Week 6::6 Ways to Track the Impact of Social Media on Public Relations::

By: Azasyazana binti Azizan  2009698944

This article is about how to measure the impact of social media on public relations. As we all know, there are rapid development of new media in all field around the world. Almost every company have their own websites or blogs and any other social accounts in order to extend their connections with external public instead of internal public. They use these social media to reach their target audiences more effectively. A part from that, social media help a lot and provide further information globally. It is nowadays become significance especially for public relations. The public relations professionals have a tremendous opportunity to leverage social media outlets to enhance their outreach efforts. As social media sites become the source for news and breaking stories, marketers are seeing media coverage spread more rapidly than ever before.

The best way to show the impact is to look at how social media has affected the costs of marketing efforts. This can be accomplished by utilizing a few standard public relations, online advertising, search engine optimization and website metrics that can be combined to show a holistic view of the true value social media.

Six ways to track the impact of social media on public relations have been determined in order to evaluate public relations or they can be used across several marketing channels to show a cross-channel view of where social media is delivering.

First and foremost is cost per impression. Social media helps to expand the reach of your message and has a tremendous impact on the number of impressions that are generated for PR stories. Therefore, when the change in the cost per impression with and without social media has been showed, a compelling case for why social media efforts are crucial to the strategies can be determined. The second way is cost per engagement. Engagement is the one thing at which social media continues to beat every other marketing platform, time and time again. It’s almost unfair to compare social media engagement against other channels, because other marketing channels simply do not have as many opportunities to generate engagement. The aggregation on how people engaged with the content and divide it by the cost is to determine the cost per engagement. The third way is Cost per Click. Public relations can drive users to click on links that are shared through social media channels. It can be difficult to figure out the number of clicks generated from links shared by third parties, but you can calculate the number of clicks that were generated through your own messaging by using the stats from your URL shortener. The number four is through Cost per Site Visitor. Due to the nature of online sharing, it is common to see a spike in website traffic that surrounds PR outreach. Considering that companies pay a lot for online advertising to get visitors to their site, not measuring the cost per site visitor across channels is a missed opportunity to show a positive social media impact. Next is Cost per Inbound Link. While more companies strive to improve their search engine rankings, more public relations professionals are being asked to request “backlinks” in media articles. These backlinks drive traffic to the corporate website. Last but not least is Cost per Subscriber. When visitors make it to your website, it’s important to measure the actions they take. More and more companies are looking for ways to convert web traffic into “subscribers” who have provided their email address, allowing an additional opportunity for follow-up marketing efforts. Therefore, consider comparing the cost per subscriber across all of your marketing channels to understand how public relations is performing in relation to your overall marketing spend.

As a conclusion, these metrics are not traditional public relations metrics, but rather it can be utilized to create a cross-channel dashboard which will show how social media and public relations efforts complement each other and deliver inexpensive results. The results tend to be inexpensive because the incremental spend to capitalize on social media is usually very small.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/6-ways-to-track-the-impact-of-social-media-on-public-relations/

Week 7 ::Common Words Work Better in New Media Public Relations::

By: Zahirah Binti Abdul Rahim  2009685048

New media public relations are more about the message than content. When we put the message above content creation, there’s a common lesson that will help you build a better relationship with your publics. By lose the jargon and technical words and replace them with common speak can let audience understand the message.

There are two benefits of avoiding jargon in New Media Public Relations. First, by using common words can humanize your message. Mean by, this will let the audience find it easier to connect with your message. For example, an Air Asia flight mishap on skidded off runaway on 10 January 2011, Air Asia need to explain everything regarding the mishap to the audience. Before they explain to audience, the spokesperson of Air Asia must refer to Air Asia’s engineer to know what the problem is. Thus, here surely there are lot of jargon and technical words in engineering will be use to explain the problem.  Therefore, public relations people are the one who needs to replace all engineering technical words into common words, so that all audience can understand the message.

The second benefit of avoiding jargon in New Media Public Relations is common words typically carry more imagery than technical words or jargon, which hides vividness. Using common words will help you draw a better, more complete image of a topic you’re pitching to your audience. It doesn’t matter if he or she is a reporter, editor, stakeholder or costumer.

Common words work better in New Media Public Relations. Besides connecting with your audience better, and providing them with a more colorful understanding of your content, you just might be more persuasive. The common word means more to an audience than the fancy ones.

http://www.getsocialpr.com/2010/08/23/common-words-work-better-in-new-media-public-relations/

Week 6 ::Six Facets of the future of PR::

By:  Suria binti Mohd Sidin  2009854728

Public Relations have their own problems called as PR problem. The science and art of PR is about influencing perceptions. PR is just personnel who build good relationship between organization and clients. PR build perceptions of the world around them based on the inputs received. Those inputs include traditional media, daily experiences, conversations, interactions and others. Today PR entails being involved with every aspect of how people encounter information and make sense of it. It is far more about being engaged in the flow of messages through an intensely networked world than it is about formal communication. The traditional domain of PR is swiftly changing.

