One Million Followers or Bust

Social media can be a public relations specialist or communication strategist’s biggest tool to reach the general public if used correctly. The key is finding out how to make a positive connection with your audience.

It is a well-known fact that agenda-setting happens with news media. Well, that same general concept can be applied to social media by generating buzz. Buzz is pretty much what everybody is talking about. Social media buzz can help get the audience talking about your topic of choice. The question now is, how can I generate buzz if I am not affiliated with a news organization?

Social media influencers are a good start. Social media influencers are people that have a lot of pull on social media. For example, if I tweet that I support higher education funding and Michelle Obama also tweets that she supports higher education funding; her tweet will have a bigger influence on the public because of her notoriety. Celebrities are good examples of social media influencers. They generally have a lot of followers and people (for the most part) are interested in what they say. Since they usually have so many followers, they have a lot of reaching. That means that a lot of people will be subjected to the post.

Social media influencers can grow your company’s numbers. Having someone constantly promote your company is bound to drive more people towards your business. As a communication strategist or public relations specialist, having a social media influencer is a great way to incorporate social media into your communications or public relations plan. So how do you choose someone to represent your company as a social media influencer? One important thing to consider is a person’s current reputation and social media use.

Some people are known for their social media use. One great example of a person known for his Twitter use is President Donald Trump. He has stirred up quite a few storms after lashing out on Twitter. Obviously, he has a large following (I mean, he is the leader of the free world) but there has been a lot of controversy over the way that he conducts himself over social media.

We are only a little over a month into 2018 and President Trump has already made new for a social media wrote. On January 2, the LA Times wrote,

“With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series — attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with — was all but unremarkable.”

President Trump is known for having Twitter rants. He is often criticised because of the things he says on social media.

Many reports have gathered responses that people have tweeted out in response to some of President Trump’s statements…

When choosing social media influencers, you want to make sure that they are not known for having issues controlling their tempers on social media.  You want people to look at your influencer’s posts and take them seriously. If you have someone that is constantly being ridiculed over social media use, then having that person represent your brand may do more harm than good.

Your social media influencer should be someone that a lot of people trust. It should be someone with pretty high approval ratings. Your social media influencer is going to be a brand ambassador for your company, and whatever they post or do in their free time is a reflection on your company.

I think that it is important to not only know how to pick a social media influencer but also how to become a social media influencer. I think that we need to make sure that future generations are educated on the proper way to use social media that will make them an asset to a company or organization.

Making posts with the intent of them going viral is not the same as making a post that will make a long-lasting impact on a target audience.

We are in an age where social media can make or break a company or business. Lyfe Marketing reports that “social media use on mobile devices is seeing a 30% growth every year.”

What this means is that educators need to bring social media knowledge into the classroom. If students do not know the proper way to use social media, they will not be selected as social media influencers later on down the line. Knowing how to use social media is not the same as knowing how to use social media to benefit a company or organization.

It is so crucial for us to teach the upcoming generations to know how to properly use social media for business purposes. We have to make the next generation as marketable as possible. The best way to do that is to use what is becoming increasingly popular…social media.

There is no way to deny what is happening. we are in the digital age, the age of social media. Social media is the future of marketing and communication plans. Having a web team to manage a company’s social presence is not enough. The is not proactive enough. You have to have a social media influencer to direct the conversation, and now is the time to make sure that we are training people to take those roles.