Relationer i en digital värld - En kvalitativ studie om PR via sociala medier

Sammanfattning: Social media is by many believed to be the core of a new type of Public Relations. This new PR is called PR 2.0. Most larger companies today are to be find using dif- ferent types of social media to interact with their publics. Each year companies invest more money in this type of digital public relations. Social media is a relatively new online phenomenon and still used at a very early stage. Today there are a lot of differ- ent ideas and theories’ coming from many directions on how to use social media in PR and also what comes out from doing so. Companies invest a lot of money in it, but how’s it done and what’s the return on investment (ROI) in using social media? PR 2.0 is said by its advocates to be a step away from a type of PR that is built on messages to a PR built on two-way communication, dialog and equally beneficial rela- tionships. This essay aims at exploring what PR 2.0 is when practiced, what makes it different from the old PR and how it can be used to manage relations with publics. The focus lies on how the relationships between a company and its publics have developed in the digital world. As a more separate matter of research we have studied how effects from PR in social media can be measured . The essay is based on qualitative interviews performed with Swedish PR communica- tion and social media marketing practitioners. The result from the interviews in com- bination with relevant literature makes the foundation for the conclusions made in the essay. The literature and articles used in the essay is a mix of more general PR theo- ries, theories about PR in practice, social media marketing and digital PR, PR 2.0. The conclusion of this essay is that social media constitutes great opportunities for companies to listen and talk to its publics in a way not possible before. However, the relationships created aren’t always the result of a symmetric two-way communication. Companies use social media to monitor and register what people think about them, which is the characteristic for a form of communication that is asymmetrical. But it is also important to notice that companies that share more and create value for those they are communicating with will build stronger relationships. Social media also makes it possible to identify publics and important individuals by using the medium itself, in a way that is both easy and cost-efficient. The problem with measuring effects from communicating in social media is of a methodological nature. A lot of what happens when communicating in social media is possible to measure and quantify, but the problem lies in explaining what the result means. To set up clear and realistic goals and to do research before engaging in social media is a prerequisite for measuring ef- fects at all.