scholarly journals An Analysis of Social Media Usage by Public Relations Departments in Select Private Universities in Kenya.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
Nyabera N. Samwel ◽  
Agnes Lucy Lando

This paper investigates the use of Social Media by Public Relations departments in two large private universities in Kenya. Social media are web-based applications where the creation of profiles and connections of people takes place. Social media use is constantly growing amongst organizations, as technology and globalization evolve, so do the role of Public Relations hence becoming inevitable in everyday practice. Despite the availability of social media platforms, little is known on how they are used to communicate. Contrariwise, the extant literature discloses that at present, there is moderately negligible research with focus on the use of social media in public relations in private organizations. This study is grounded on the outcomes of a research submitted in lieu of a Doctoral degree in Mass Communication at the St Augustine University of Tanzania involving 270 survey participants and 2 in-depth interviews. Data was generated using questionnaires and analysed using SPSS version 23 whereas interviews were analysed thematically. Findings reveal that University K and St Paul University use social media to: publicize activities; send information to the public; change public opinion; enhance information value; lobby public support as well as to provide the public with a question-and-answer platform. This paper highlights need to pay more attention to the content and public’s need besides embracing other available social media tools and technologies to promote trust amongst the public and the organization. And also, need to devise means of adjusting to the inevitable changes regularly besides diverse approaches in strengthening PR practice and regulation.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 266
Author(s):  
Melisa Arisanty ◽  
Gunawan Wiradharma ◽  
Isma Fiani

As a government agency that plays a central role in regulating the entire state budget and revenue (APBN), the Ministry of Finance needs public support and trust. Therefore, it is necessary to disseminate all government information to the public. One way that can be done is the use of social media as a platform in conveying information to the public. Through research using the constructivist paradigm with a qualitative approach and descriptive content analysis, it is expected to illustrate how the Ministry of Finance optimizes the advantages of each social media platform to disseminate government information to the public. The results of this study are presented in the form of strategies for optimally utilizing social media so that they can be an example for various ministries and other government agencies to support the success of the country's current goal of becoming an Advanced Indonesia.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy R. Fitzpatrick ◽  
Paula L. Weissman

PurposeThe aim of this study was to understand how public relations leaders view and use social media analytics (SMA) and the impact of SMA on the public relations function.Design/methodology/approachThe research involved in-depth interviews with chief communication officers (CCOs) from leading multinational corporate brands.FindingsThe findings revealed that although CCOs perceive social media analytics as strategically important to the advancement of public relations, the use of social media data is slowed by challenges associated with building SMA capacity.Theoretical and practical implications – The research extends public relations theory on public relations as a strategic management function and provides practical insights for building SMA capabilities.Originality/valueThe study is among the first to provide empirical evidence of how companies are using social media analytics to enhance public relations efforts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ahnaf Rifky Saputra

In this digital era, all activities can be published to the public through social media. Many groups of people actively use social media ranging from students, adults, entrepreneurs and state officials. One of them is the seventh President of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir. H. Joko Widodo. Joko Widodo has a variety of social media platforms, social media with the most followers among other social media is Instagram. With a total of 16.5 million followers making him the leader of the country with the second most followers in the world. The content of uploads on Instagram of Joko Widodo is diverse and very massive, the things Joko Widodo does on Instagram social media is one way to form personal branding. Personal branding is a unique phenomenon because basically all people have their own characteristics, to get the results of long-lasting branding and provide maximum benefits, the branding process must come from authentic, real and original evidence. This study aims to determine how effective the use of social media instagram is for the formation of Joko Widodo's personal Branding to the 2019 First Election Voters who are still confused and need references to make choices in using their voting rights. This study uses a descriptive quantitative method of two variables. The independent variable in this study is the effectiveness of using social media instagram while the dependent variable is Joko Widodo's personal branding. This research was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 100 respondents using the Nonprobality Sampling technique. The results of this study state that the use of Instagram social media in delivering the desired message falls into the effective category with a percentage of 74.9% while the formation of personal branding for the first voters is included in the effective category with a percentage of 81.1%. The conclusion of this study is that the communication carried out by Joko Widodo's Instagram social media account took place effectively and had a positive effect on the formation of Joko Widodo's personal branding for the first voters of the 2019 Election. Keywords: Social Media, Instagram, Personal Branding, First Voters


