Assessing the use of Twitter by Irish SMEs/Entrepreneurs as a Practice of the Public Relations Two-Way Symmetrical Model of Communication: A Public

Relations Approach.

Name: Cian ORegan Student number: R00020649 Masters Title: MA Public Relations with New Media Supervisors: Emmett Coffey & Frank ODonovan Word Count: 18,127

September 2011

Submitted to the Cork Institute of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MA in Public Relations with New Media.
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Declaration
I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of: Masters Degree (M.A.) in Public Relations with New Media

is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for assessment for any academic purpose other than in partial fulfilment for that stated above.

Signed....................... Date.............

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following individuals for their help, support and encouragement in completing this thesis: Firstly, I would like to thank Emmett Coffey, Frank ODonovan and all the lecturers for their support and guidance throughout the year. I would like to thank Conor Mowlds, Joanne Kelleher, Annette Coughlan and all the staff at NMCI Services for their kindness and understanding during the year. I would like to thank all interviewees who gave up their valuable time to contribute to this research. I would like to give a special mention here to Margaret Smith, who helped me to organise Cork Social Media Day, without which I would have never had the opportunity to meet such great SMEs and entrepreneurs in the area. I would like to thank my classmates for making the last year of college the best yet. Many thanks must go to the Social Media Awards for giving me the social media bug by nominating me for an Irish Business Blogging Award earlier this year. A huge thanks also to Charlie Sheen for short-listing me to be his social media intern this year (#winning). I would also like to thank David for being the best tea maker in all of Ireland and also John for providing the teatime entertainment. And last but by no means least, a special thanks to my family, especially my mum Catherine for keeping Tazz (the dog) quiet during the summer while I was slogging away at the thesis.

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Abstract
There has been an increased interest, in recent times, among academics, public relations professionals and industry professionals in the importance of social media in the role of public relations. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the communication model that suits social media, in particular Twitter, most effectively, from a public relations point of view. A qualitative research design was chosen for this study, and the primary method used to gather the data were six semi-structured interviews with SMEs that had won awards for their social media work and social media consultants. All interviewees were chosen because of their knowledge and insight pertaining to the topic at hand. The research findings show the communication model that is recommended for SMEs, using Twitter as a public relations tool. Throughout the research process, the author learned about the PR benefits that arise from the use of Twitter as a way to engage with the range of publics that a business possesses. It can be concluded from the research that there are both advantages and disadvantages to using Twitter as a communication tool, as it does not yet reach the widest audience possible online due to the fact that the site is not yet mainstream in Ireland. In addition, if the site is used incorrectly, the reputation of the company can be damaged. SMEs in Ireland are experimenting on Twitter and those who are using the right communication model are, on this site, beginning to reap the rewards of this new phenomenon.

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Table of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Contextual Overview............................................................................................... 3 1.2 Research Question ................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research Objectives ................................................................................................ 5 1.4 Overview of Chapters ............................................................................................. 6

Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................. 7 2.1 PR Context .............................................................................................................. 7 2.2 Online PR ................................................................................................................ 8 2.3 The Definition of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) ..................................... 8 2.4 Entrepreneurship ..................................................................................................... 8 2.5 Web 2.0 ................................................................................................................... 9 2.6 Social Media.......................................................................................................... 10 2.7 PRs Relationship to Social Media (PR 2.0) ......................................................... 12 2.8 SMEs Using Social Media .................................................................................... 13 2.9 Models of Communication .................................................................................... 14 2.10 Press Agentry ...................................................................................................... 15 2.11 Public Information .............................................................................................. 15 2.12 The Two-Way Asymmetrical Model .................................................................. 16 2.13 The Two-Way Symmetrical Model .................................................................... 16 2.14 Online Communication ....................................................................................... 17 2.15 New Media .......................................................................................................... 18 2.16 Cyberspace .......................................................................................................... 18 2.17 Social Networking............................................................................................... 19 2.18 Twitter ................................................................................................................. 21 2.19 The Role of Twitter in PR ................................................................................... 22 2.20 Media Relations .................................................................................................. 23

Chapter Three: Methodology....................................................................................... 24 3.1 Definition of Research .......................................................................................... 24 3.2 Research Statement ............................................................................................... 24 3.3 Role of the Researcher .......................................................................................... 25 3.4 Research Design .................................................................................................... 25 v

3.5 Research Problems ................................................................................................ 26 3.6 Qualitative VS. Quantitative Research? ................................................................ 27 3.7 Research Sample ................................................................................................... 28 3.8 Interviewees and Positions .................................................................................... 29 3.9 Ethical Considerations .......................................................................................... 29 3.10 Codes of Practise ................................................................................................. 30 3.11 Primary Research ................................................................................................ 30 3.12 Data Collection Methods .................................................................................... 31 3.13 Question Wording ............................................................................................... 31 3.14 Secondary Research ............................................................................................ 32 3.15 Interview Transcribing ........................................................................................ 32 3.16 Semi-Structured Interviews ................................................................................. 32 3.17 Problems with Interviews .................................................................................... 33 3.18 Online Interviews ................................................................................................ 33 3.19 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 34 3.20 Reliability ............................................................................................................ 35

Chapter Four: Research Findings and Analysis ........................................................ 36 4.1 Public Relations .................................................................................................... 36 4.2 Views of Social Media .......................................................................................... 37 4.3 Advantages of Using Social Media for SMEs ...................................................... 39 4.4 Two-Way Communication: Interaction ................................................................ 41 4.5 Two-Way Communication: Understanding .......................................................... 42 4.6 Two-Way Communication: Changing a Product/Service ..................................... 43 4.7 Two-Way Communication: Building Relationships ............................................. 43 4.8 Two-Way Communication: Respect Gained ........................................................ 44 4.9 Suggestions on how to effectively use Twitter ..................................................... 45 4.10 Ranking Social Networks .................................................................................... 47

Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................... 49 5.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 49 5.2 Research Question 1 .............................................................................................. 50 5.3 Research Question 2 .............................................................................................. 51 5.4 Research Question 3 .............................................................................................. 52 vi

5.5 Final Words ........................................................................................................... 54

References ....................................................................................................................... 55 Appendix 1 Letter to Interviewees ............................................................................... 66 Appendix 2 Research Questions .................................................................................. 67 Appendix 3 Consent Forms.......................................................................................... 68 Appendix 4 Interview Transcripts ................................................................................ 76

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Chapter One: Introduction

The Internet is a relatively new medium. On the Internet, people tend to behave differently than they would in their normal lives. A new dimension of human computers has come about as a result of the advancement of online networks. The cyberspace that these networks exist in is understood to be a psychological space. When users log on to social media, they often feel consciously or subconsciously that they are entering a place or space that is filled with a wide array of meanings and purposes. Social networks are often described as extensions of peoples minds and personalities a "space" that reflects their tastes, attitudes and interests. As people interact on social networks, some people feel as though their minds are merged or blended with that of the other (Suler, J., 1996). Online engagement does not suit every type of business and it is ill-advised to have a social media presence if your company is involved in any unethical practises as this is will result in a lot of backlash from the public. Nestl found themselves involved in a public relations mess when news emerged that their business practise resulted in the lives of endangered species becoming under threat. This drew large quantities of vitriolic comments, viral video parodies and online abuse (Dash, R., 2010). It is important to remember that, if any company does something wrong, social media is an open communication channel in which disgruntled customers can voice their concerns online. Online-communication.eu (2011) suggests: Before you do engage in social media, make sure to question every step and tool at least twice and make sure one of those is through the glasses of prospective users. Twitter is extremely popular worldwide for both personal users and business users alike; there are over 200 million users across the globe (Chiang, 2011). However, Twitter has not yet reached a mainstream audience in Ireland. There are 217,845 Twitter users in Ireland (knexsy, 2011) compared to 2,014,100 users of Facebook and LinkedIns 424,926 users (Hand, 2011). 1

I believe that the use of Twitter as a communication channel by SMEs/entrepreneurs is in its primary stage and will result in further study when Twitter becomes more mainstream in Ireland. The reason why Twitter has reached a mainstream audience in the US is because of the high Smartphone penetration levels in America. The increasing usage of Twitter worldwide is commonly attributed to the amount of news stories the site breaks. However, Twitter head Dick Costolo believes that the most consistent growth driver has been Smartphone usage levels (Drum, 2011). Research company Amrach found that 2012 will be the year in which the majority of Irish adults will be using Smartphones, and therefore it is predicted that this will directly correlate to an increase in Twitter users in Ireland in a similar way to how it happened in the USA (Amrach, 2011). The value of Twitter as a communications tool can be seen from an interview on November 8, 2010 with Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications. Damien believes that Twitter is a much better source of company information than Google. He stated, On Google you can rig stuff too easily. I look to Twitter to get company recommendations because it is a human network and it is the best source of knowledge for that. The Internet has provided access to a number of different platforms for people to communicate and connect with one another. With the advent of social media, both SMEs and entrepreneurs now have the chance to build and to develop relationships online. Social media has become an invaluable communication channel for businesses. Relationships are changing and there has been a change in the way traditional media relationships are formed. SMEs are slowly adapting and using new technologies like Twitter as a means of a free communication tool (Bhasin, D. 2009). In a survey on how SMEs use Twitter (Source: O2 Survey), 100% of participants stated that Twitter was the best free communication tool available to their business. 42% of respondents believed that Twitter was a great way for SMEs to stay in touch with their customers and the needs of their suppliers. The listening aspect of Twitter was also said to be a great feature of the site with 32% of SMEs reporting that they use the site to monitor the industry. 28% liked the fact that they could stay in constant contact with their businesses partners and felt that the site was a great way to build a relationship. 2

1.1 Contextual Overview Communication in the twenty-first century has dramatically transformed how human beings interact with each other. It is heavily debated whether these new modes of communication and social networks are making us more social or antisocial (Killian, M., 2009). Nowadays, people regularly interact on mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and through email. These technological advancements have resulted in a paradigm shift in communications. As Smartphone and Blackberry users grow in size, this has led to an always on culture (Smith, D., 2008). In the past, written correspondence or face-to-face interaction was the only method of communication. The advancement of the telephone gave people an entirely new way of interacting, but this was still confined to a landline (Fredrick, H., 2011). Mobile communication has allowed people to communicate to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Mobile communication has provided people with a quicker and more efficient way of socialising; in Ireland, this is especially popular among young people and those in the media industry. However, mobile communication has led to people struggling to disconnect from constant personal and work communication. Communication is now a lot less dedicated and does not flow as well as before, as there are now gaps and pauses while the sender waits for the recipient to respond (Killian, M., 2009). People are now more trusting of people online and there has been a big increase in meeting people online. Ten to fifteen years ago, the notion of trusting people you meet online was heavily stigmatised. The growth in the trust people place in online connections can be seen by the match.com survey which showed that 17% of all Americans meet their partners online (Brockwell, D., 2010). The usage of free online communication channels has dramatically increased in Ireland. These tools are now extensively used by businesses and they have completely changed how companies communicate with their publics.

