The Social Media Communication Matrix A New Direction in Public Relations

Sophisticated problem solving in strategic communication or public relations (PR) is done through planning, strategic communication planning. The focus of this book is to meld current trends in social media to strategic communications planning in the field of PR. The definition of social media used here is channels delivering web-based information created by people to improve communication. This work used the strategic communication plan based on Wilson and Ogden's (2014) work for basic structure and an operational definition of strategic communication developed by one of the authors. The steps in a typical strategic communication campaign that will be affected include goals, measurable objectives, the big idea, key publics, message design, strategies and tactics and evaluation or return on investment. This book covers the major social media platforms and addresses branding, crisis communications, entertainment and sports, citizen journalism, and analytics. The contribution to the body of knowledge should be highly significant, affecting the way PR professionals go about devising and conducting strategic communication campaigns in light of the effect of social media as well as how academics teach the process in their classrooms.