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6(J)) ◽  
pp. 150-161
Author(s):  
G. Nchabeleng ◽  
CJ. Botha ◽  
CA Bisschoff

Social media can be a useful tool in public relations in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but do NGOs make use of social media in their quest for service delivery in South Africa? Social networking sites, blogging, email, instant messaging, and online journals are some of the technological changes that changed the way interaction between people and how they gather information. Although social media is mainly used for interactive dialogue and social interaction, the private sector soon realised that the web-based technologies (especially Facebook and Twitter) could also be a competitive business tool. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) soon followed suit however at a slower pace than the general communication growth rate of social media in South Africa. This article examines if social networking sites have any impact on public relations practices of NGOs in South Africa – an environment where both customers and employees still struggle to take full advantage of social media. The critical literature findings increase the understanding of the current and future challenges of social media use in public relations at NGOs in South Africa. The study explores the main differences between traditional and social media, how social media is redefining public relations role, and shed some light on defining public relations practices, identify the uses, limitations and benefits of social media by public relations practitioners in NGOs. Recommendations for future communication research are given. Based on the literature, a qualitative research design collected data using semi-structured, individual interviews. The results revealed that social media platforms such as Facebook do have an effect, and even changed the way in which NGOs communicate. The study also revealed that social media certainly has an impact on public relations relationships. This means that it has become crucial that public relations practitioners at NOGs embrace and take advantage of social media, and that they should also invest in proper electronic platforms to reap the benefits of improved communication internally and externally.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ahnaf Rifky Saputra

In this digital era, all activities can be published to the public through social media. Many groups of people actively use social media ranging from students, adults, entrepreneurs and state officials. One of them is the seventh President of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir. H. Joko Widodo. Joko Widodo has a variety of social media platforms, social media with the most followers among other social media is Instagram. With a total of 16.5 million followers making him the leader of the country with the second most followers in the world. The content of uploads on Instagram of Joko Widodo is diverse and very massive, the things Joko Widodo does on Instagram social media is one way to form personal branding. Personal branding is a unique phenomenon because basically all people have their own characteristics, to get the results of long-lasting branding and provide maximum benefits, the branding process must come from authentic, real and original evidence. This study aims to determine how effective the use of social media instagram is for the formation of Joko Widodo's personal Branding to the 2019 First Election Voters who are still confused and need references to make choices in using their voting rights. This study uses a descriptive quantitative method of two variables. The independent variable in this study is the effectiveness of using social media instagram while the dependent variable is Joko Widodo's personal branding. This research was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 100 respondents using the Nonprobality Sampling technique. The results of this study state that the use of Instagram social media in delivering the desired message falls into the effective category with a percentage of 74.9% while the formation of personal branding for the first voters is included in the effective category with a percentage of 81.1%. The conclusion of this study is that the communication carried out by Joko Widodo's Instagram social media account took place effectively and had a positive effect on the formation of Joko Widodo's personal branding for the first voters of the 2019 Election. Keywords: Social Media, Instagram, Personal Branding, First Voters


Author(s):  
Alessandra Micalizzi ◽  
Alessandra Nieli

In 2009, a new political movement was born in Italy. It is called “Five Star Movement” (M5S) and it was positioned as a new voice of Italian people: alternative, populist, against élites, and against the traditional “way of doing” politic in the First and Second Republic Age. The power of this new political subject is linked with the use of social media platforms to communicate and share information, opinions, and positions with its “base” in a participative democracy perspective. In the last national political campaign, the M5S obtained 32% of the votes with a peak in the South of Italy. The chapter aims at presenting the main results of an empirical research focused on Sicilian voters of the East coast, in order to verify if and how digital communication helped in obtaining this success. Data show evidence about the relevance recognized to social media as first direct sources for collecting political information. The respondents express a large consent for traditional media that maintain in the public opinion a strong reputation in construction and share the public-sphere.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Festy Rahma Hidayati