Smaller businesses tend to be the quickest at adopting the online medium of Twitter. The ongoing economic situation has forced many smaller businesses to look for costeffective communication and customer service channels. An E-consultancy study has shown that 40% of SME say that they are using Twitter more than LinkedIn or Facebook, which is testament to both the simplicity and power of the site (Hird, J., 2011). The increase in small businesses using converged devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry Smartphones combined with the simplicity of Twitter represents a fantastic opportunity for businesses to further raise their profiles and increase efficiency (ibid.). The evolution of social media is forcing some remarkable changes in the way SMEs/entrepreneurs conduct their public relations activities. SMEs/entrepreneurs no longer need third party ink to communicate with their publics they now have the ability to influence and persuade their publics through their own online presence. The popularity of these social networking sites continues to skyrocket. Consider the following statistics Twitter now has over 200 million users worldwide (Johansmeyer, T., 2011) which is approximately one third of the amount of users as Facebook. Every minute, there are 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube (TopRank, 2010). The reason why Irish companies are increasingly using Twitter is that it is a great way to interact with a tech-savvy and influential audience. Zappos are one of the best companies in the world at using social media to their advantage. The CEO, Tony Hsieh, and over 190 of their employees are on Twitter constantly, dealing with customers inquires. Zappos are so committed to managing the companys reputation that they monitor all mentions of the brand online so that their employees are ready to step in and manage a potential crisis. The open and transparent mode of communication that they promote has led to them being named sixth in the Best Companies to Work For list (Kirkpatrick, M., 2008). Many Irish SMEs/entrepreneurs treat online PR as a separate entity to traditional methods of PR. SMEs/entrepreneurs are most comfortable with just relying on Web 1.0 sites and do not see the potential that Web 2.0 sites have for their business. The perceived lack of control in an online environment is a major factor affecting the use of the Internet in public relations. 4

Social media sites evolve at a massively accelerated rate, with new services being added very frequently. This means that the available literature in the field of social media is extremely limited and becomes outdated very quickly. Due to this fact, the research undertaken by the author will attempt to examine new literature that is currently being researched on the topic of social media while zoning in on Twitter. Since there is also very limited research on the subject of this forum of social media in an Irish context, the author hopes that this study will represent a pioneering piece of research. 1.2 Research Question With this subject still only in the developing stages, it is felt that an opportunity exists to explore this topic in detail. The evolution of Twitter in recent years continues; however, the topic of how businesses use it as a communications tool has received less attention in empirical research by academics. The lack of research in these areas motivates the present study; the purpose of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities that Twitter possesses for Irish SMEs as a practise of two-way symmetrical communication from a public relations perspective. This led to the following questions being formulated: Is social media an effective public relations tool? Are there benefits to using Twitter as a communication channel? What are the ways in which Twitter can be used as a public relations two-way symmetrical model of communication? 1.3 Research Objectives The main objective of this research is to discover what model of communication works best online from a public relations perspective. This research examines how the channels of communication of SMEs/entrepreneurs are affected by the phenomenon of social media. It will also examine how SMEs/entrepreneurs benefit from social media and the research will examine how the two-way symmetrical communication can take place online. The research objectives can be summarised as follows: 5 To explore the phenomenon of social media; To assess the impact of social Twitter as a communication channel;

To gain an understanding of how Twitter can be used as a public relations twoway symmetrical model of communication.

It is hoped that information obtained from this research will add to the body of knowledge available in relation to this topic and it is believed that its findings will provide an insight for the future study of this subject. 1.4 Overview of Chapters This dissertation is divided into various chapters and is categorised as follows: Chapter Two will provide a comprehensive and detailed literature review on the topics of public relations, social media and Twitter. Chapter Three will describe and analyse the research methodology chosen for this study where the research questions and objectives will be answered. Chapter Four will contain the research findings and analysis. This chapter will outline the data obtained from the primary data and analyse whether these findings have met the objectives of the research project. Chapter Five will draw principal conclusions from the analysis and offer recommendations for future research.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 PR Context Cutlip et al. (2000: 6) define public relations as the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and the publics on whom its success or failure depends. According to Grunig and Hunt (1994): Organizations, like people must communicate with others because they do not exist alone in the world. Grunig and Hunt (1994) believe that organisations must use communication to coordinate their behaviour with people who affect them and are affected by them. On the other hand, LEtang (2008) views public relations as being nothing more than an industry of propaganda and spin that trades on lies and deceit: PR is not customer care or simply promotion of the organizational view. It is about clarity and intellectual honesty based on evidence, not sucking up to people or being likeable or liked. Breakenridge (2008) believes that the PR industry has become caught up in the hype and spin around it, forgetting that PR is about public relations: Public relations is no longer just about audiences. She argues that new PR is all about people and relationships. According to Carty (1992), every organisation has its audiences and therefore cannot avoid engaging in public relations. The choice is whether or not to use it properly. Haywood (1991) describes public relations as the craft of projecting the personality of the organisation. Haywood states: The most satisfactory practical definition of public relations is that it is the management of corporate reputation.

2.2 Online PR Online PR is one of the fastest growing sectors of the online business industry (Newlands, 2011). Online communication has become ubiquitous in organisational life. Internet-based communication has altered publics mobility, communication, and power relationships and, consequently, transformed identity movements (Duh, 2007). Social media is heavily intertwined with the creation of content, and written content is still a very large part of this. Traditional PR skills will need to be refocused in order for new horizons to surface. Online PR is now heavily intertwined with search engine optimisation (SEO) and there is a strong crossover in these services that are being offered by the same companies (Newlands, 2011). 2.3 The Definition of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Enterprise Ireland (2007) defines SMEs as follows: A Small Enterprise is defined as:

an enterprise that has fewer than 50 employees and has either an annual turnover and/or an annual Balance Sheet total not exceeding 10m.

A Medium Sized Enterprise is defined as:

an enterprise that has between 50 employees and 249 employees and has either an annual turnover not exceeding 50m or an annual Balance Sheet total not exceeding 43m.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are socially and economically important because they represent 99% of all enterprises in the EU. They provide around 90 million jobs and contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation (European Commission, 2011). 2.4 Entrepreneurship Various authors have given various definitions on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The general definition is that entrepreneurship is an ability to sense an opportunity where others only see chaos, contradiction and confusion. It is the know-how to find, marshal and control resources and to make sure that the venture does not run out of money when it is needed the most (Mohanty, S.K., 2005). 8

A.H. Cole has defined entrepreneurship as the purposeful activity of an individual or group of associated individuals, undertaken to initiate, maintain, or earn profit through the production and distribution of economic goods and services (Sharma and Parashar, 2010). Peter Drucker has provided a very comprehensive definition of entrepreneurship. According to Drucker, entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice. Entrepreneurship is about imagination, flexibility, creativity, a willingness to think conceptually, a readiness to take risks, the ability to mobilise agents of production and the capacity to see change as an opportunity (Mohanty, S.K., 2005). It is widely known that marketing orientation in small firms is characterised by the use of various contact networks, both formal and informal (Hill and Wright, 2000). For entrepreneurs, traditional face-to-face networking has been, for a long time, at the very heart of conducting business and building relationships. However, with the emergence of online social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, traditional physical networking events are now being replaced with online platforms that foster close relationships with other entrepreneurs in the industry. Online networks can also help an enterprise to improve their business in other aspects such as brand building, customer interaction and gathering business intelligence (Business Link, 2007). 2.5 Web 2.0 It is very hard to give an absolute definition for Web 2.0 as a lot of academics have conflicting views of it. However, Tim O'Reilly defines Web 2.0 as the understanding that the Web is the platform and that on the platform, the rules for business are different, and the cardinal rule is that users can add value to it. OReilly believes that figuring out how to build databases that get better so that more people that use them is actually the secret sauce of every Web 2.0 company (Bhatt, K., 2007). For a site to be considered a Web 2.0 platform, it must contain a number of characteristics. The website must have a user-centred design and offer a range of customisations in the layout of the site. Example of sites that show these characteristics

would include YouTube, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and folksonomies (Sankar et al., 2009). A Web 2.0 website also must have crowd-sourcing capabilities and have content added to it frequently. It is important for a PR practitioner to note that millions of people are now getting relevant content from sites such as Blogger and WordPress (TechPluto, 2009). The idea behind having the Web as a platform is that the Web (rather than a proprietary network) is the platform on which everything is built and users can control their own data. The advantage of this is that it provides a service rather than packaged software; it is cost-effective and scalable. Most importantly, the Web is a harness from which intelligence is gathered (Solomon et al., 2007). Additional characteristics of Web 2.0 include a rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, Web standards and scalability (Shah, 2009). 2.6 Social Media The Public Relations Institute of Ireland defines social media as: The technology used to enable an individual reach a worldwide audience in an instant. Social media such as blogs, wikis and forums also offer readers the right to reply. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) further defines social media as: The term commonly given to websites, online tools and other Interactive Communication Technologies (ICT) which allow users to interact with each other by sharing information, opinions, knowledge and interests. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities or networks, encouraging participation and engagement. According to Solis (2009): Social media represents a shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in a conversational format between authors and peers within their social channels. Social media is, quite simply, anything that uses the Internet to facilitate conversations. People now have the opportunity to broadcast their thoughts, opinions and expertise on a global scale. Social media is empowering 10

people to become the new influencers, and it is forcing PR and marketing professionals to recognise and include these powerful tools in their advertising and marketing communications (marcom) strategies. According to Nations (2010): A social media site would be a website that doesn't just give you information, but interacts with you while giving you that information. Regular media is a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter. Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too. Scoble (2007) says: Prior to the Web, organisations had only two significant choices to attract attention: Buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media. But the Web has changed the rules. Organisations must now understand the new rules of marketing and PR and develop relationships directly with their customers. Scott (2008) believes that third party endorsements of a companys message will steer people to their site: Whatever you call it viral, buzz, word-of-mouse, or word-of-blog marketing having other people tell your story drives action. One person sends it to another, then that person sends it to yet another, and on and on. In Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalisation, Jim Grunig talks about the relationship between digital media and public relations and about the opportunities these new technologies present to the public relations profession, such as making the profession more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical, and socially responsible (Grunig, 2009). Grunig believes that a lot of practitioners do not seem to understand how to interact properly on social media. In his opinion, they are merely using it as a way to distribute messages to their publics rather than as a strategic means of interacting with publics and bringing information from the environment into organisational decision-making.

