Effectively communicating through social media can be a daunting task for organizations. Building
trust and establishing a connection with your audience in online interactions takes time. Because a
company's reputation is an intangible asset, it is critical to build trust gradually (Cardon, 2021). The
key to success is to actively engage and respond to inquiries in a genuine and effective manner. This
allows you to build a strong and trustworthy relationship with your audience. Social media
platforms such as Facebook provide a valuable opportunity to form groups that foster consumer
engagement and trust. These groups allow customers to interact with one another and with your
company, fostering a sense of community and belonging that can improve customer satisfaction.
Social media platforms provide individuals with the opportunity to engage in conversations and
access content across various platforms. This fosters a sense of connection and facilitates
interactions with products and services, therefore creating value (Charest et al., 2016).
Utilizing social media can serve as a powerful tool to strengthen a company's culture, vision, and
values. Sharing visuals of public and employee interactions and events can showcase the positive
impact the company has on its community. Furthermore, social media can be utilized to promote
job opportunities and raise awareness for important causes such as supporting the American
Cancer Society or Autism Speaks. By leveraging social media in these ways, companies can inspire
others to join in their efforts to make a positive impact on the world.
Organizations can build trust through social media internally with the use of communication
applications and learning applications, training applications and overall being more transparent. The
use of social media has been a way to stay relevant and even be a trend setter in the business
world. I remember a time before Microsoft teams, before GroupMe, LinkedIn and other
communication apps that allow organizations to post content that is relevant to its employees, and
it always seemed like the event would happen and then 2 weeks later you would hear about it.
Now with instant social media, once an event happens within your organization, all employees can
hear/read about it within the hour therefore gaining more trust in their employer. Externally, these
applications have been a great way for organizations to show the world what their agenda and
vision is, and keep the world updated on what is happening within their company. This has been
especially relevant in online sales and reviews. It is funny, my wife just the other day was looking to
buy a new stroller, and would only buy one that had more than 20k reviews on it, she would only
buy from a brand that she could trust, and having the communication online was a great selling
point.
The job of the public relations department is to keep the trust of the public and readers/viewers.
Therefore, will social media, it is a double-edged sword. On one hand, PR has a great chance to get
their specific message and point out that represents how the organization feels about topics or
events. One the other hand, everything PR puts out on social media can be fact checked and
questioned and scrutinized, which shows just how important being able to communicate effectively
to online readers is. Like the article says, "Creating and keeping relationships of trust with one’s
audience is at the heart of the professional and academic activities of public relations" (Charest et
al., 2016).
Social media can be used to support the culture, vision, and values of an organization by using that
as their main content on their media sites. If there is a big push this year on hiring and retaining,
then social media can post daily about the importance of this issue and what their company is
doing specifically for that. Maybe there is a culture initiative, well with social media anything you
post is in front of millions of people instantly, and it can make your company gain recognition for its
work.
Charest, F., Bouffard, J., & Zajmovic, E. (2016). Public relations and social media: Deliberate or
creative strategic planning. Public Relations Review, 42(4), 530–538.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.03.008
References
Cardon, P. W. (2021). Business communication: Developing leaders for a networked world (4th ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Charest, F., Bouffard, J., & Zajmovic, E. (2016). Public relations and social media: Deliberate or
creative strategic planning. Public Relations Review, 42(4), 530–538.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.03.008
