Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals

by CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations)

Share This  is a practical handbook to the biggest changes taking place in the media and its professions by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Social Media Panel. The book was conceived and written by more than 20 public relations practitioners representing a cross-section of public, private and voluntary sector expertise using many of the social tools and techniques that it addresses. The book is split into 26 chapters over eight topic areas covering the media and public relations industry, planning, social networks, online media relations, monitoring and measurement, skills, industry change and the future of the industry. It’s a pragmatic guide for anyone that works in public relations and wants to continue working in the industry. Share This was edited by Stephen Waddington with contributions Katy Howell, Simon Sanders, Andrew Smith, Helen Nowicka, Gemma Griffiths, Becky McMichael, Robin Wilson, Alex Lacey, Matt Appleby, Dan Tyte, Stephen Waddington, Stuart Bruce, Rob Brown, Russell Goldsmith, Adam Parker, Julio Romo, Philip Sheldrake, Richard Bagnall, Daljit Bhurji, Richard Bailey, Rachel Miller, Mark Pack, and Simon Collister.

Genres: Business

264 pages, Hardcover

First published July 9, 2012

Reviews

[Patrick Neylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buy this book now. It will be out of date by next Tuesday lunchtime - a fact that several of its authors recognise, having been compiled and written late in 2011 and early 2012. But for now it's a useful guide to social media for PR workers.

The format is of several short chapters, each the equivalent of a 5- to 10-minute speech, highlighting one aspect of the revolution from the point of view of PR professionals. There are few blinding insights, although it's surprisingly light on management-speak and PR gobbledygook, and for the most part is concise and informative.

It doesn't always avoid those pitfalls. Philip Sheldrake's explanation of Web 3.0 is so cursory that one wonders whether he really understands it himself (it's going to be semantic, apparently). After what seemed a simple enough explanation of PR skills, Daljit Bhurji concluded: "We need to eat our own dog food when it comes to social media," which left me scratching my head and wondering whether I'd understood him after all. Top prize goes to Simon Collister for: "Fully networked 'Join In' non-profits operate as just another node within social media-enabled networks"; a sentence that seems fully leveraged for SEO ecosystem solutions.

The book has been compiled by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, which is as respectable a provenance as you can get in PR, and the fact that it has several authors, all of whom are writing for an editor who understands their business, means that there is a welcome lack of Guru-Ego nonsense.

So it's a dry but readily comprehensible reference book; one that most companies should have a look at.

[Annie Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm pleased to see that this book wasn't written by just one author. No one person can possibly be an expert on such a vast, advancing social media platform. Social media is constantly and rapidly morphing and things have changed so rapidly in the PR world. Days of the press conference and envelope stuffing disappeared years ago, and in just the last three years communication has become radically different. We now have many tools at our disposal to communicate with audiences and strategically apply influence. Share This cuts through the hype of social media to help business owners stream media and it gives the professionals' perspectives on the latest developments and how these can be exploited. But as the book points out in several instances, things are moving at such a pace that the text is already out-of-date. For instance, there was no mention of Pinterest - in my mind an invaluable PR tool.

The book is an overview. It's not a practical hands-on guide. I would like to see some practical examples of how social media can be used to raise profiles/launch a range of products or services, detailing the different stages in the campaign.

Whatever business we are in, we are all struggling to keep up with developments. This is a hard-backed book which will look good on the shelves of PR professionals. However, the CIPR needs to embrace the new technology and provide an ebook with linked apps if it wishes to divest itself of a rather stuffy image and embrace change.

There is a big opportunity here for the leading PR consultancies and some forward thinkers to develop their consultancies around this still emerging, advanced market.

Share This is a well written and crowd-sourced snapshot of the communications world in which we all now exist.

[Vendela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly interesting, both as a handbook (full of tips and tricks and good ways to think about things) and as a screencap of where the social media world was in 2012.