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Grunig states that for public relations to fully use digital media, practitioners and scholars must re-institutionalise public relations as a behavioural, strategic management paradigm rather than as a symbolic, interpretive paradigm. Brain Solis thinks that public relations are silos of information and that customers are more influential than many of the brands on social networks and that engaging with them is the best way to succeed. Solis believes that social media and Twitter in particular has the potential to steer and shape experiences and it is our responsibility to also steer and shape experiences and the only way to do that is to break down these silos to get information and humanise it in a way that would show the CEO, if you want to paint a good experience or if you want a good experience for your customer, here is their experience today, how can we change that? (Solis, B., 2010) 2.7 PRs Relationship to Social Media (PR 2.0) In the late 1990s Brian Solis coined the term PR 2.0 his theory was based on how the communications industry in the future would connect with customers directly while still working with traditional and new media influencers to reach them. PR 2.0 came about long before the theory of Web 2.0 and was inspired by the changes that took place during the Web boom of the mid 1990s (Solis et al., 2009). SHIFT Communications drew up a PR 2.0 Essentials guide in order to educate PR practitioners on the usage of social media tools (Moss et al., 2009). Odden says that social media efforts are managed by the public relations department in many companies because there is an inherent fit between PR and being social (Odden, N/A). Public relations specialists were among the first people to embrace the power of social media, and as a result, they are often the ones leading the way in the social space. The Internet has changed the rules regarding third party endorsements no longer are there just traditional means of getting third party press alone. Nowadays, organisations can develop relationships directly with their consumers (Scott, D.M., 2010). The emergence of new technologies means that PR practitioners must now engage with these new online communities in order to get their message across. The futurist, Marc Prensky, coined the term digital native in his 2001 article which appeared in the academic publication On the Horizon. PR people must work hard to become fluent in 12

these new avenues of getting their message across in order to reach a new audience (Brown, 2009). Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, believes that while the traditional marketing theory dictates that a dissatisfied customer will tell ten people; in the new age of social media, people have the tools to tell ten million potential customers of their bad experience (Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 2010). The social media news site, Mashable, conducted a study in 2010 on how social media is changing the face of PR. 14 PR professionals were interviewed about various challenges the industry faces (Swallow, E., 2010). The result of this study showed that although the traditional press release is not dead, if a press release nowadays does not have a social element to it it does not have momentum. Lindsey Groepper, the Vice President of BLASTmedia, believes that rather than just emailing a press release, PR people should send journalists to custom landing pages created just for that specific announcement, contacting them via Twitter with a BUDurl link to the release, or even direct them to a YouTube video with a message from the CEO making the specific announcement (Swallow, E., 2010). Interestingly, Nicole VanScoten, a public relations specialist at Pyxl, in her contribution to the study, stated that she gets a much higher response rate when pitching a story through Twitter. VanScoten claimed that she gets a 50% response rate with email, but through Twitter, she gets a response rate of almost 100%. Social media expert Scott Stratten feels that the biggest mistake companies make is thinking that social media is just another channel for them to push their advertising message. Stratten believes that social media is indeed a two-way symmetrical model of communication as it is a conversation, not a dictation (Stratten, 2011). 2.8 SMEs Using Social Media There is a hierarchy for SMEs when starting off a social media campaign which is similar to Maslows Hierarchy of Human Nature. It is advised that one should master each stage on the pyramid before progressing on to the next stage. The very top of the pyramid has microblogging sites like Twitter, and engagement through these will be minimal unless one is savvy with blogging and social bookmarking sites (Jantsch, N/A). 13

In a recent report by the office management company, Regus, Irish SMEs are ahead of Britain and the US in their usage of social media for customer acquisition. The report stated that social networking had evolved into an essential business tool, as the majority of businesses in Ireland (76%) agreed that without social media activity, their marketing initiatives could not hope to be successful (Enright, 2011). A study conducted by Mashable found that Twitter was the number one social network that SMEs use with 78% of respondents reporting that they used it. Facebook came in second place with an SME usage of 75%. In this study, Twitter was also named as the best medium for SMEs to interact with their audience, with a score of 50%, compared to 47% for Facebook (Swallow, 2011). 2.9 Models of Communication To understand how social media is used as a two-way symmetrical model of communication, it is important firstly to fully understand Grunig and Hunts four models of communication. Since its introduction in 1984, the four-model theory of how PR communication should work has grown in acceptance to become the basis of the practice, measurement and ethics of modern PR (Paarlberg, B., 2010). Until the mid-1990s, the four models of public relations were widely researched in a variety of professional settings (e.g., agencies, corporations, government agencies), in public relations specialisations (e.g., fundraising, public diplomacy), and in countries around the globe. Research on the models helped to fuel the development of the fields Excellence Theory and is referenced as a precursor for many of the organisation-public relationship studies filling the disciplines journals today (Cameron, Cropp and Reber, 2001; Grunig & Grunig, 2008). Grunig and Hunts models have fallen out of favour with public relations scholars in recent years (e.g. Laskin, 2009; Sha, 2007) but they still continue to be featured prominently in the disciplines leading textbooks. Communication may be managed in several ways, depending on the culture of the organisation and the way the organisation looks at the world. Grunig and Hunt 14

identified four models of public relations that have been practiced in the history of public relations. They use the term models, by which they mean four typical ways in which organisations practice public relations. Some of these models of public relations are more effective than others. However, some are also more ethical (Grunig and Hunt, 1994). 2.10 Press Agentry The press agentry and public information models are always one way, from organisation to publics. Practitioners of these two models generally view communication as telling, not listening. In the early twentieth century, the goal of the press agentry model was to raise large sums of money in a short period of time by bombarding the public with sure-fire methods and recruiting scores of volunteers to solicit funds (Bongila, 2003). Press agentry is an example of one-way communication, with the main objective of putting forward one particular view of the world through the media and through other channels (Tench and Yeomans, 2009). An SME using Twitter as a method of press agentry communication would only see the site as an extension to their marketing efforts and not use it for its main benefit which is two-way communication. Allan (2005) says that press agentry was generally seen as the practice of ensuring that the appearance of individuals and events in the newspaper was in the most favourable light. Much like advertising, press agentry was involved in the puffery and exaggeration of the significance of a particular event or personality for its greater impact on the public. 2.11 Public Information The public information model differs from the press agentry model in that it is the dissemination of accurate information (Jo and Jung, 2005:27). It is a one-way channel of communication but the focus here is on truth rather than on persuasion. The founding practitioner of the public information model was Ivy Ledbetter Lee. Terence OBrien of the British Broadcasting Corporation commented on Lees use of this model, pointing out that the American press regarded his successful raising of the once humble vocation of press-agentry to the status of a conspicuous profession with no

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little jealousy and dislike. The newspapers found Lees work an important source for facts but disliked receiving information selected and edited by him (Burton, 2010). 2.12 The Two-Way Asymmetrical Model According to Grunig (1992), the asymmetrical model may be unethical as it is a way of getting what an organisation wants without changing its behaviour or without compromising. The distinction between two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric approaches to public relations was developed by James Grunig and Todd Hunt in their 1984 book Managing Public Relations and was subsequently promoted in Baskin and Aronoff's Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice and in journal articles. However, it did not gain widespread attention until Grunig and his colleagues spotlighted it at the IABC Excellence Study in the early 1990s. The preliminary reports of the IABC Excellence Study, published in 1992 under the title of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management and edited by James Grunig, suggested that virtually all companies which had reputations for excellent communication practices used the two-way symmetric approach (Turney, 1998). 2.13 The Two-Way Symmetrical Model The unbalanced asymmetrical model is all about trying to change the publics perception, while the symmetrical model attempts to achieve balance by adjusting the relationship between the organisation and its publics by focusing on conflict resolution in an effort to negotiate a mutually beneficial outcome (Dozier, Grunig, and Grunig, 1995: 41; Grunig and Grunig, 1992: 289). According to Grunig and Grunig (1992), the two-way symmetrical model is not only the most ethical approach to public relations, but this ethical approach is also the model most effective in meeting organisational goals. In two-way symmetrical communication, the focus is not on communication, but rather on the aim of nurturing and maintaining relationships with publics (Botan and Hazelton, 2006). James Grunig (1989) describes the two-way symmetrical model as public relations efforts which are based on research and evaluation and that use communication to

