Wilcox Group principal Mat Wilcox is closing her PR agency at the end of August to become an independent consultant who focuses on the rapidly changing social media landscape. She shared some tips with Business in Vancouver on how executives can succeed at getting their messages out via this rapidly emerging avenue consumers are using to gather information.
First, avoid simply providing what she called “push communications.”
That’s where a company simply pumps out tweets on Twitter about the fact that they are having a sale. Or when a restaurant tweets about menu items.
“Social media is about back and forth communication. Integrating, responding and interacting. That’s important,” Wilcox said.
Second, do not rely on a junior person in the company to do your social media. Wilcox knows that many executives do this because younger people frequently understand social media more than older counterparts.
The problem, she said, is that junior people in the company rarely understand the corporate strategy – why the company believes it is important to interact with the customer.
“When you’re fixing problems as they occur in real time, be very careful about what you’re putting out there,” she said.
Finally, do not have someone do tweets on Twitter or otherwise execute social media interactions for a senior executive. It is important for the tweets to be genuine, Wilcox said.
“Otherwise, the executive would miss the whole interaction and the learning that comes from the medium.”
See this week’s print edition of BIV for more on the impact of social media on local PR firms.