Online Public Relations Thoughts

There is pressure now for clients to be on Facebook and Twitter. The question practitioners should ask is why. Just dumping information on a Facebook page is not enough to use the medium well. Tweeting requires a daily -- and some would contend, hourly --presence with something to say. An unplanned presence is good for learning but poor for long-term persuasion. At some point, using both media requires planning and daily execution.

I plead guilty for failing to use Facebook well. I haven't had the time or inclination to Tweet, although I monitor headlines daily on Twitter. There are too many media to use well and not enough time. I cannot argue with clients who say that each medium is one more way to reach a segment of the audience, but both Facebook and Twitter are dynamic and not static. Their benefit is active conversation. If one has no inclination to converse, then why use them? If no members of an audience are interested in conversation, then they are the wrong media. What good is it to establish a presence only to watch it wither? Doing so consumes time and energy that should be put into the media key audience segments do follow. Just because a medium is there doesn't mean one has to use it.