Diana-Maria Cismaru

Professor, Ph.D,
College of Communication and Public Relations
Social media definition

Kaplan & Haenlein 2009: Social Media are a series of

internet-based applications, built on the principles of web 2.0
and allow the exchange of user generated content.

Criteria of analysis:
• Social presence)
• Media richness)
• Self presentation/self-disclosure
Organizations and social media
Changes determined by social media in the organizational
communication:
(1) from selling to connection with audience
(2)from big campaigns to small daily actions
(3)from control of the message to transparency
(4) from “hard to find” to “available”;
PR Definition
 Public Relations is the management function that
establishes and maintains mutually beneficial
relationships between an organization and the publics
on whom its success or failure depends.
The Press Agentry Model
Public information model
Two way assymetrical: “scientific
persuasion”(need for feed-back and targeted
marketing
The 2-way symmetrical model:
Uses communication to negotiate with publics, resolve
conflict, and promote mutual understanding and respect
between the organization and its public(s).
The four models of PR (Grunig)
Social media and symmetrical
communication
• James E. Grunig (1976)the concept of symmetrical
communication remains active in a highly
communicative world.
symmetrical communication
interaction
• Grunig (2001): symmetry involves a give-and-take
communication process (more than a result) and
needs attention, negociation, diplomacy, constant
involvement.

Symmetrical communication has as objective not only

the balance of organizational interests but the
belence of publics in order to avoid conflicts.,
Social media and the asymmetrical
communication (reversed)
Disadvantages and risks of organizational
communication in social media
Communication Management
 Undervaluing the potential of social media
 The structural change> fear of failure, abuse from employees, of
reputational costs;
 Lack of trust(who administers the accounts?; how are controlled the
employees?)
• Fear of losing control ( information, time, resources invested)

Possible effects
• Take-over of power (managers, marketing, HR professionals, etc)
• Decrease of internal cohesion and dilution of organizational culture ;
• Lack of ROI and of the possibility to measure the activity;
• Lack of resources and power;
• Security of information.
Impact of social media development in
profession (abilities and competencies)
New abilities needed:
- The capacity to collect and interpret virtual
information;
- Competences of production and working with visual
materials (2D or 3D)
- Rapid capacity of adaptation to the climate of the
social environment;
- Knowledge on features of social media;
- Networking and communication with audiences in
real
- -Problem management instead 0f classic management
of crises.
Impact of social media tactics and techniques
- Decline of the press release as a technique of public
relations (main instrument for dissemination
information, before)
- Decrease of frequency of press conferences as an
integrated technique (because of delocalization and
online communication); instead, events are combined
with dissemination of information;
- Content: accessibility, compressing of content and
meaning, and informal nuance;
- Focus on elements of impact and decrease in important
of content details<
- Video and 2d information are preferred (87% from the
Facebook content comes from shared videos)
Visual public relations
Specializarea social media companies PR
agencies
Companies PR agencies Digital agencies
Blogging is Content marketing Integrated
dominant approach(marketing &
PR)
Facebook is Diversity of channels Include technical parts
dominant (Fb, Google +, (as software,sites
Youtube, Twitter, etc.) upgradare of channels
etc.)
PR campaigns are Subcontracting some
externalized to parts to digital
agencies agencies