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It hadn’t occurred to me that most brands and companies large to small are embracing social media or at least thinking about it. It hadn’t occurred to me until I spoke with Rob Merritt, Senior VP and Director of CKPR, one of the largest independent public relations firms in the U.S.

He said during an interview for a Fame article:

“From a PR standpoint I don’t think we execute a PR program right now that doesn’t have an online component and some kind of social media aspect to it.”

In this case the article was about a campaign his company did for AirTran involving a YouTube contest, stunts, and traditional PR to grab the attention of the college-age demographic.

I know it’s only anecdotal evidence that social media is taking a strong hold. But I can say that based on several interviews I’ve conducted with PR staff at companies and agencies social media is almost always part of the marketing or PR strategies.

And if you want to reach younger generations with your company’s message, it’s almost imperative.

About Natalie Myers

Natalie Myers writes for MarketingSherpa’s Great Minds and Content Biz newsletters. She covers a broad array of topics for Great Minds, regularly interviewing thought leaders and experienced marketers about innovative or highly successful marketing strategies. For Content Biz she focuses specifically on online subscriptions models, including anything you pay for to read, listen to, watch, rent (as in Software as a Service models), etc.

She writes blog posts about topics relating to her beats, including useful information from interviews that doesn’t make it into an article.

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Categories: Consumer Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing, PR Fame Communications, Social Networking Evangelism Community, Viral Marketing Tags: AirTran, CKPR, PR, social media, stunts, YouTube