Has social media turned PR into customer service?

It could be a student’s unfavourable post on Facebook, or an angry parent who lets you know they are not impressed on Twitter, or even an anonymous comment from an adult learner complaining about a bad experience.

Whatever the situation, most education establishments will have had a similar experience and it always makes you reconsider the role of social media channels in your marketing strategy. Has social media become a double-edged sword for PR?

If you don’t get the balance right you might find that instead of generating positive content for your organisation, you end up firefighting to maintain your social media reputation. We know that reputation management is essential, but does it form part of your social media strategy?

Only a couple of years ago when the Association of Colleges undertook a survey on media trends and social media use within colleges the marketing effort was centered on controlling and pushing one-way messages on social media channels. Since then, against a backdrop of increased competition and funding changes within the FE and HE sectors, there seems to have been a notable shift towards utilising social media to actively listen and engage with students, as part of both the organisation’s marketing activities and customer service approach.

Steve Williams, Public Relations and Communications Officer at Highbury College, says:

At Highbury we have embraced social media. Banning students from social media sites at College doesn’t stop them from using Facebook at home, and with the proliferation of smart phones, trying to ban students from using social media sites is almost impossible. Not only that, I believe it is counter-productive. By having an open dialogue and engaging with students on social media they can come to us with their concerns or queries and we are able to converse with them on a platform they understand. Many of our lecturers actively encourage students to use sites like Twitter to network with employers and improve their prospects. Social media is a powerful tool and when it’s put to the right use it can enhance a student’s experience and open doors to great opportunities.

Highbury’s adoption of social media engagement is an example of the end of the controlled PR model in education marketing communications. Instead it is important to think about reach and transparency, where content is consumer-generated and influenced by genuine experiences or peer views, which are adverse to corporate messages.

Social media has blurred the boundaries between PR, marketing and customer service. Brand and reputation management is now much more about monitoring social media as part of the listening process, allowing a more proactive approach to crisis situations and turning perception into reality.

So with this in mind, we’ve looked at five ways to help manage reputation online:

1. Monitor your social media reputation - use tools such as Google Alerts to listen and respond to what people are saying about your organisation on social media channels - good or bad - and don’t just use a standard response.
2. Develop a social media crisis plan - define how you will approach an online crisis situation and who is responsible for the timely implementation.
3. Test your plan - make sure it works and get buy-in from senior staff so that there is confidence in it when you need to use it.
4. Create or develop your social media policy - include important information on issues such as safeguarding young people.
5. Provide social media training - identify your front-line staff and give training to make sure all are aware of the parameters and are equipped with best practice guidelines when using social media engagement.