Social media can be hazardous to brand reputations, despite its traffic-boosting advantages, according to renowned South African journalist Louise Marsland.
Marsland, the publishing editor of TRENDS, spoke at the PR-Net event at the Victoria Wharf Market in Cape Town, South Africa last week.
ldquo;Don’t overcommit on social media… it is not your friend,” Marsland said.
While emphasising the need for businesses to become social and explaining how the role of networks such as Twitter can be a great traffic booster for websites, she also pointed to its risks to reputations.
“You don’t need to tweet about everything. We see what happens when we do that. It can be embarrassing,” she warned.
Marsland said Twitter becomes “a bad thing” if the balance between Tweets and follows is disrupted.
“You need to be on Twitter and follow people, but you don’t need to tweet on everything.”
She recommended PR professionals to use social media as a tool to build a brand to share their experience of the profession.
“They have to be on top of their game or they will lose their space in the digital communication industry,” Marsland said.
However, she is not in favour of press release tweeting as this is seen as “patronising” in the eyes of the media, which is much needed in building authentic brand reputation in exclusive, rather than “lazy”, reports.
Pointing to the essentiality of transparency with regards to delivery of promises as posted, she also informed attendees about the trend of new brands with a clean slate as preferred above trusted legacy brands which have a history.
“It is about bringing the entire value chain up to speed when it comes to social media,” she explained.
Despite the digitalisation of the media, Marsland believes traditional media still has its place in the PR industry.
“Not all brands have to be on social media yet,” she said. “Don’t shoot me digital agencies but it is true.”
Marsland recently relocated to Cape Town from Johannesburg and started a trendspotting research-based business called TREND.
