience.
You’d question the motive.
Because advertising is what you pay for.
Why are they trying to make me believe the sky is falling?
The messages are fashioned by creative geniuses. Their job is to tell us what to believe and why life will never be the same without it, whatever ‘it’ is.
It’s in The New York Times therefore it has to be true.
Audiences are rightly sceptical of the everyday messages they are bombarded with and as new age media gives everyday people the power to influence conversations, it’s that much more important to find genuine messages.
PR is different. The messages aren’t created, they’re crafted. They’re real.
Praise from an impartial source is more valuable than self-promotion. It’s called word-of-mouth and it’s powerful. Audiences are open to them because they believe them. They have the power to influence because audiences are more likely to accept a message from a third party than when it comes from the brand itself.
PR is what you hope for. That’s why it’s credible.
Why choose PR? Because your brand needs to be believed to be relevant.