10 years ago very few people had a personal email account, mobile phone or internet access. The graphical web browser with which we spend so much of our lives interacting didn’t even exist until late 1993. Today, the nature of how information and messages flow and people build perceptions of the world in which they live is entirely different to how it was just a decade ago. There are 6 facets that our rapidly changing world will influence future PR industry

1.Client Expect More

Clients have become vastly more demanding in their dealings with their professional services providers. Clients are seeing their PR agencies and marketing peers as readily replaceable commodities. This makes it very easy for the client to replace them. The future belongs to those firms that can successfully engage their clients in true knowledge-based relationships that are based on deep mutual knowledge, and a high degree of collaboration in achieving outcomes.

2.Media is Transformed

Mass media will never disappear. Societies are bound together by having a common reference point to discuss and engage with. Yet at the same time, media is fragmenting into a multitude of channels and perspectives.

3.Business is a conversations

Consumers are people, and they expect to be treated like people. Companies also happen to employ people. It is extraordinary that companies have always chosen to communicate with the formal, stilted, self-promoting language of the press release and corporate brochure. Organisations must enable human conversations, between the humans that work for them, and the humans who buy from them. While this is fraught with challenges, there is no question that customers will flow to companies with which they can have human interactions, and move away from companies that persist in presenting unassailable formal corporate faces to the world.

4.Information flows in every dimension

Information flows from organisations and their agencies to the media and on to the masses. Now information flows in all directions. News Corporation bought the social networking site MySpace in July 2005, because that is where information is now flowing. PR has traditionally been rooted in the world of words. While that will remain important, the new skills required to play in a world driven by other media forms will be critical.

5.Transparency is a given

Do not expect to be able to hide anything. The old catch-cry of ‘information wants to be free’ remains true, and now it has the means to escape. In this world PR is not about hiding or manipulating the truth it is about providing access and being open. Know and expect that the truth will come out. The only way to gain trust, to be credible, is to be transparent. It is an immensely challenging shift to make. Yet those who do not truly believe this will soon find a day when their credibility and livelihood disappears.

6.Influence Networks are at the heart

As mainstream media becomes an ever-smaller part of our information input, organisations need to understand and get involved with the influence networks that really form decisions. People form opinions and make decisions primarily from the input of the people around them that they know well and trust. PR will become largely about how to identify, access and influence the key influencers either individually or by understanding how influence networks are structured.

http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/FutureofPR_Dawson.pdf

Week 6 ::e-Ethics in e-Commerce::

By: Mohd. Hafiz bin Badruddin  2009604858

People are well familiar with the term e-commerce and having lots of activity with e-commerce. But some of them might not know what the ethics in e-commerce are.  The crime in e-commerce is too many as the number of online buyers keeps on growing.  There are no rules in e commerce but there are e-ethics for e-commerce.

First is to post your business policies. People in e-commerce are virtual people. But they need to trust each other in dealing with something. A business policy is a must to ensure trust developing especially from the seller to the buyer. Be straight at the first start to the costumer. Then you must honor your policies. Keep your promise. Do not promise anything that cannot be done. If you plan to have money back guarantee so do it. It is not ethical to break your policies.

Do not create agenda. For example laptops: only $9.99. But when the people click on it, it just rubbish. Do not lie or loll your costumer. No one likes to be fool and it is a waste of time and an insult to the individual intelligence. Then protect your buyer’s privacy. If you have a list of your buyers, do keep their email well. Do not sold or pass them to other marketing data company. You should at the first place stated in your policies which is your name is private and confidential. And prove it. People hate to have spam in their mails.

Finally make sure your site is secure. In e – commerce business, you will have almost full info of your client such as address email, credit card number and others. Due to that, it is your responsibility to protect it. Well secured your website with fire wall, anti malware and others. Your costumer will totally upset if they knew your site is not well protected.

E-commerce and ethics is vital, it is about responsibility and trust buildings. No tricky in business, just straight away in giving information. Make sure your clients are happy with the services to ensure long lasting in the nature of e-commerce. 

http://www.w3-edge.com/weblog/2005/12/e-ethics-in-e-commerce/

Week 5 ::PR and Blogging – How to Think About It::

By: Munirah binti Mansor  2009889002

Based on my understanding, the article of “PR and Blogging – How to Think About It”, discussed on the phenomena of blogging among the public relations practitioners.  Web logs or known as blog was existed in the early year of 1990s.  There are no specific definitions of blog but they were principally link-driven where individuals kept on a website.  However, one of the characteristic of blogging is that the blogger needs to keep updates their blog most of the time and this has been said causing a burden to themselves too.  Today blogs came in easier form in which the blogger need to write in the word processing and publish it without any difficulties.


