In this digital era, online media is like a go-to place for people to do different kind of activities, from simple networking to business. In fact, not utilizing online media can be considered as being left behind, considering real time updates about almost everything are being posted online. For businesses, making use of online media have pretty much been the norm. The company’s website and online store for example, can help businesses in running their business and reach wider audience.

With the development of social media, there are even more options for businesses to branch out their strategy in grabbing consumers’ attention. These days, it gets easier to reach the consumers through social media. What the company needs to consider is that which way is the most effective way to get the words out to the audience related to their brand or product offered.

Due to the nature of social media, in which there are huge amount of content shared and spread easily, it is not easy for businesses to get the attention of the consumers. Not only they have to think of a good strategy, but they also have to compete with others in winning the consumers.

It works the same in PR. Whenever the company wants to create positive coverage or introduce a campaign for their brand, for instance, social media can be the most effective tool for that purpose. To actually manage to do that well, however, is not as simple as it may be. Like mentioned above, competition is always tight. Therefore, to be unique and different than the others is very important. In other words, standing out among the others will determine their outcome.

There are various factors the business needs to pay attention to in relation to their social media campaign or whatever program it is they are aiming to accomplish. For example, they should consider about who they target is, who is it they are trying to attract. After knowing that, they then can decide on which strategy works best to attract them in social media. It is essential to remember that different target market might require different approach for it to give the best result. Demographic elements like age and gender as well as the culture of the target market must be taken into consideration in order to maximize the result and achieve the objective of the program.

If marketing deals with selling the product, PR deals with delivering a message. The message is about what the company wants the public to know related to their brand to build positive coverage and impression. A good and effective PR program done in social media makes sure that the message it tries to convey is able to be delivered, well-understood, and accepted by the audience. Furthermore, the positive message is created and aimed so that it can be associated with the brand itself.

Social media provide advantages to businesses, including PR practitioners. Nonetheless, the luxury of social media in distributing the message comes with the potential risk of it being criticized by the public should there be any (no matter how small it is) element they feel is inappropriate or insensitive. Moreover, it will spread quickly, again, thanks to the Internet. Therefore, thorough and careful consideration must be taken to avoid such thing to happen, such as by doing proper research and checking each and every element of their message before putting it out to the public. After all, a public attention gained from a social media program or campaign is hoped to be a positive one, not negative. A saying about how negative coverage is still a coverage is actually misleading, because no business ever wants to be seen as a negative influencer.