When I first entered the Mass Communication program at USF, my beginning classes such as Mass Comm and Society and Writing for the Mass Media only briefly touched on the topic of social networking.
Now, 2 years later, social networking is a topic that is brought up often and our professors stress the importance of them to us, especially since we are public relations majors.
Steve Rubel, from Edelman wrote a blog entry on public relations and social media. He believes that within time social networking will be the main way public relations practitioners connect . He believes this will be where they can connect with journalsts, other clients etc. He also mentioned that journalists are already talking about this idea in a facebook group that was formed.
Steve also mentions that many people are also choosing to use Facebook or Twitter as a mean to send e-mails. They are less formal and sometimes quicker since some people check their accounts more than their e-mail.
Another blogger also talks about how Facebook can be used for social media. She mentions that Facebook groups can be an open forum for public relations practitioners to interact with consumers and professionals.
One of the problems she said with the mass use of Facebook would be the credibility. Facebook is an open community and anyone can join make an account. This can lead to people being able to post anything and form groups, it would be hard to tell if this person was legitimate or not.
With more and more social media sites popping up, it is just going to keep growing and soon not only public relations professionals will be using it to connect other buiesness and clients.