Although most people view anyone can write anything in their blog at any time, but it does not suitable for public relations purposes.  This is because, PR profession requires their practitioners to maintain a good relationship between the key audiences and the organization they work with.  Secondly, one of the PR roles is to become the spokesperson to an organization. Hence, they are prohibited to speak out about their company and marketplace issue without their organization’s knowledge.  Therefore, they should be more careful before writing and posting something on the blog.  In PR, the purpose of blogging is differs from personal blogging because they do not have any freedom to say anything since it reflects their credibility in their profession.  Nevertheless, as compare to the journalists who have editors to help them but bloggers do not, and PR either.  This is why PR blogging uses many hyperlinks in order to help uses to get the sources of information.


Another difference between PR blog and personal blog is purposefulness.  This by means, PR practitioners involve in blogging because it might be an excellent and fastest way to disseminate information internally or externally.  For some people they called blogging as “anti-intranet” because intranets have so many layers of departmental and editorial control over the information posted on them.  In contrast, form a PR perspective, there are few situations in which information is left uncontrolled and this is used by them to evaluate the information in promoting a company’s relationship with the target audiences.


There are several advices for the PR practitioners before they decided to blog or not.  In a good way, they can blog since it is a low-cost and fast publishing tool that might be helpful for publishing.  In addition, the followers can leave comments or ideas at the blog without any obstacles.  Blog has the advantage of speed and this can be beneficial to all the communicators since they can keep each other up without having to spend time to communicate through phone calls, email or face to face meeting.  However, it could be difficult to have everyone start using blog. Therefore, it is important to know when and why PR should start blogging and to use it when it makes sense.  


http://www.online-pr.com/Holding/PRandBloggingarticle.pdf

Week 5 ::Online Banking: The Perfect Way to Save Time and Money::

By: Mohd. Hafiz bin Badruddin  2009604858

Online banking is a new trend globally. Almost all of the consumers are getting involved with it. The online banking helps to monitor your account at anytime and it does save time and money simultaneously. The first benefits are it helps to manage your account in one place. You can check your account, transfer, paying bills and updating at one place.

Second is there are unlimited access to the account. You can access it 24 hours a day and 7 times a week. No public holiday for online banking. You can access it during weekend, late night and also early in the morning. Perhaps you can use it by your mobile phones. Apart of that you can earn competitive rates. Comparison can be made in online business. You can choose the best banking service that suits you.

You can have saving plans for future by using automatic transfer. It can be direct deducted from the paycheck which no worries about the long process at the ordinary banks. Paying loans are easy too. No more delayed when we switch to auto credit. Finally enjoy flexible perks and rewards. Certain banks provide this reward for active users. Find the best banks with low services fees. You can do anything with low fees charges and it is only by a few clicks for any transactions.

In conclusion, online banking really helps in simplify people’s life and it also saves time, paper, and money too. It is the best for everybody to have their own online business.

http://www.212articles.com/online-banking-the-perfect-way-to-save-time-and-money/ 

Week 4 ::New Media versus Traditional Public Relations - The Net is Now::

By: Normah binti Hassan  2009459324

We can’t deny that good public relations are keys to the success of any business. Nowadays many organizations are using more new media rather than traditional public relations. Traditional public relations focused on print ads, articles, radio and television commercials, interviews and press conferences. Today's the influence of new media are growth rapidly among publics. It creates more business opportunity and also become a good medium to spread information about their products and events. It can be done through social media such as facebook and also email, blogs, internet marketing and more.


Generally, a strategic marketing plan must include these new media tools. Now, it’s hard to find any company without a website, and more and more consumers are depending on the internet to get the information.


Previously, a public relations firm needs to pay attention about what the journalist write on news papers or what media might report on their consumers. Today, through the internet, everybody has a voice. People rely more and more on internet news to get information on current events. They look to on-line product reviews and recommendations to determine what products they are going to buy. They depend on bloggers and internet columnists to provide them insight into almost every situation.


These new forms of media have taken traditional public relations and turned it upside down. Based on the article, those smart companies are capitalizing on the new media, and putting together blogs, joining online communities and discussions and keeping their websites fresh and current.


Furthermore, Public relations firms are giving more effort in creating e-mail campaigns and internet advertising. They are now realize about the big influence of new media, so they develop strategic communications plans that rely less heavily on old fashioned media and journalism, and more on the word of mouth impact that internet marketing generates instantly. This kind of strategic marketing is allowing newer, younger companies to quickly take over market share that more old fashioned companies don't even realize exists.  


In conclusion, any companies that want to be more succeed in their business need to focus much more on the new media versus traditional public relations. They need to generate an online presence and maintain it the same way that one does their own image. Companies need to develop websites, where the public can learn about them and organize a strategic communications plan that focuses on what the web says about their business, their products and even their personal reputation. Everyone know that the internet is very much a "right now" medium, so it is strategic marketing to constantly update the on-line presence and make sure that it is not relying only on  traditional public relations.


http://ezinearticles.com/?New-Media-Versus-Traditional-Public-Relations---The-Net-is-Now&id=2438982