The presence of digital media, such as social media allows us to connect without any limitations of space and time. Consumption of social media brings changes in various aspects of life, including the habits of communicating and interacting in today's network society. In the political field, social media creates opportunities for political leaders to carry out political communication. As a strategic political communication channel, social media plays a role in receiving and responding to public aspirations. In fact, the use of social media for campaigns by political leaders shows a trend of increasing popularity and electability due to the influence of branding on social media. The use of social media by political leaders in building specific branding is at the core of this article. Political leaders optimize their personal social media accounts for political communication. The positive perception of the public allows for an increase in popularity and electability which brings to the national political stage. This article is a conceptual paper that analyzes the concept of branding in politics in the era of digital political communication by utilizing social media. The author uses relevant literature reviews from previous studies. This article reveals that several political leaders that have been studied have optimized social media to carry out political communication to their citizens. They display digital content to gain public support and trust, and display branding as a populist, professional, humanist, and responsible political leader.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
Răduţ Bîlbîie

Abstract The study presents the emergence and evolution of the Public Relations accounts and products associated with social media platforms, at the official level in the Romanian army. We present the main regulations, the planning and execution structures, the significant moments in the development of the platforms, the successes and errors of the implementation team, the main results obtained by the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the products between the year 2012, the year of implementation. and the present time


Author(s):  
Ashish Kumar Rathore ◽  
Dayashankar Maurya ◽  
Amit Kumar Srivastava

Social media has been used widely for communicating information, awareness, and promote public policies by government agencies. However, limited attention has been paid to the use of social media in improving the design of public policies. This paper explores to what extent citizens' responses/opinions expressed on social media platforms contribute to policy design.  The paper analyzes discussion about the 'Ayushman Bharat' scheme on Twitter through social media analytics techniques (e.g., content analytics) and then traces the change in policy design over two years.  To validate findings from Twitter data, and assess the evolution in policy design, we conducted in-depth interviews with experts and extensive document analysis. The paper reveals that consistently similar issues were raised by the experts in the past as well as by the citizens in the current scheme. However, over the period, the policy design has not changed significantly. Therefore, despite a strong social media presence, its optimum use to improve policy effectiveness is yet to be achieved. The paper contributes by exploring the role social media can play in the public policy process and policy design in developing countries' contexts and identifies gaps in existing social media strategies of public agencies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norah Khalid Alsufyan ◽  
Monira Aloud

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way that Saudi universities are engaging their audience via social media platforms by means of the five meaningful themes: visibility, branding, authenticity, commitment, and engagement. The study will answer the questions: how do Saudi universities exploit social media platforms to engage their target audience? What are the recommendations for Saudi universities toward maximizing the value of social media engagement? Design/methodology/approach A content analysis approach was used to study all Saudi universities (26 public, 11 private). Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter were the anticipated social media platforms in this study. Findings The results showed that Twitter is the most frequently used platform to communicate with audiences. While visibility in the anticipated social media platforms was high, the engagement was lacking. On the other hand, authenticity and branding in the anticipated social media platforms were medium, while commitment was low except on Twitter. In general, the private universities exceed the public universities in terms of visibility, branding, authenticity, commitment and engagement in the anticipated social media platforms, which indicates their attention on gaining their audience’s satisfaction, a dynamic of trust which will lead to maintaining current relationships or building new ones. Originality/value Since there are few studies in the field regarding social media platforms usage by Saudi universities, this study aims to understand how Saudi universities are utilizing social media platforms to engage their audiences and propose recommendations for how Saudi universities can build value from social media platforms.


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