PR professionals failing to interact with journalists through social media says research
Over three quarters of journalists are said to rate social media as an important professional tool, while almost all are using social media more than they were a year ago (90%), and that PR professionals were not approaching them through it.
An online survey conducted by Daryl Willcox Publishing which contacted 900 journalists earlier this month as part of a whitepaper called ‘How social media is changing the role of journalists’ and charts the rise of social media use in journalism.
While the survey found an increased use of social media by journalists, it still found that when communicating with PR professionals, nearly half (45%) of journalists believed that they did not make enough use of the media platform.
It was claimed that news through PR professionals was mainly divulged through news releases (98%), pitches (71%), approaches by phone (53%) and traditional face-to-face events (51%), all exceeding contact through social media (with the highest being rated at Twitter with 29%).
"Journalists have been quick to incorporate social media into their processes for gathering and distributing news," said Martin Stabe, author of the report. “But journalists see social media sites primarily as a channel where they can communicate directly with potential sources or engaged members of their audience, without much involvement from PR professionals. However, as the report shows, this is only part of the story. Social media also empowers PR professionals to change the way they communicate with journalists or directly to customers."
Over 200 of the journalists contacted made additional comments, with many claiming some PR professionals were failing to understand the need to build genuine relationships on social media and were too under resourced to respond quickly enough to journalists.