Public Relations Society of America Technology Section Chair Rich Teplitsky

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Social media effectiveness and crafting social media policies are based on the unique goals of your communications strategy, says Rich Teplitsky, Technology Section Chair for the Public Relations Society of America and VP at Lois Paul & Partners, a high-tech PR firm based in Boston with a field PR office in Austin.

Social media monitoring is challenging unless your public relations agency understands why it engages in social media and has identified the right tools for measuring social networking effectiveness.

In this episode, Rich joins guest hosts Sandra Burrowes and Greg Reeder about social media monitoring, social media measurement trends, and the art of setting social media policy.

ASysomos analysis of 1.2 million tweets over two months reported that 71 percent of tweets did not stimulate a reply or a retweet on Twitter. Is this failure or success?

That depends, says Teplitsky, on whether the individual, company, or organization is using the channel to engage, inform, build a brand, or drive traffic to a website, for example.

Different tools are used to measure other social media goals, and it takes a well-informed public relations professional to stay current with the best tools for the job.

To create sound social media policy with organization-wide buy-in, public relations pros should gather representatives from every department that has a stake in social media and broker two sets of suitable policies—one for employees (or organization members) and one for the PR/marketing people who will communicate on behalf of the company.

Teplitsky also discusses the challenge for PR professionals to stay on the “cell-dividing edge” of emerging technology and outlines three areas of rapid growth: cloud computing, wireless devices and content banking.

ABOUT THE GUEST HOSTS

Based in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Sandra Burrowes, Senior Public Affairs Specialist at The Mayo Clinic, and Greg Reeder, Marketing Director at SAP. Burrowes is also an associate with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.