Instructions
For this assignment, you will investigate a social media public relations (PR) campaign by an organization. Some examples of platforms are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube. The organizations can be national or local to your area.
In this assignment, you will need to include the following components:
Provide information about the social media platform.
Provide information about the organization and its campaign.
Discuss the campaign based on the information discussed in the Unit V Lesson. (Is it effective? What, if anything, can the organization do to improve PR through social media?)
You will need to reference at least two academic sources. Web pages provided by a company or organization (e.g., an “About Us” page) will be accepted for this assignment as a valid, academic source.
Use the standard five-paragraph format (introduction/body/conclusion). APA format should be used. The assignment should be a minimum of three pages in length. Content, organization, and grammar/mechanics will be evaluated.
Unit Study Guide
Unit Lesson
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Advertising,” that advertising is considered to be paid media while PR is considered to be earned media. Each
type of media platform—magazines, newspapers, television stations, websites, and so forth—has specific
sections where paid advertising appears. With PR, the message moves outside of these paid-for sections into
a story or the editorial section, which falls under the category of promotional activities. They often are
concerned with more subtle publicity, involving relationship building and forging a mutual-trust relationship
with the audience. This helps develop credibility.
Communication Channels
Communication channels are constantly changing in modern society. Media and communication models that
have been established over the years have undergone fundamental changes, primarily due to the introduction
of the Internet into our lives. Effective marketing communication in both PR and advertising depends on
developing a compelling message and delivering it to the right audience. Traditional media sources, such as
television, radio, and print, still exist and are viable options but are limited in scope when compared to online
media. The Internet offers an almost borderless way to transmit communication to the world’s population. The
trusted third party discussed by Wynne (2014) may no longer be a network or newspaper reporter, but
instead, it may be a person on social media with thousands of people who follow his or her channel.
Case Study: KitchenAid and Twitter
Social media platforms are simply websites that allow people to communicate informally with others through
written messages, photographs, audio clips, or videos. Each social media platform offers unique opportunities
and challenges. Twitter is just one platform in a vast world of online media and offers a business almost
instant worldwide communication with customers and potential customers. This can allow for effective PR, but
it can also damage a company’s reputation just as quickly. For instance, KitchenAid posted a tweet about
President Obama’s grandmother during one of Obama’s debates. The tweet said that President Obama’s
grandmother had known his presidency was going to be bad and chose to die three days before he became
president. The tweet was quickly deleted, and KitchenAid issued an apology. Cynthia Soledad, a senior
member of the company, admitted that a junior staff member had been handling the company’s social media
accounts, and the sentiment was in no way representative of the values of the company.
KitchenAid tweets an apology.
(Allen, 2012)
The problem with using social media is that the information remains online—even if the company wants to
delete the message. Mistakes like this can very quickly circulate from person-to-person (known in popular
terminology as going viral) and damage a company’s PR image.
Trends in Social Media
In order to take advantage of the Internet, organizations also need to be aware of new trends. Whenever
companies develop new online platforms for communication and PR, marketing has to change. For example,
Twitter was created in 2006. Originally developed to send messages containing 140 characters or less to
registered users, the site evolved to adding promoted tweets and promoted accounts in 2010. In 2015,
promoted tweets are no longer limited to 140 characters. This platform changed, and the companies who use
it have to change as well.
The promoted accounts and promoted tweets move the platform away from the idea of pure PR and more into
the realm of advertising. This is another area that marketing departments need to consider. Advertising
pushes its point of view onto the consumer, basically saying the advertised aspect of the product is what
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everyone should find important. PR takes the opposite point of view and focuses on the people who are
actually engaged in the discussion. PR does not fall under the same category as advertising, and when
companies pay to have their tweets promoted, it can seem disingenuous to the consumer.
Case Study: The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and the Dove Self-Esteem Project
One way that companies manage to promote their product through social media channels, including paid
placement in those channels, is to focus on outside social issues. The Dove beauty brand is a good example
of an organization that used a PR campaign on social media to advertise beauty products. The Dove
Campaign for Real Beauty started a global conversation through social media about creating a wider
definition of beauty after a major study, The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report, proved that the
current definition of beauty for women was limiting and unattainable (as cited in Dove, 2016). Beginning in
2004, Dove used various social media platforms to raise awareness of this issue (Dove, 2016).
First, Dove created an advertising campaign featuring real women whose appearances are outside the
stereotypical norms of beauty (Dove, 2016). The advertisements invited people to “vote” on the women’s level
of beauty at campaignforrealbeauty.com. This blended approach featured a paid advertisement with PR at the
website. When the customers (and potential customers) visited the website to vote, Dove was not directly
selling its product. Instead, Dove was focused on boosting women’s self-confidence.
Each following year, Dove launched a new part to the campaign. One of the biggest successes occurred in
2006, when Spain banned overly thin models from its fashion runways. Dove produced Evolution—a short
film on the social media site, YouTube—that depicts the transformation of a woman into a model, complete
with makeup and Photoshop effects. Please see the Suggested Reading section if you are interested in
viewing the short film.
Those engaged in social media did not see the company as trying to promote itself, but rather, the company
was viewed as trying to promote women and a healthy beauty image. The message had more impact with the
receivers because it is presented as promotional material rather than advertising. Research has
demonstrated that editorial commentary (supplied by a PR promotion) is valued almost as much as word-ofmouth advice from family and friends. This carries far more leverage with the consumer than advertising
(Wynne, 2014). The Dove campaign had the best of both worlds: friends and family chiming in and the full
weight of the organization’s PR department behind it.
