MKT316 PR in Digital Era: Online Media's Influence on PR & Marketing

This essay critically analyzes the impact of online media platforms on the relationship between Public Relations (PR) and marketing functions. It discusses how digitalization has shifted communication strategies from mass press releases to modified email management, CRM, and influencer marketing. The essay highlights the importance of connectivity and interactivity in online PR, emphasizing the role of social media in managing relationships and enabling real-time communication. It further explores the integration of PR and marketing through online platforms, focusing on target audience, information dissemination, and influence. The essay also addresses the ethical considerations and challenges posed by social media, including selective exposure and the potential for diminishing individual value within large networks. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for PR professionals to adapt to the evolving digital landscape and leverage social media effectively for organizational goals.

Running head: PR IN DIGITAL ERA
PR in Digital Era
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1PR IN DIGITAL ERA
Introduction:
The essay aims at discussing Public Relations (PR) in the era of digital media. The
report therefore tries to focus on the how the proliferation of the online media platform has
brought about a significant change between the PR and the marketing function. Public
relations refer to umbrella function that not only contributes to the management of
communication between an organization and the public’s for enhancing and building
healthier relationships for the benefits of all the involved parties. In the recent years, there
has been a massive change in the field PR and marketing function where mass press releases
got replaced by the modified email management tools, Customer Relationship Management
(CRM), excel sheets, journalist to influencers to bloggers. These changes stem from the
digitalization of the industry and PR and marketing function is consumed by its influence.
The management of relationship between the company and its publics put public relation at a
level of strategic management function since it influences the manner in which the
stakeholders support the goals of the company. Thus, the PR has a goal of creating and
developing a clear image in the minds of the public. The report tries to show how the
relationship between PR and marketing function helps in the generation of the quality content
of a brand without overwhelming the senses with blatant promotion.
Discussion:
According to Vercic et al. (2015), before the emergence of digitalisation,
communication and marketing regarding a brand took place only through the means of verbal
communication. It involved introspection and obnoxiously telling the story to the audience
who seemed uninterested. Such approach no longer seems to work. With the incoming of
online digital media it is not sufficient for only talking about the brand but ensure the creation
of the content and finding people who helps in getting the content out. It is found that online

2PR IN DIGITAL ERA
digital technologies instigate storytelling through the combination of the four aspects that
involves connectivity, accessibility, integration and interactivity. Amongst them, the
connectivity and the interactivity holds the most importance in determining the relationship
between the PR and the management function
Connectivity:
This refers to building blocks of technology, application, devices and media assets
that are connected with one another for the means of communication (Rowley 2016). In the
recent years, the connectivity has dramatically increased in the recent years. This is explained
with the examples of media convergence, technologies and devices and the social network
and the sharing platform.
 Media Convergence: This refers to consolidation of the distinct traditional
disciplines like the television, print and radio
 Technology and Devices: This refers to people mailing with the use of the
smart phones and going online with the radio and the television. Mobile
devices like the tablets and the smart phones open newer user scenarios and
put forward experience through the digital utilities and apps.
 Social Networks: This refers to the sharing platforms that help in generating
newer communication forms where each of the individuals can rate, access,
comment, forward, and create content by them.
Interactivity:
Interactivity refers to the close ties between the connectivity and integration. This aspect acts
as vital difference to the traditional storytelling (Tyner 2014). Thus, Interactivity represents
the feature in the digital media that distinguishes it from non digital traditional genres. Thus,

3PR IN DIGITAL ERA
Interactivity is described as selective means that involves clicking of a link or being
productive instead of participation in the story plot via gesture or dialogue. Thus, PR through
online digital platforms portrays an active user compared to the traditional PR that consisted
of active narrator and passive audience. The digital PR can directly influence the relationship.
Moreover users can reach into communication and help in shaping it. However, collective
and organized movements of the consumers against a company are a part of risk taken
through interactivity.
Social Media
Social media has brought about a radical change in the communication behaviour and
put forward newer means for managing relationships. According to Hudson et al. (2016), in
addition to newer opportunities social media also puts forward risks for the political actors.
This is because the instant they start making use of the social media, they seem to enter into
implied communicative agreement with public. In such a scenario they must undertake
reciprocity and interaction instead of traditional approach of prioritizing the organization of
the internal party, supporters, members and media other than the public. Particularly, the
various online social media platforms grant the companies and the PR to engage and contact
with the potential and existing customers. Platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Google+ and
Twitter have led to the alternation of the possibilities for engaging the public and hence the
relationship management. This form of media is enabling the users in participating both
passively and actively in the process of communication so that they can not only integrate but
at the same time co- create the brand messages. Hence social media is enabling the real time
communication amongst the group and the people. In other words, social media represents
online digital platforms that serve to nurture, establish and manage the social relationship as
well as create newer ones thereby serving towards the care and expansion of the relationship
networks (Ashley and Tuten 2015).

4PR IN DIGITAL ERA
Active and Passive participation on the brand pages have measurable impacts not only
on the consumer behaviour but also the brand relationship. Therefore PR managers investing
in this form of online digital platform opens up an effective channel for communicating the
brand messages engages customer and strengthens the individual bonds with brands.
According to Scott (2017), there exist three key functions of the social networks. The social
networks represents web based services that allow the PR professionals in constructing a
semi public and public profile within the bounded system. The online digital platform also
enables articulating list of users towards whom they seem to share connection. Further, the
PR professionals through these platforms can traverse and view the list of the connections
they have and the ones made by the others within system. The social networking sites are
such online digital platforms that help in providing constant connectivity amongst the
consumers and which the PR professionals focuses on for interacting with the customers for
building customer relationship through an enhanced marketing function. In present times,
online content has become a vital part for the customers and sharing the online content
creates a bigger impact on the sales and the development of the customer relationship.
Therefore, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) represents a business strategy and
philosophy mostly supported by technology platform, processes, business rules and the social
characteristics for engaging the customers in collaborative conversation thereby providing
values which are mutually beneficial in a transparent and trusted business environment
(Trainor et al. 2014). In other words, it represents the response of the company towards the
customer ownership.
Better Integration of PR and Marketing Function through Online Digital Platforms
The online digital platforms like the social media help in the better integration of the
PR and the marketing function in terms of the target audience, information and influence. In
the context of the aspect of target audience, the presence of online digital media enables the

