Pr and social network Why using Facebook and “the Twitter” aren’t enough. Pr is the fuel for social networks marketing engine

Pre-reading tasks

1. At home see the following references in the Internet to find out more about the people mentioned in the reading:

http://www.imbd.com/name/nm0924508/bio

http://www.facebook.com/zuck

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zig_Ziglar

http://www.ziglar.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/marshafriedmann

2. Answer the following questions

1. Are you on Facebook, Twitter or some other social network?

2. What do you use these sites for?

3. Are you always satisfied with the feed? What annoys you most?

4. What do you think the original purpose of social network was?

Reading

Read the text and answer the questions that follow it

You gotta love Betty White.

In a recently released movie, she portrays a high school girl’s grandmother, and in one scene a boy is asking for her granddaughter’s phone number. Of course it’s White’s character who responds with hers. “I’m also on Facebook...and the Twitter”! She enthusiastically adds.

So if Facebook and “the Twitter” have reached Betty White’s generation, certainly it’s reached just about everyone by now, including your business. But in using these sites, called “social networks”, for the purposes of marketing our business or our books, we should keep in mind that in a way we are twisting the original purpose of those sites to suit our own needs.

Let’s face it, Mark Zuckerberg did not create Facebook in college so that authors could sell more books or so corporations could support new product launches.

In fact, hooking up socially, as Betty White tried, is probably closer to what Zuckerberg actually intended.

Remember, social networking sites are places where people go to interact with other people, catch up with friends, follow celebrities and, yes, look up their high school sweetheart from 20 years ago to see if he or she is single again.

So, when entities get too commercial with their updates and messages, the community crashes down on their heads. You see, with Facebook and Twitter, people are free to comment on your updates in whatever way they want. Sure, you can delete the ones you don’t like, but that just means they’ll post something else, or maybe talk about you on someone else’s feed.

So let me give you the two important things I try to keep in mind in using social networking for my business:

1. Don’t Promote, Just Educate – How can you use social networks to grow your business and promote your book? Well, you have to adjust your intentions! I love the quote from motivational speaker John Maxwell, who said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care!”

In other words, don’t try to push your commercial messages through those channels. If you provide advice from your expert’s point of view that actually helps your reader, you will create a following of people wanting to know more about you. For example, if you are a tax adviser who wrote a book or launched a web site, use your update to give people useful tax tips. If they like your advice they’ll look at your profile, where you can passively place your business contact information.

2. PR is the fuel to your social media engine – PR is about newsworthy information that radio and TV hosts and print publications use to entertain and inform their publics. Since the most popular postings on social networks are links to useful articles, videos, postcards and audio, there’s nothing better than linking your PR coverage from reputable sources, introducing you as an expert. So, if you are actively engaged in a PR campaign, now you can use your media coverage as legitimate updates that won’t be received as self-serving sales pieces.

As many of you are reading this now, I love to share my expertise with my online friends and help them reach their goals. In the process, my book, Celebritize Yourself, and my PR agency automatically get promoted. I can tell you from experience that it works. I’ve received some of the kindest and flattering comments on Facebook and Twitter, because I prefer to educate others rather than to promote myself.

In the words of Zig Ziglar, “If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want”.

After-reading tasks

1. Answer the questions below

1. Do you agree that such social networks as Facebook and Twitter have reached just about everyone now? How can you prove it?

2. What was the original purpose of these sites?

3. What did Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, intend to do?

4. Why do people go to social networks?

5. Why can community be annoyed with Facebook/Twitter’s teams?

6. How can you use social networks to promote your business?

7. Why shouldn’t you try to push your promotional messages through these channels?

8. How can a PR specialist use social networking in their work?

2. Scan the text and complete the following sentences

1. We are twisting the original purpose of those sites because...

2. What Zuckerberg actually intended was...

3. Social sites are places where...

4. You can delete your updates and messages but...

5. To grow your business or promote your product you have to...

6. You will create a following of people if...

7. PR is about...

8. You can use your media coverage as...

3. Give definitions of these words and illustrate their meaning in the sentences of your own

1. social networks

2. entities feed

3. profile

4. media coverage

5. updates

6. a following of people

4. Match the verbs and their definitions

to twist sth	to strike smb/sth noisily or violently
to suit the needs	to make sth suited to new conditions
to hook up	to make contact with smb, esp. after not seeing them for a long time
to catch up with	to distort sth, to change the natural shape of sth
to adjust	to be convenient for or acceptable to smb
to crash down on	to make sth remain in the specified condition or position
to look up	to be linked to smb through electronic equipment
to keep in mind	to reach the same level of smb

5. Find words and phrases in the text that mean:

1. a closely linked group of people, companies etc

2. a complex series or structure with many connecting parts

3. sth more modern, the latest information about sth

4. a channel used to supply new information

5. expert knowledge or skill in a particular field

6. the reporting of news, events

7. a report or description of smb/sth in a newspaper article, broadcast programme

8. the process of gaining knowledge or skill over a period of time through seeing and doing things rather than through studying

6. Explain who/what the people mentioned in the article were:

Betty White; Marsha Friedman; Zig Ziglar; Mark Zuckerberg

7. Questions for discussion

1. Do the social networks serve their original purpose today?

2. What are the positive sides and drawbacks of sociolising through Facebook, Twitter and other social sites?

3. Do you agree with the words of Zig Ziglar?

Speaking

Prepare a monologue on the following topic:

“How to make social networks work for your business and career”

Unit 2