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manage conflict and to improve understanding with strategic publics (Grunig et al., 2007). The two-way asymmetrical model has persuasion as its purpose by way of two-way imbalanced communication (imbalanced because it favours the organisation). Formative research and the evaluation of attitudes are examples of research being done according to this model. Grunig and Hunt (1984: 22) mention Edward Bernays as a historical example of this model and they conclude that it is usually practised in competitive businesses and agencies. They estimate that 20% of the market follows this model (du Plessis, 2000). Two critical points that Grunig makes are that, By and large, organisations practice symmetrical public relations when the CEO understands its value and demands it and the senior communicator, and his or her communication staff have the knowledge to supply it (Pierce, 2009). The two-way symmetrical model is a form of two-way communication which is a way of promoting respect between the organisation and its public(s) (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). A study undertaken by CIPR member Michelle Newton to determine the value of social media and two-way symmetrical communications for building B2B (business-tobusiness) stakeholder relationships in the logistics sector had some interesting findings. 55% of respondents believed that there are real communications and business opportunities when using social media to build stakeholder relationships. What is interesting to me for my study is that comments that came from this research suggested that two-way symmetrical communication would be more effective for B2C (businessto-consumer) interactions (Newton, 2010). 2.14 Online Communication According to the UK Government, in the foreword to A New Future for Communications: Our world is changing, and communications are central to this change. Digital media have revolutionised the information society. Social media represents a shift for public relations practitioners to practice the two-way symmetrical model. The process shifts to conversation-based interaction, which 17

cultivates relationships, strengthens customer service and increases brand recognition and loyalty (Solis et al., 2009: 92). These new media have the potential to make the profession more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical and socially responsible (Grunig, 2010). Ullman developed a theory called computer-mediated communication (CMC) which refers to how humans behave differently when they interact online with each other. The communication channels of immediate (face-to-face) and mediated (online) differ greatly. Whenever there is an obstacle in the way of communication e.g. a computer the message become less personal (Grunig, 2010). Reid (1991) claims that there are three types of CMC systems: e-mail, news, and chat programs. Twitter in this case would be considered to be a chat program. A chat program transmits one person's typing directly to the monitor of another person or group of people. Chat programs occur at the same time and challenge the conventional understandings of the differences between the written and spoken word. On the other hand, email and news are asynchronous messages that can be private or public, created at varying times which allows the receiver time to contemplate their response. It is important to remember that discussions online are more likely to occur amongst a group of people with some shared personal or professional connection and not between a group of strangers that happen to be on the same network (Bainbridge, W.S., 2004). 2.15 New Media One of the ways in which the Internet has become so central to contemporary media is how its symbiotic relationship with media culture has offered audiences participatory opportunities (Lister et al., 2009). One of the most vital characteristics of new media is the way in which it integrations telecommunications, data communication and mass communications all into in a single medium (Dijk, 2006). 2.16 Cyberspace The Oxford English Dictionary defines cyberspace as space perceived as such by an observer but generated by a computer system and having no real existence (Images Publishing, 2001).

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Bromberg (1996) believes that in the future, cyberspace may assist users in transferring or altering their sense of self. Identity may be fluid and potentially multiple on the Internet but Kendall (1999) argues that people similarly engage in these practices in real life and did so prior to the existence of the online forum. (Mann and Stewart, 2000: 210) believe that contrary to earlier thought, it is now believed that the differences between self-presentation in real life and online is far less divergent than was previously expected. The continuous use of the term cyberspace has led to the belief that it is an independent reality (Kendall, 1999). If the theory of cyberspace was that it was more of a connected space, this would allow recognition of the fact that individuals exist online and offline simultaneously (Kendall, 1999: 60). This allows for the exploration of how participants may blend the two and the possible effects of offline context on participants' online experience (Illingworth, 2001). 2.17 Social Networking According to M.A. Lsted (2011), most people mistakenly believe that online networks did not exist before the twenty-first century. However, as far back as the 1980s, people could communicate through electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs). These sites were free and were operated by computer hobbyists, and allowed users to post information and to engage in discussions. According to Lytras et al. (2009): Enterprises are being transformed from an old business model built around the command and control aspects information management to a new one where collaboration and social networking are the essential components in defining a long term-business value. P.A. Rutledge (2008) believes that social networking is just one component of what is called Web 2.0, the next generation of websites and services that emphasize collaboration and connectivity.

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Although the experts continue to debate the exact definition of Web 2.0, one thing is certain: social networking sites, blogs and wikis are connecting the online world like never before. Web 2.0 has changed the way the world connects and communicates, and the evolution is continuing (Lytras et al., 2009). Rheingolds book The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier is cited in Lievrouw et al. (2006) which states the following: People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce and exchange knowledge. People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind. SMEs can use social networks like Twitter to interact with their publics, form mutual understandings and build relationships with their customers. According to Solis and Breakenridge (2009): Social networks are becoming primary mechanisms for connecting with people, ideas, brands, news and information, representing the ability to spark conversation with people directly, as well as those that influence them in new and unique ways. Social networking sites have seen a tremendous growth in the last two years, attracting a varied and engaged audience. Social networking empowers the 21st century consumer to choose what is newsworthy and relevant to them (Breakenridge, 2008). Lisa Hoover of PC World believes that it is possible that these social networking tools are just the beginning of something, that they could lead to ways of finding and interacting with one another like we never imagined... (Lsted, M.A. 2011). Seth Godin believes that aggressive networking, whether online or in real life, is worthless. Godin thinks that the networking that matters is helping people to achieve their goals reliably and repeatedly so that over time, people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals. Most importantly, Godin points out that superficial friending doesnt count for anything and is a complete waste of time, as that is not what networking is all about (Debbieweil, 2008).

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2.18 Twitter According to Stelzner (2009), Twitter is a micro-blogging service that has quickly become the social media service that is most often used in strategic communication campaigns. Similar to blogging, Twitter is a real-time network that allows users from across the globe to share information through private and public messages capped at 140 characters. The site-imposed character limit allows users updates, or tweets, to be sent to cellular phones and other mobile devices as a text message. According to Waters (2011): The ability to communicate in real-time short messages has garnered significant attention from individuals and organisations. Bell (2011) believes that: Its a given that Twitter will help build relationships with customers, communicate with them and develop a brand. Solis (2009) says that: Twitter connects people through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and interests in one, highly collaborative and promising ecosystem. Twitter is at the heart of the Webs evolving ecosystem and its archetype is powerful and quite understated. For better or for worse, Twitter introduces the notion of popularity, whereby the numbers of followers and also the friend-to-follower ratio we possess indicate ones stature within Twitterverse (Solis, 2010). The Twitterverse advances micro-interaction and connections through an expanding network of applications, engendering the potential for macro reach and resonance online and IRL (in real life) (Solis, 2009). Idugboe (2010) believes that Twitter is a far more open social network than Facebook, as the latter has often been publicly blasted for its walled garden approach. Twitters key functionality is that it is a source for spreading a business message as quickly and as far as possible. Since Twitter has fantastic integration capabilities, business messages can spread to the majority of the other social networks instantaneously. Twitter is a much more business minded network than Facebook, as all interactions on a Facebook 21

business pages can be seen by all, whereas Twitter promotes one to one dialogue between a business and a customer. Weinberg (2009) believes that Twitter revolves around personal relationships, which are key to communicating effectively on Twitter as the most important users are those who engage in facilitating and building friendships. Using Twitter as a listening tool is one of the best ways to monitor the public perception of a business online. The business can then engage with their customers by providing instant customer service. Twitter has become an infinite well of incredible insight and intelligence and because of that, it is already an indispensable service to businesses, governments, educators, and anyone who is impacted by the words and impressions of others (Solis, 2011). Van Grove (2010) believes that Twitter is all about communication with customers in an effort to build a relationship with them. In a neuroeconomic study conducted by Dr. Paul J. Zak, it was found that tweeting results in increased oxytocin levels in humans. Oxytocin is the hormone produced in the brain that stimulates feelings of trust and security, and also reduces anxiety levels. Dr. Zaks research interpreted tweeting as if you were directly interacting with people you cared about or had empathy for. 2.19 The Role of Twitter in PR One of the fastest-growing industry segments on Twitter right now is the public relations profession (Thomases, 2010). Twitter is now a hub of knowledge for journalists in Ireland. Recent statistics speak from themselves as 71% of Irish journalists use Twitter as a news source (Luke, 2011). Twitter is a great place for SMEs to go and seek out third-party endorsement for their company (O'Reilly et al., 2009). With Twitter, SMEs have the unique opportunity to engage in two-way communication with their audience in a way that is not possible with any other communication channel (O'Reilly et al., 2009). A companys Twitter account can help build trust among journalists towards their company if engaging messages and blogs are posted about the industry they operate in. They may even find themselves being re-tweeted by journalists, which is an online endorsement of your message (O'Reilly et al., 2009). According to Thomases (2010), public relations professionals can use Twitter to help them to be more knowledgeable about their publics, by using the site as a research forum. By connecting with local people and new distributers, Twitter can become a new channel for company messages. There is now a large amount of journalists present on 22

Twitter, so it is a great network to forge a relationship with journalists that cover the industry that one is in. A large following on Twitter can help to build a companys professional credibility and their publics will be able to see that they are a trusted news source by viewing their previous activity on the site. 2.20 Media Relations Successful public relations depends on effective communication with a wide variety of audiences, or publics. The most important method of communication is through media relations and liaisons. Like public relations in general, media relations is both proactive and reactive. If a company or an organisation is large enough or newsworthy, the media will be interested and will monitor its progress and actions. The choice such a company has to make is whether to seek to work with the journalists or to keep them at arms length. The advantage of co-operating with the media is that the stories they publish are more likely to be accurate and sympathetic (Black, 1995). Social media has completely changed how media relations works and the site at the forefront of this change is Twitter because of the amount of people in the media industry who are on the site. There is now a strong focus on building relationships with the new media gatekeepers such as bloggers and podcasters (Brown, R., 2009). Dilenschneider (2010) believes the era of social media possesses the biggest opportunities for public relations practitioners to engage in media relations because technology now means that people are far more accessible than ever before.

