emergencemarketing.com

Many companies are still confused about what role social media should play in their PR strategies – wondering whether social media impacts buyers or whether social media strategies can help with traditional PR efforts.

The first question relates to the information consumption that leads to buying decisions – and nobody will question that there has been a tectonic shift from traditional media to consumer generated media in this area.

The second one relates to how traditional media writers and journalists source their information. And a new survey from the Arketi Group shows that the role of social media in influencing traditional media continues to grow as well (via Shel Holtz – granted, delayed, but we never claimed to be a news service).

Some interesting tidbits from the survey:

• 84% of journalists say they would or already have used blogs as primary or secondary sources.
• 54% of journalists report to get their story ideas from blogs, 51% from RSS feeds
• 60% of journalists say they spend more than 20 hours on the Internet

So it sounds like if your company does not make a conscientious effort in trying to engage with social media channels today, you will likely find yourself the winner of an award in stealth marketing in a few years time – an award given to companies that manage to make their companies totally invisible in the marketplace.

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