Social media has changed the game for everyone in the marketing, PR and advertising world. There is a different approach to how we communicate and what consumers expect from a brand or organization.

Social media is a big part of what we do at AHA. Whether a client organization should participate in different areas of social media or not depends on the organization, their stakeholder groups and their communication objectives. However, every communications plan that we develop has a social media component to it – at the very least for monitoring the conversations online.

We often partner with ad agencies and marketing agencies on projects and social media is usually a part of a campaign. Who manages the social media aspect is usually an interesting discussion. It often becomes a blend of the advertising or marketing team and the AHA team.

I strongly believe that social media provides an opportunity to deliver what PR was created to do: generate authentic, transparent, two-way conversations that engage, inform, educate and, often, entertain.