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Chapter Three: Methodology

The aim of this chapter is to discuss and justify the methods of research undertaken in this study and to explain the rationale behind the use of these methods in order to provide a framework for the study. 3.1 Definition of Research Research is commonly misunderstood as the process of gathering information. This is an incorrect assumption as it is about answering previously unanswered questions or creating that which does not currently exist (Goddard, 2004). Several experts have defined research: Clifford Woody states that research is defining and redefining problems, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions, collecting, organising and evaluating data, making deductions and reaching conclusions, and at last carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulating hypothesis (Kothari, 2008). D. Sleringer and M. Stephenson, in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, define research as the manipulation of things, concepts or symbols for the purpose of generalizing to extend correct or verify knowledge, whether that knowledge ends in constructions of theory or in the practice of an art (Kumar, 2008). Websters Dictionary defines research as a studious inquiry or examination aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, the revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws (Webster, N/A). 3.2 Research Statement Research questions are created to organise a project and give it direction, to delimit the project and identify boundaries, to keep the research focused, to provide a framework for writing up the project and to point to data that will be needed (Punch, 2005: 37). Within this research, the author wishes to provide an in-depth analysis of how Irish SMEs use social media as a communication strategy, with an emphasis on Twitter. According to Alan Bryman (2001), the most appropriate route of research for a particular project involves firstly selecting a specific research paradigm; next, devising a research design; and lastly, choosing specific research methods. 24

3.3 Role of the Researcher The researcher is the instrument of both the data collection and the data interpretation. Therefore, the qualitative strategy includes having personal contact with the people and situation the study is based on. From the perspective of the advocates of a supposedly value-free social science, subjectivity is the very antithesis of scientific inquiry (Patton, 2002). The choice of the qualitative research designs should be congruent with the following: The beliefs and worldviews of the researcher; i.e. the qualitative researcher usually expresses an interest in understanding the social world from the point of view of the participants in it, and emphasizes the context in which events occur and have meaning; The nature of the end results desired; i.e. the qualitative research is seeking meaning and understanding, which is best described in narrative form; The depth of understanding and description required from participants; i.e. qualitative research usually involves the exploration of a topic or an issue in-depth, with an emphasis on seeking information from the people who are experiencing or who are involved in the issue; The type of reasoning involved qualitative research is oriented towards theory construction, and the reasoning behind data analysis is inductive; i.e. the findings emerge from the data. Crabtree and Miller (1992) suggest that the best way to determine whether the choice of a particular qualitative research design is appropriate is to ask how the particular topic of interest is usually shared in the group or culture of interest. For example, if information about how clients responded to occupational therapy treatment is usually shared through discussion and storytelling among individual therapists, then a phenomenological approach may be the most appropriate way to study this experience (Law, M. et al., 1998). 3.4 Research Design Research design is an arrangement of conditions for the collection and analysis of data in a method that aims to merge relevance with the research question (Brayman, 2005).

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As already noted, there is currently a lack of previous studies examining the impact social media has had on celebrity culture; the majority of studies have focused on consumers attitudes towards the use of celebrity endorsements. The purpose of this research is to assess the impact that social media is having on the celebrity industry and what effect this is having on the PR industry as a whole. A qualitative research design has been chosen for this research paper, as it has been pointed out as being the most suitable strategy for exploring new areas of study. Interviews have been utilised to meet the research objectives. 3.5 Research Problems It is important that the thesis writer understands how to choose a good research problem and is able to formulate specific objectives to deal with the problem. A good researcher should be able to comprehend that even the simplest problem can be turned into a good research question if it is stated in an interrogative form (Calmorin et al., 2007). The problem area where I will focus on is whether Twitter is a good tool for SMEs/entrepreneurs to use as part of their PR function. I will also assess which type of communication model the SMEs/entrepreneurs adopt when using the site. There are five factors to consider when determining whether a problem is researchable or not: The problem exists in a locality but no known solution exists. The solution can be answered using statistical methods and techniques. There are probable solutions but they have not yet been tested. The occurrence of the phenomena requires scientific investigation to arrive at a precise solution. The serious needs/problems of people where research is demanded.

My research question fits into the probable solutions but has not yet been tested category. This is because Twitter is still not mainstream in Ireland, so tests on this medium are limited (Calmorin et al., 2007). Kerlinger (1986) states that it is important for the researcher to understand that the research question must be phrased correctly as questions have the virtue of posing a problem directly. 26

3.6 Qualitative VS. Quantitative Research? It is imperative for a researcher to understand that the research method should not be predetermined. Instead, the research method should be decided on the basis of what you are trying to find out (Punch, K. cited in Doing Qualitative Research, D. Silverman, 2009). The researcher has chosen the qualitative research approach as it is the most appropriate in meeting the needs of a relatively new research area. For the qualitative research approach, the researcher will need to collect in-depth information to be able to answer the research questions, which is something that cannot be done if the researcher uses quantitative methods instead (Creswell, 1994). A particular strength associated with qualitative research is that the descriptions and theories that such research generates are grounded in reality (Miles et al., 1994: 10). Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials including interview transcripts, case studies, recordings and notes, observational records and notes, audiovisual materials and personal experience materials such as artefacts, and journal and diary information (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). The in-depth interview is a technique designed to get a participants perspective on the research topic. During in-depth interviews, the interviewee is considered the expert and the interviewer is considered the student. The techniques used by the researcher are driven by the desire to learn everything that the participant can share about the research topic. Researchers remain neutral when asking the participants questions whilst listening carefully to their responses. They can then ask follow-up questions based on those responses. In-depth interviews are one of the most common qualitative research methods. One reason for their attractiveness is that they manage to bring a human element to the problem under research. In addition, conducting and participating in interviews can be a rewarding experience for participants and interviewers alike (Mack et al., 2005: 29). In between the focused and structured methods sits one that utilises techniques from both. Questions are normally specified, but the interviewer is freer to probe beyond the answers in a manner which would appear prejudicial to the aims of standardisation and comparability (May, 2010). 27

Interviews yield rich insights into peoples biographies, experiences, opinions, values, aspirations, attitudes and feelings (May, 2010). According to Gillham (2000: 10), the advantage of qualitative research is that it can illuminate issues and turn up possible explanations to a problem. Qualitative research allows the researcher to share in the understanding and perceptions of others and to explore how people give structure and meaning to their behaviour (Berg, 2009). Furthermore, little has been done by way of qualitative research to understand how SMEs/entrepreneurs use Twitter and, in particular, little or no research has been carried out concerning its relation to PR. For the purpose of this study, the research aims to gain knowledge of the different perspectives that Twitter has on the way SMEs/entrepreneurs communicate. 3.7 Research Sample There is an extensive amount of SMEs/entrepreneurs in Ireland. For the purpose of this study, it was decided to look at the Cork area due to the factors of location and ease. There are many Cork-based SMEs that are very active in social media. 2011 was the first year that the Social Media Awards of Ireland was staged. Due to the fact that the researcher was a nominee of the Social Media Awards, he had an in-depth knowledge of the cases of social media excellence in Ireland. It was decided that all interviewees should be organisations that were either nominees or winners of the Social Media Awards as through the extensive judging criteria involved in these awards, I could determine who the best companies to interview were. Several award-winning social media companies and social media consultants were approached by e-mail in which a brief description of the purpose of the research project and the part the researcher would like them to play in it was provided (Appendix 1). From the respondents, I chose four SMEs and two social media consultants to interview, based on their expertise in the area. The interviews were organised by sending introductory e-mails to the candidates, which outlined general information regarding the researcher, the topic chosen and the significance of the candidates participation. After initial contact was made with the participants, another e-mail followed with interview questions attached for each

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participant. Telephone calls followed up the e-mails to arrange the interviews at a time and location convenient to both the researcher and the interviewees. 3.8 Interviewees and Positions 1. Matt Kane, Curious Wines 2. Margaret Smith, Umnumnum 3. Deirdre OShaughnessy, Cork Independent 4. Ciara Crossan, weddingdates.ie 5. Amanda Webb, Spiderworking 6. Christina Giliberti, CG Online Marketing Co-Owner. Owner. Editor. Owner. Owner Owner

Each participant that I chose for my study was picked because of their extensive knowledge of social media for SMEs. Due to the fact that this study is about focusing in on Twitter especially, it was imperative that I picked interviewees that were particularly active and well versed on Twitter. The four SMEs that I interviewed have a combined following on Twitter of 9,199 people, which is an average of 2,299 followers each. The total amount of tweets the four SMEs sent between them was 34,154, which is an average of 8,538 tweets each. It can be seen from this that the users I picked for my research are experienced users of the sites when you study knexsys stats that an average user has 199 followers and has sent 1,178 tweets (knexsy, 2011). The four SMEs also possessed a very high Klout rating, which is the measure of online influence across all social networks. All of the SMEs had an online influence rating of either specialist or higher from the Klout measurement site. Even though I interviewed the social media consultants because of the social media expertise they gave to their clients, it was also important for the study that they were active on Twitter themselves. The social media consultants had a total Twitter following of 2,080 which is an average of 1,040. They had combined Tweets of 9,596 tweets which is an average of 4,798 each. The two social media consultants also possess a very impressive online influence. 3.9 Ethical Considerations Punch (1994) was cited in Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research: Challenges and Rewards as saying, The relationship between the researcher and the respondent in