5PR IN DIGITAL ERA
marketing campaigns to target the prospects and the customers with the services and the
products either through direct mail, online advertising, email or the other communication
forms (Camilleri 2018). This type of marketing ensures communication with only the
important member of target audience who are primarily the consumers or the purchasing
managers. In such scenario the PR professionals can resort to other forms of digital online
platforms like the social media in influencing the buying decision. Thus, a campaign
undertaken by public relations aimed at influencing a wider customer base provides
additional support to the marketing effort. In terms of the information aspect, the presence of
the online digital media is gradually changing the relationship between the customers and the
managers. Nowadays, consumers have become internet users and they look online for the
information about a service or product before zeroing on the buying decision (Charlesworth
2018). Therefore, advertising and various other means of the marketing communications does
act as the only source of information to the prospects and the customers. In such a scenario,
the digital PR can further influence the internet users by put forward online press releases so
that they can use it as an information source. In terms of aspect of influence, in the digital era
the PR campaigns helps in influencing the marketing function as they provide necessary
information to the bloggers, business analyst, journalist, consumer groups and the other
commentators thereby influencing the customer and the prospects. Through the issuance of
the feature articles, press releases and the background materials for the services and products,
the consumers are provided with necessary content and the raw material that helps in
spreading the word thereby increasing the reach of the marketing campaign (Hult and Sjound
2017).

6PR IN DIGITAL ERA
Figure 1: Responses Showing how Digital PR Positively Influences Marketing Function
Source: Charlesworth 2018
Social Media Influence on the PR and Marketing Function
Social media resulted in the alteration of the ethical traditions and transformed the
attention of the communication and public relation professionals towards a form of more
effective communication that can have a greater influence on marketing (Felix, Rauschnabel
and Hinsch 2017). One of the major oversights lies in how the social media has presently
being used by the professionals for ignoring the stakeholder’s role and the public. In present
times, there are many who treat social media users as the mass publics which were a
journalistic concept two decades earlier and seemed unethical to the public relation.
According to Tuten and Solomon (2017), social media comes with its own challenges
in the form of selective exposure. PR Professionals who expresses interest in attracting the
attention of the public and influence issues of the public policy requires finding a means of

7PR IN DIGITAL ERA
breaking the wall of selective exposure put forward by social media. Again, in the present
times, the models of the PR related to the social media practice primarily depend on the
marketing goals and advertising. Thus, nowadays social media practice of the corporate is
characterized by the commercial advertising models and the information dissemination.
Hence, bigger social media platforms do not primarily offer better interactivity or the ability
of customizing the content. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook has evolved for following
the broadcast model related to entertainment and information that relied primarily on
focusing the corporate interest and the advertisers need instead of meeting the user needs.
Thus, online digital platforms like social media also play a role in narrowing the relationship
of the people and the information sources.
According to Valentini (2015), there exists one more erroneous assumption regarding
the social media which lay in the fact that this online platform help in linking people into a
synergistic network that had shared goals and interest. However, the social media features
that ensure connecting people into larger collectives are the same features that lead to the
diminishing of the value of the individual member thereby making in impotent as an
organizational tool. According to Allagui and Breslow (2016), that an average person does
not possess the psychological capacity for maintaining close to 150 relationships although
people love to live in the illusion that social; media has led to the creation of thousands of
contacts and friends. However, such massive network could have been used by some
professionals for trend analysis, problem solving, information and research gathering thereby
achieving the goals of the organization, provided the means of doing it are known. In this
digital era communications and public relation professionals continues to add more social
media profiles in the various platforms with hope of receiving larger benefits.
Conclusions:

8PR IN DIGITAL ERA
To conclude one can say that the online digital media has put forward greater
opportunities for the organizations in communicating with the public. For the PR
professionals, the digital era with the presence of various social media platforms helped in
understanding how the organizations engage in the relationship between the people at large.
The digital era has also brought about a change in marketing by allowing direct linking with
the consumers. There is however certain issues of the digital platform put forward by the
social media.

9PR IN DIGITAL ERA
References:
Allagui, I. and Breslow, H., 2016. Social media for public relations: Lessons from four
effective cases. Public Relations Review, 42(1), pp.20-30.
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated Marketing Communications. In Travel Marketing, Tourism
Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 85-103). Springer, Cham.
Charlesworth, A., 2018. Digital marketing: A practical approach. Routledge.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media
marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S. and Madden, T.J., 2016. The influence of social media
interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions
and marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.
Hult, M. and Sjölund, J., 2017. Dynamic Marketing Capabilities: Organizational Renewal
Towards Social Media Marketing.
Rowley, J., 2016. Information marketing. Routledge.
Scott, J., 2017. Social network analysis. Sage.
Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology
usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social
CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208.

10PR IN DIGITAL ERA
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.
Tyner, K., 2014. Literacy in a digital world: Teaching and learning in the age of information.
Routledge.
Valentini, C., 2015. Is using social media “good” for the public relations profession? A
critical reflection. Public Relations Review, 41(2), pp.170-177.
Vercic, D., Vercic, A.T. and Sriramesh, K., 2015. Looking for digital in public
relations. Public Relations Review, 41(2), pp.142-152.