SIU PRSSA Southern Illinois University Public Relations Student Society of America
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With everchanging trends, it is important to keep up with the social media world. Now you might be thinking how social media and being in Public Relations relates, well this past year a worldwide pandemic has hit causing the world to be put on pause, to the extent that people were asked to stay in and try leaving home as little as possible. That caused for a lot of changes, and news about the pandemic was everywhere, but it was hard to decide where to get information from.
Being creative and still being able to put out important information is a click away. Recently, SIUC’s PRSSA had a virtual guest speaker, Carbondale’s PR Officer Roni LeForge, where she was able to give us insight on PR during a crisis. LeForge talks about how sometimes work doesn’t always end at 5 pm like it does for most people, how keeping up with the social media posts interactions and notifications is important and part of the job because being on your toes and keeping up is crucial. LeForge also gives some notes on content for social media.
- Posts rich with information: you want people to get everything they need to know about your post; especially during a pandemic it is very important.
- Keeping it “short and sweet:” the average person’s attention span is 8 seconds. Which calls for short posts packed with information.
- Make a video: Videos are more appealing than a block of words, especially on social media. It creates room for relatability and entertainment. Videos seem to be the most popular when it comes to Facebook.
Roni LeFroge was very generous in sharing her tips that can certainly help us all. I personally have seen a COVID-19 informational video from Austin, Texas that did a really great job of being short, sweet, and to the point. Packing it with information and making it accessible for all. Their video featured facts, images, and details that were very helpful.
LeForge also shared a quote “keep the good, keep the bad, delete the ugly” pertaining to deleting comments. As professionals involved with the public and creating public posts it can be tricky dealing with negative feedback. Which is why we can delete the ugly, in order to protect the audience from hate speech or threats.
There’s a lot to take away from Public Relations Officer Roni LeForge’s virtual visit, but I think the best we can take away is that being creative on social media can be as easy as a short video jam packed with important content to educate the audience, while being able to protect them from hate speech and threat like comments.
As everyone knows, double, triple and keep on rechecking your facts and data. You never know what might change since the last time you checked!