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qualitative research raises a number of ethical questions that quantitative researchers do not usually encounter. Schrum (1995: 323-4) was cited in Walking the Tightrope: Ethical Issues for Qualitative Researchers as saying that researchers should consider respondents and participants as owners of the material and that they should have the right to modify their quotes for substance and language (Van den Hoonaard, 2002). 3.10 Codes of Practise Social research has a number of professional codes of practise that outline how to conduct research ethically. These codes include the British Sociological Association, the British Educational Research Association and the British Psychological Society. Homon (1991) was cited in Interviews in Qualitative Research as saying that codes of practise are viewed with caution as they establish a minimum standard of ethical practice (King et al., 2009). As a researcher, I have the responsibility to explain to respondents as fully as possible what the research is about and why I wish to interview them. The researcher must also brief the participant on what is involved in the research and what the information will be used for. The researcher will follow Bells (2005) recommendation and explain fully to respondents what the research entails as it is better for the participant to withdraw at the start rather than halfway through or after the interview. After the interview is completed, the researcher should ensure that participants are fully informed about the aims of the research and they should also have access to any publications arising from the study (King et al., 2009). It is important for the researcher to maintain confidentiality regarding any information about participants acquired during the research process (King et al., 2009). 3.11 Primary Research The researcher decided to use semi-structured interviews as it was decided that this method would yield the most suitable data results. The researcher sought to understand the best ways in which an SME can use Twitter as a communications tool for their organisation. The researcher decided to interview SMEs which received social media awards as they were deemed to be practicing social media most effectively among their peers. The researcher also chose to interview social media consultants that advise SMEs 30

on the best practice in the industry, as they are deemed to be the experts. Flexibility was required in the interview process due to the fact that the researcher was interviewing people from different backgrounds. An example of how the researcher changed his interview would be where the researcher asked the SMEs what they would do whereas he asked the social media consultants what they would advise clients to do. 3.12 Data Collection Methods Qualitative data collection methods were used to generate the results for this study, therefore making it the methodology that best supported the purpose of this study. In pursuing the qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were chosen as the main method of primary research. I arranged interview dates and times with each participant which took place at mutually convenient locations. Before each interview took place, I informed each participant that they had the right to anonymity and I also requested their permission to record our conversation for the study. My interview started by asking them broad questions like, What is your understanding of public relations? and as the interview progressed, we focused in on the details of the topics of primary interest to the study (Appendix 2). Also, follow-up questions like, Could you give me an example of this? were asked to get as much information as possible out of the interviewees. As previously stated, the researcher conducted the interview having previously read a considerable amount of literature to be suitably informed on areas such as online PR, communication models and social media. It was hoped that this would allow the researcher to narrow down themes and questions and also that it would improve the credibility of the interviewer and help establish trust with the respondents (Saunders et al., 2003). 3.13 Question Wording The wording of interview questions is very important to ensure that they are fully understood by all participants. The answers that respondents give can be a number of different things to different people it all depends on how you interpret it. This is the reason why I prompt the interviewees by asking them, for example, to elaborate on the topic (Bell, 2005).

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3.14 Secondary Research A review of all relative secondary data is fundamental for any research. Saunders (2009) states that most research projects require a combination of both primary and secondary data in order to answer research questions and to meet the research objectives. Secondary sources can provide concise summaries of past research and save the researcher hours of library research (Gravetter et al., 2011). A researcher should start off with secondary data and then proceed to primary data only when the secondary data resources have been exhausted (Malhotra and Birks, 2000). There are advantages to secondary data as it gives you an added insight into the area of study. However, there are also disadvantages to secondary data because you did not collect the data yourself; therefore you do not know how it was gathered and how accurate the information is (Stacks, D.W., 2002) The secondary sources I studied included books and research published in academic journals in the CIT Library and the DIT Library. I also heavily researched websites to gain an understanding of my research topic. I found very little amounts of academic research done on the area of Twitter as a public relations tool for businesses, but what I gathered was very useful. The researcher had to be very careful to determine what was academic and what was not when researching online, as on certain occasions, it was not fully clear at the first glance. 3.15 Interview Transcribing This is the process of writing down the contents of the recorded interview word for word so that you can adequately quote your interviewees. The researcher does their own transcribing as it can be seen as the first step in the analysis and it helps the researcher to become closer to the data (Langdridge cited in Interviews in qualitative research, King et al., 2009). 3.16 Semi-Structured Interviews The researcher knows that a good interview requires an extensive amount of preparation to make sure that it goes smoothly. Cohen (1976) believes this to be very true and he likens the process to fishing, stating that interviewing is an activity requiring careful preparation, much patience, and considerable practice if the eventual reward is to be a worthwhile catch.

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For my research, I interviewed two different types of businesses SMEs using social media and social media consultants. Due to this, I needed to slightly alter my questioning to fit the type of business I was conducting my interview with. It was for this reason that I chose not to use a structured interview as it leaves little room for deviation from the schedule. The focused interview enables the interviewee to answer questions within their own frame of reference. However, some people might regard this as a licence for the interviewee to simply talk about an issue in any way they choose I chose not to use this method of questioning for this reason. A semi-structured interview utilises techniques from both the focused and structured methods. I used this method in my study and my questions were specified but I was free to probe beyond the answers and seek clarification and elaboration on the answers given. A semi-structured interview is said to allow people to answer more on their own terms than the standardised interview permits, but still provide a greater structure for comparability over that of the focused interview. 3.17 Problems with Interviews To control an effective research question, it is important to decide which sequence to ask the questions in. It is the skill of the researcher to co-ordinate the interview in a logical sequence and if a question has already been answered en passant it may be left out (Flick, 2009). 3.18 Online Interviews The World Wide Web has opened up new horizons for data collection. Researchers can now engage in worldwide, low-cost and instantaneous research that is not possible by using conventional research approaches (Illingworth, 2001). Jones (1999: 12) says that the Internet provides an irresistible terrain to collect a seductive data set which can be accessed at the touch of a button. The simplest form of an interview that is conducted via the Internet would be the e-mail interview (Denscombe, 2007). Nguyen and Alexander (1996) believe that an advantage to an online interview would be that if it was the researchers first time conducting an interview, it would mean that the researcher would be less self-conscious and embarrassed while they are conducting 33

an online interview. Online interviews also allow interviewees time for reflection on and consideration of a question. As the respondent has the freedom to answer the interview questions as they deem fit, it may result in more thought-out and thorough answers as the respondent is not asked the interview questions on the spot (Denscombe, 2007). Further benefits of online interviews include a reduction in cost as travel expenses will be lower (Salmons, 2010). There are a number of drawbacks to conducting online interviews. The researcher might not be aware of distractions that are interrupting the interviewee's engagement with the interview (Illingworth, 2001). The lack of physicality and the reliance on written rather than verbal communication potentially leads to the loss of important observational elements and cues vital to the validation of the researcher-respondent exchange (Illingworth, 2001). In addition, the time lapse can stultify the flow of interaction which deprives the interview of its natural qualities (Denscombe, 2007). Mann and Stewart (2005: 159) believe that the jury is still out with regard to the effectiveness of online interviewing in comparison to a face-to-face interview. One online interview was chosen as a method of primary research for this study as the researcher was interested in communicating with this particular person who was in a certain location which made it unfeasible for them to be interviewed face-to-face. In addition, the researcher considered it necessary to collect data from this participant as they had an in-depth knowledge of training SMEs in the usage of social media. 3.19 Data Analysis Grounded theory was chosen as the most suitable method for qualitative data analysis. Grounded theory was developed by two North American sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (Strauss, 1987 cited in Principles of Social Research). These sociologists believe that the main aim of grounded theory is not necessarily to develop policy-relevant recommendations but to contribute to the theory (Green et al., 2005). An important aspect of carrying out a thematic analysis is being able to show how the researcher developed the themes and structure of the research. It is for this reason that the researcher kept mind-maps in order to organise the themes throughout the research (Green et al., 2005). While accessing the transcribed interviews, the researcher developed a highlighting system where he would highlight sections that were of interest which he would definitely use and he also highlighted secondary interest areas in a 34

different colour that he would go back to later. The researcher also inserted comments into the interview document to keep track of themes as they were developing (Green et al., 2005). In contrast, in quantitative studies the researcher is an independent observer with a set of instruments. On the other hand, in qualitative research the researcher becomes an integral part of the measurement and data-collection experience (Goodwin et al., 1996). 3.20 Reliability Reliability is fundamentally concerned with issues relating to the consistency of measures. There are at least three different meanings to the term (Bryman, 2004). Stability Stability relates to whether a certain measure is stable over time. This is important so that a researcher can be confident that the results pertaining to the sample does not fluctuate. Internal Reliability This refers to whether the indicators which make up the scale are consistent. This way, the researcher can check whether the respondents scores on any one indicator tend to be related to their scores on the other indicators. Inter-Observer Consistency This is to do with a lack of consistency in the decisions the people involved in the research might make. This could be an issue if the researcher is using someone else to transcribe their interviews. With this method, there is the possibility of a lack of consistency in the decision-making process.

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Chapter Four: Research Findings and Analysis

The themes addressed in this section aim to identify if SMEs/entrepreneurs in the Cork area are using Twitter as a source of the public relations theory of two-way symmetrical communication. This chapter presents the findings and analysis from the primary research in light of the research objectives. The findings are supported by quotations taken from the transcribed interviews. Analysis of the transcripts identified a number of common themes that developed across the interviews. Data will be discussed in relation to the theoretical constructs outlined in the literature review and organised according to each primary research objective. The three research questions are as follows: Is social media an effective public relations tool? Are there benefits to using Twitter as a communication channel? What are the ways in which Twitter can be used as a public relations two-way symmetrical model of communication? The primary research questions are discussed under the following headings: Public Relations. Two-Way Communication: Interaction. Two-Way Communication: Understanding. Two-Way Communication: Changing a Product/Service. Two-Way Communication: Building Relationships. Two-Way Communication: Respect Gained. Suggestions on how to use Twitter effectively. Ranking Social Networks.

The headings outline the general themes extracted from the data that came from the interviews to develop the research findings. 4.1 Public Relations Firstly, all interviewees were asked what their understanding of public relations was. This was an important aspect as all of the participants were not from a public relations background. 36

Margaret Smith of Umnumnum stated, Public relations for me is all about getting your name out there in the most positive light possible so that youll eventually get business as a result of it and also that there is a positive vibe around your name so that people know you for the right reasons. Matt Kane of Curious Wines backed up this statement by saying, It would be your whole face, peoples perception of you, your customers perception of you or your potential customers perceptions of you. It is trying to communicate your message to the public. Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing believes that there is a difference between online and offline public relations Id say offline is more sales based while online is a little bit more market focused. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking believes that social media is an extension of public relations. She feels that the best public relations campaigns should combine both traditional media and social media. Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie believes that public relations is great for creative SMEs/entrepreneurs who can think of quirky and interesting stories for media as it helps them to stand out from the crowd. The literature contends that PR is the management function, through which two-way communication can seek to develop and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its key publics. This definition is relevant to the research findings as they uphold the definition of Cutlip et al. (2000: 6) that public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its publics. Haywood (1991) had a concept that organisations should treat public relations as the craft of projecting the personality of the organisation and that it is the management of corporate reputation, a view which is strongly supported by Margaret Smith who believes that PR is about creating a positive vibe around a business. 4.2 Views of Social Media All interviewees agreed that social media is very important in the practise of PR.

