Social Media has become a crucial element of many companies online marketing strategy and it provides a wide range of benefits to those who use it well.

But why is it the best kind of PR for your business?

First of all, it’s free. Social media gives you the opportunity to tell the world exactly what you’re doing without paying to advertise or spending the time writing a lengthy press release, which fingers crossed might get published in the local paper.

Social media makes everything a worthy news story, you don’t have to filter, and this works wonders for PR. PR is all about how you as a company appear, your image, your ethos. And social media is the best possible tool out there for crafting this image. This isn’t just because it is free.

Significantly, social media is a two way conversation. You don’t simply make a bold statement to the media and watch comments fly back at you. Social media is about telling your story and talking to people about it – getting involved in what people are saying about your company.

That is the strongest element with regards to PR. Companies who take an active role in replying to their customers via social media and entering into these conversations inevitably come out better off than companies that don’t. Why? Because it shows that they care.

The CIPR define PR as: “Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.”

It is clear that social media is an integral part of PR. It represents the people behind the company and brands who don’t pay attention to their social media risk their reputation.