As a proud recipient of a bachelor’s degree in Communications with a focus on Public Relations from Michigan’s Big Ten college – the University of Michigan, I can tell you that so much has changed within the marketing/advertising/media sector in the digital era, especially with the onset of the internet.
For example, on the one hand, the impact of social media on public relations (PR) has been great, but on the other hand, it’s just another tool in our PR toolbox. As technology changes and grows, so does the set of tools we get to use.
According to Forbes Magazine, how social media changed PR is:
“• It gives everyone a huge increase in opportunity. You are no longer bound by the restrictions of traditional PR. Social media allows you to create your own buzz.
• You can reach anyone you want. Do you want to earn a spot on television? You now have a realistic avenue to reach previously unreachable people. That TV anchor probably has Twitter. Reach out via Twitter, and if you’re polite (and persistent) enough, they might just respond.
• You have your own media channel. Social media makes it possible for the average person to create their own platform and cultivate their own audience in a way that has never been possible before.
• The definition of success has broadened. Before social media, there was only one way we could prove our value to a client: land an awesome PR hit in traditional media. Today, a great social media hit from an influencer can be just as impactful as a fabulous TV hit.
Social media has been good to PR. That said, you’ve got to understand each platform’s specific role in the industry if you’re going to land the pitch,”.
To stay abreast of the changes and network with professionals while in college, I was a member and Treasurer of U of M’s Chapter of the PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America). PRSSA is the foremost organization for students interested in public relations and communications.
A PR student from Grand Valley State University in the PRSSA offers an additional perspective, writing, “Another new phenomenon that the public relations industry encounters due to social media is influencer marketing. This refers to, “a form of marketing where marketers and brands invest in selected influencers to create and/or promote their branded content to both the influencers’ own followers and to the brands’ target consumers’. Social media influencers of all types on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are approached every day by companies and their PR representatives with the opportunity to receive free product in order to advertise to their thousands of followers, in hopes that this will establish a positive relationship with consumers and the company,”.
History of the Internet timeline
As a child born in the 1970s, who grew up in the 1980s and came of age in the 1990s, this Generation X woman has seen her fair share of technology advancements. Add to that, having babies in the early 2000s, watching them grow in the 2010s, and growing in my career alongside them during this time; technology grew at such speed that what we learned yesterday is completely different today. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down with the latest technological development of AI (artificial intelligence).
In the music world, we went from albums to cassette tapes to CDs and then digital files with MP3s and my favorite, Apple Music. Apple Music has provided the largest volume of music in a handheld Jukebox – a dream come true for Gen Xers!
Gaming changed too – from two lines and a ball bouncing in Pong to Atari’s Pac-Man, Nintendo’s earliest versions of Mario Bros and Donkey Kong, PlayStation’s EA Sports Madden Football, Xbox’s Minecraft, and then the PC gamers like my youngest son, who plays Roblox.
But the internet had to come into play first before I bought my first iPod to access thousands of music files, or my son could play Roblox with kids in Scotland online. Actually, computers changed drastically from humongous room-sized computers to personal computers like those from Macintosh (Apple) or IBM, and eventually to our nifty, handheld, mobile computers/cell phones. Or, as my aunt would call my iPhone, “your Swiss Army phone” because it did everything for me (ha-ha).
From the Science and Media Museum, “This history revolves around four distinct aspects. There is the technological evolution that began with early research on packet switching and the ARPANET (and related technologies), and where current research continues to expand the horizons of the infrastructure along several dimensions, such as scale, performance, and higher-level functionality. There is the operations and management aspect of a global and complex operational infrastructure. There is the social aspect, which resulted in a broad community of Internauts working together to create and evolve the technology. And there is the commercialization aspect, resulting in an extremely effective transition of research results into a broadly deployed and available information infrastructure.
The Internet today is a widespread information infrastructure, the initial prototype of what is often called the National (or Global or Galactic) Information Infrastructure. Its history is complex and involves many aspects – technological, organizational, and community. And its influence reaches not only to the technical fields of computer communications but throughout society as we move toward increasing use of online tools to accomplish electronic commerce, information acquisition, and community operations,”.
What happened in 1998 on the internet?
In 1998, the Google search engine was born, changing the way users engage with the internet. It was also a huge game changer for those of us in the marketing and advertising space.
PPC Hero reports, “Before Google Adwords was launched, the online advertising landscape was vastly different. Traditional models dominated, and the concept of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was still in its infancy. Google Ads introduced a game-changing model that allowed advertisers to pay only when a user clicked on their ad, offering a more performance-driven approach than ever before. This innovation not only maximized the efficiency of advertising budgets but also laid the groundwork for a more interactive and targeted advertising ecosystem,”.
Thankfully, the company I work for has been at the forefront of digital marketing with expertise in SEO (search engine optimization), which is an organic approach, and SEM (search engine marketing), a paid approach. My boss is Google Certified and an expert who has spoken all over the world about digital marketing strategies and now is on the cutting edge of AI. Story to be continued…
Impact of social media on public relations
In conclusion, social media revolutionized PR, expanding access and influence—yet it remains just one evolving tool in a constantly changing industry.