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Amanda Webb of Spiderworking likens the invention of social media to the advent of CB Radio, stating, It allows us to communicate on a wider basis than we have before it allows us to connect with people around the world. Amanda also believes that human beings are social creatures and the arrival of social media has helped people to satisfy this desire for social interaction. Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing believes that social media has a key role to play in online marketing. Christina believes that there are a lot of benefits from using social media and she sees a lot of companies gaining business and gaining connections from it. Deirdre OShaughnessy of the Cork Independent believes that social media is the ultimate tool that has infinite possibilities. Although the Cork Independent has had a positive response from engaging in social media, she believes that there are both positive and negative sides to using social media. Deirdre doesnt believe in any form of censorship as social media is quite self-regulating and a negative comment is normally drowned out by the masses. Deirdre feels that it is important to set the tone right when using social media, and that a jolly and friendly approach works best. She says, If you set the tone in a positive light, you will see that people will be very reluctant to be overly critical. Deirdre thinks that a lot of businesses are afraid of social media for fear of negative comments. However she feels, If you can stand over your product and you are honest about your resources and about what you can and cant do, you are on to a winner. Social media is something that Margaret Smith of Umnumnum totally dismissed at the start, but after learning more about it she took to it like a duck to water and I never looked back since. Margaret believes that having a funny and vivacious personality lends herself to working well within social media. This corresponds with the research findings that social media is rooted in a conversational format between authors and peers within their social channels (Solis, 2009). All participants recognised the fact that social media is no longer just a way of reaching the youth market, as it now has a very large rate of adult users.

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4.3 Advantages of Using Social Media for SMEs There was a strong agreement among participants that social media offers a wealth of opportunities for companies. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking thinks that social media is a great leveller. Amanda feels that small businesses should look at what big businesses are doing on the front of social media and find ways to scale it into their own plan. Amanda believes that people want to know who they are buying from and that social media helps businesses to put a personality onto their brand. Amanda stressed the opportunity that social media provided in gaining new contracts for SMEs/entrepreneurs overseas Social media knocks down borders so Irish businesses wanting to export or find customers overseas can do so easily using social media. Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing believes that the main benefits of social media would be that it opens doors for SMEs and that it is very accessible. Christina believes, It is a very open channel you can drop in any time you need to and you have got a ready, waiting audience there. She feels that social media breaks barriers and puts SMEs on a level playing field with larger audiences. Christina believes that smaller companies can be just as successful as the bigger ones on social media. Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie views social media as a great tool, particularly for small businesses, as it is a great way to reach out to large organisations and make connections easily. Ciara points out the media relations benefits that social media sites possess, such as the ability to pitch to journalists. Ciara believes that social networking sites can also be pivotal in the management of crisis communication as it is a great, instant way to respond to customer complaints. Ciara uses social media as an announcement tool about the latest updates in her company, such as big developmental changes that may occur in the company. Matt Kane of Curious Wines believes that social media is great as the Internet is so democratic and that all of a sudden SMEs can be just as effective as larger companies. Matt believes that SMEs have the potential to do better than the larger companies in social media because they are more nimble, more flexible and can adapt that bit quicker than the bigger companies. Matt likens the adaptability of SMEs to the Honda commercial where the tagline is, Its not like I dont think that leadership is a good thing but you get the best out of people when there isnt a manager looking over our 39

shoulder. Matt also stresses the importance of the reach that social media can have for SMEs Its not just a case now of where you open up one retail outlet and concentrate on a 20-mile radius. What it does is it gets up in a mindset where youre not just looking locally. Deirdre OShaughnessy, of the Cork Independent believes that the opportunities for SMEs using social media are massive. She believes that the main thing it does is that it builds brand awareness for the company. Deirdre points out that there are a lot of brands, particularly in Cork, that have really come alive though social media. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum believes that the opportunities for SMEs in social media are huge. She feels that its a great way to dip your toes in the water without taking a risk. All participants recognised that SMEs can be just as successful as larger companies on social media. One participant upholds the belief that the larger you grow your online presence, it will result in the company needing traditional media less and less. The participant believes this because if you have a large engaged audience, they are likely to share your message for you on their own social media sites. The participant believes that this can result in there being little difference to announcing something online compared to making an announcement in a local newspaper. This is in line with Scott (2008) who says that having other people tell your stories results in your content becoming viral in nature. The participant also noted that this has led to a decrease in SMEs sending press releases to traditional media as they are happy with the coverage they get from their social media sites. According to Scoble (2007), before the Internet came along, organisations had only two significant choices to attract attention: to buy expensive advertising or to get third-party ink from the media but now the third option, social media, has created a very attractive way for SMEs to attract attention. One participant stated, Nowadays SMEs that are entering the market cannot afford to spend a lot of money on advertising if it yields little return. Whereas now, you can have customised Facebook landing pages which display all of your more recent offers for all of your new followers to see.

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4.4 Two-Way Communication: Interaction When asked if Twitter was the best social media site to interact with their businesses audiences, there was an overwhelmingly positive response rate from the participants, with only one respondent saying that they felt that Facebook was better for interacting with their publics. The editor of the Cork Independent, Deirdre OShaughnessy, said that Twitter is still mainly used by media people while Facebook is the best way to interact with the people on the street. However, Margaret Smith of cookery school Umnumnum believes that Twitter would be the better medium because of the interactive nature of the site. She feels that with Facebook, you have to constantly check who is interacting with you. Margaret points out a very important tip of Twitter etiquette to use when interacting with customers If someone talks to you, you answer them back, just like if someone walks into a room and talks to you, you wouldnt just ignore them. Matt Kane of Curious Wines says that the best way to interact with people on Twitter is to just be yourself and to try and become friends with people as opposed to becoming someone who is just trying to sell something on it. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking would rank Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as her top three social media websites. Amanda believes that Twitter is brilliant for communication. She believes that it is a great way to form new relationships that she likes to either take offline or on to a more stable network like Facebook. Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie uses Twitter as more of a B2B communication tool whereas she interacts with her customers on Facebook. The findings strengthen the analysis of Solis et al. (2009: 92) who indicate that social media represents a shift for public relations practitioners to practice conversational twoway symmetrical communication. This results in strengthened customer experiences and cultivated relationships. The participants also identified a number of potential disadvantages to using social media. The main concern for them was that if they posted something that a section of their followers might disagree with, such as voicing their opinion on a current news story, it could impact negatively on their business. 41

4.5 Two-Way Communication: Understanding The resounding theme that becomes apparent from this question was that communication on social sites help organisations to understand the views, needs and wants of their publics. Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie believes that social media has helped her to engage and educate her customers in an entirely different way from what was possible before. Ciara often finds other SMEs asking her for advice as she has positioned herself as an expert in her industry and also as somewhat of a social media expert considering the large following she has. When asked whether the use of Twitter can help businesses to understand their publics, Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing feels that while in the past, businesses had to outsource their market research, now they can do it directly through this medium and they can gain very useful information. Matt Kane of Curious Wines feels that sites like Twitter and Facebook aid with feedback that he already receives in his store You would have people asking about some particular wine on Twitter and Facebook and then you would notice that people will start asking for the same wine in the shop and its then you realise that its time we started bringing some of that wine in. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum likes to test out ideas on social networks to gauge peoples reactions about things and then decide whether its a good or a bad idea for her business. Deirdre OShaughnessy of the Cork Independent thinks that Twitter is a good medium for her company to interact with their business audience on, as people on Twitter are usually the type of people that write letters to the editor anyway. Deirdre feels that what they learn from Twitter can help shape the paper as she says, We might be puffing away on a local issue like St. Marys Orthopaedic and nobody might be interested and there might be about 20 people tweeting about the Tank Field in Montenotte. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking likes to tailor her social media training by tweeting out questions, looking for feedback from her customers and potential customers. Amanda says that she actively encourages people to post on her wall or tweet her to get feedback for her training. She believes that if someone tweets or sends her a 42

question on Facebook, this means that people are also Googling the question, which means that a blog post about it will direct traffic to her site. These findings directly relate back to the literature review which states that two-way symmetrical communication involves managing conflict with the aim of improving understanding with strategic publics (Grunig et al., 2007). 4.6 Two-Way Communication: Changing a Product/Service When participants were asked if they had ever changed a product/service because of an interaction on social media, the response was overwhelmingly positive. This relates back to Grunigs two-way symmetrical model where organisations adapt accordingly to requests from their publics. Deirdre OShaughnessy, of the Cork Independent, says that a lot of the changes that were made to the company website were as a direct result of interactions online. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum says that she gets a good understanding of how to price her courses from the feedback she receives from her followers on Twitter. Matt Kane of Curious Wines took what he had learned from his customers on Twitter and added a log in capability to his site where customers could keep track of all their previous purchases and score the wines on the site. Matt believes that the feedback he receives from social media really helps him to speed up the changes to the company. Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing feels that social media interaction is vital when launching a product as you need to know if the demand is there. The research findings confirm the literature review which states that two-way symmetrical communication involves adjusting the relationship between the organisation and its publics (Dozier, Grunig, and Grunig (1995: 41); Grunig and Grunig (1992: 289). 4.7 Two-Way Communication: Building Relationships The overall view, among participants, of building relationships with publics by using social media sites was that Twitter was the best website for this, with Facebook coming in at a close second. Surprisingly, LinkedIn wasnt mentioned very often as being good for this.

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Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing says that she does build relationships from using Twitter and she goes on to add that because of the amount of people who are now on social media sites, some companies might not even need to have a regular Web 1.0 site. This is because one can connect very easily with customers through social media. Matt Kane of Curious Wines says that the company built up a few relationships with restaurants that are not as active as themselves through the use of social media. Although he feels that word of mouth is far superior, he believes that social media amplifies it. Matt thinks that a strong online presence is the perfect way to break the ice when networking with new companies If we ever decided to drop into a [sic] company, it would not be just a cold call to them. Deirdre OShaughnessy of the Cork Independent built very helpful relationships out of her use of Twitter, as the newspaper hired two journalists that she meet on the social network. Deirdre said that she is sure she would have met these people at events around the city in time, but her use of Twitter sped up the networking process. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum found Twitter very beneficial to find other businesswomen in the area to interact with. She set up Cork Women in Business over a year ago and she feels that she couldnt have done it without using Twitter. The networking group also utilises other forms of social media to build relationships as they have a private Facebook group where they can interact with each other. Margaret feels that this is great and she said, Its like having a board meeting every day. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking says that she builds relationships on Twitter and that her biggest client to date approached her on Twitter. The research stating that all interviewees have established and maintained relationships through Twitter confirms what was discovered in the literature review, which states that in two-way symmetrical communication, the focus is not on communication, but rather on the aim of nurturing and maintaining relationships with publics (Botan and Hazelton, 2006). 4.8 Two-Way Communication: Respect Gained This question had a resoundingly positive response from all participants. Matt Kane of Curious Wines can tell that his business has gained respect as he can regularly see his business being recommended by other people and businesses on 44

Twitter. Matt feels that this is invaluable as it lets you know that you are doing things right. Deirdre OShaughnessy of the Cork Independent believes that the newspaper is well respected thanks to their use of social media. Deirdre attributes the newspapers use of Twitter as to the reason why the newspaper is well known outside of Cork. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum finds that some people assume that her business is much larger because of her strong online presence Some people come to me for advice and they have been in business a lot longer. Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie has built up respect for her business by being a prolific social media user this has led her to winning an Online Public Relations award this year. This social media expert status that she now possesses has helped her build up a very reputable name for her business. She now gets a lot of business inquires through Twitter as people can instantly see that she is a specialist in her area. All participants recognised that social media and in particularly Twitter can gain respect for your business which is congruent with Grunig and Hunts (1984) view that two-way symmetrical communication can promote respect between the organisation and its public(s). 4.9 Suggestions on how to effectively use Twitter When participants were asked the question of what was the best way to use Twitter as a communication tool, each respondent described using it as a two-way symmetrical model of communication. They explained that the social network should be used as the following: A listening tool. A way to negotiate with the audience. As a means to resolve conflict. As a way to build respect for their brand. As a way to engage with the audience. As a way to collect feedback from customers and possibly adapt their products/services.

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When asked to describe how not to act on social media, each respondent replied giving examples that fall under the umbrella of the following communication models: the Press Agentry, Public Information and Two-Way Asymmetrical models. They explained that the site should not be used to: Post persuasive and manipulative messages that exaggerate the truth, i.e. the Press Agentry model. Bombard the audience with a constant flow of messages, i.e. the Public Information model Post the same messages and never adapt to the feedback from the public, i.e. the Two-Way Asymmetrical model. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking believes it is vital that you don't push the hard sell and most importantly, that you must interact with others on the site. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum describes the worst method of communication on Twitter as someone that spams and never interacts with the other users. Interestingly, Margaret feels that the worst cardinal sin of all would be if you have links from your Facebook on to your Twitter as they are different sites, and they should be treated as such. Margaret points out that Twitter isnt a marketing tool and that the hard sell doesnt work. She feels that the bigger companies like Eircom and Vodafone are realising this and they are not offering a customer service from their social media accounts. Deirdre OShaughnessy of the Cork Independent agrees that the tone is vital and that overselling is unacceptable and states that you can only do a certain amount of advertising sales. Deirdre points out that its like the difference between PR and advertising and people dont understand the difference. PR is softly, softly while advertising is not. Social media is softer again than PR. Deirdre feels that its vital to respect that if someone is connected to you on social media, then you are in their head all day long, and therefore it is for this reason that you cannot bombard them with advertising and not engage with them. Deirdre thinks that you have to express an opinion to get people to engage with you.

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Ciara Crossan of WeddingDates.ie thinks that businesses that just use Twitter to push special offers will never get any sort of engagement on it as they dont understand that the channel is a two-way give and take medium. 4.10 Ranking Social Networks To fully understand how beneficial particular social networks are in the practise of the two-way symmetrical model of communication, participants were asked to choose only one social network for their business. Three out of six respondents said they would use Twitter as the only social network to promote their business. All six of the respondents mentioned that Twitter was a very important social network for engaging with their audience. The three that didnt pick Twitter as their number one choice said that they would use it along with Facebook to maximise the reach of their message as Facebook has 2,014,100 users in Ireland (Edleman, 2011) compared to Twitters total of 217,845 (knexsy, 2011). Margaret Smith of Umnumnum picked Twitter as her number one social network for SMEs because it is a great listening tool as it keeps your finger on the pulse of everything that's going on. Margaret mentioned that Twitter is the best site to plug into what's going on in your market and industry. She feels that the site offers great networking and selling opportunities. Amanda Webb of Spiderworking chose Twitter as her favourite social network, but she pointed out that it is very challenging to find your customer base on the site and that this takes a lot of research. She also mentioned that Twitter is a great site to add a social aspect to a traditional website. One participant stressed the benefits that the direct messaging has for the public image of the company, as you can quash a potential crisis situation with a customer by dealing with their issues through direct private mail on Twitter. Another participant stressed that Twitter is a great way to generate customers for your company as you can identify who is interested in what your company has to offer by seeing who is following you. This participant also mentioned that Twitter is a great starting point to take a relationship further in the way of adding someone on LinkedIn or to a mailing list or even for a sales call.

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The disadvantage of Twitter generally was that it is still primarily used by online businesses, media professionals and technophiles, and if you want to reach the masses, then Facebook is the social network to be used as there are both young and old demographics on the site.

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Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations

This chapter follows on from the logical reasoning in the analysis chapter. Clear conclusions will be made in relation to the communication model that is used on Twitter from a PR perspective. The conclusions and recommendations will be drawn from the primary and secondary data that was compared and contrasted in the previous chapter. Recommendations will be given for future research, as well as for SMEs/entrepreneurs engaging in Twitter as part of their PR activity for their company; this will be based on the knowledge that was developed during the research process. 5.1 Conclusions The purpose of this dissertation was to assess the communication model used on Twitter by Irish SMEs/entrepreneurs from a public relations perspective. The ultimate conclusion of this research is that Twitter is a good way of practising the two-way symmetrical model of communication as there are opportunities to listen, to engage and to promote mutual understandings between the organisation and the company. Social media is adding a lot to the PR functions of SMEs/entrepreneurs. The research also concluded that Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites for practising the two-way symmetrical model of communication. SMEs/entrepreneurs that are clued in to this new phenomenon of social media are reaping the benefits of it. The benefits are there even more so for the SMEs/entrepreneurs if they practise the right model of communication when using the social network. SMEs/entrepreneurs are becoming more aware of how to practice social media to the highest standards to promote their business online, and they are generating good word of mouth and word of mouse for their business. While some SMEs/entrepreneurs are utilising social media to good effect, others have failed to yield such results because of their misunderstanding of the communication model that should be practised on the site. In the current economic climate, SMEs/entrepreneurs are very careful in what marketing and PR initiatives they invest in for their businesses as they cannot afford to devote a lot of money into programs that yield little results for their business. It is for this reason that companies are coming on to Twitter in their masses.

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However, Twitter is still very much in its infancy with regards to its number of users in Ireland it is becoming an effective free tool for SMEs/entrepreneurs to spread the word about their business. SMEs/entrepreneurs are now recognising the benefits that social media actively provides for their business and while some are becoming thought leaders in their industry, others are failing to utilise the sites full potential as they are merely using it as a marketing tool. This study demonstrates that Twitter can have a positive effect on the public relations of SMEs/entrepreneurs when it is applied successfully. Findings conclude that Twitter facilitates two-way symmetrical communication and also show that social media is an effective PR tool for businesses as it allows organisations to practice the true definition of public relations. Findings also show that Twitter is an effective way to practise the two-way symmetrical model of communication as it involves using communication to manage conflict and improving understanding with strategic publics (Grunig et al., 2007). 5.2 Research Question 1 From the research carried out, the following are the reasons why social media is an effective public relations tool: It is a cheap way to communicate with your publics. It is a way of competing with bigger companies as smaller companies find it easier to engage in social media as they are more adaptable. It offers a new channel to pitch stories to news outlets. It is a great way to build a loyal following for your business that will endorse your message. Overall, each participant felt that, especially in todays economic climate, social media is an essential part of a companys communication channel. The participants acknowledged the fact that a lot of companies might fear opening themselves up to the public by having an online presence but the resounding answer to this was that the positives outweigh the negatives, and that if a company is upfront and honest with their messages, social media engagement will greatly improve the public perception of their business. Participants felt that many bigger companies are not using Twitter effectively 50

as they do not understand the communication tone that is needed to be successful on the site. Participants felt that people are still reluctant to engage with large organisations as they do not feel that their comments are taken on board because often it is someone who is very low down the employment structure of the company that maintains the social media account. 5.3 Research Question 2 From the research carried out, the following are the benefits of using Twitter as a communication channel: It allows the SME to monitor their brands image online. It can be used as an information-sharing network. It helps you to communicate with the local community. It can be used as a news distribution channel. It enables media relations and it is a good way to interact with journalists. It is a great way to increase visitors to your companys website. Social networking sites can be used to build professional credibility. It provides access to fast and cheap communication with others. It can be used as a business networking tool. It can be used as a soft-sell sales tool.

On anaylsis of the findings from the secondary data, it was concluded that there has unquestionably been an increase in the amount of journalists who are on Twitter. Statistics prove that nowadays more and more people in the media industry in Ireland are joining the site. This means that the site has turned into an alternative to the traditional e-mail or telephone pitches, and nowadays journalists take story pitches through their Twitter accounts. However, many disadvantages were also noted; in particular overuse of the social network could hinder the companys reputation. Spamming peoples news feeds with sales messages will cause a company to be very unpopular on the site. Using the site as a one-way communications channel will be a waste of time as credibility will not be gained online in this way. One participant noted that an endorsement on a Twitter news site in the form of a re-tweet was almost as good as appearing in the printed version of the newspaper as news sites now have a very large, loyal Twitter following and a retweet is seen as the online equivalent of a third party endorsement. 51

5.4 Research Question 3 From the research carried out, the following are the reasons why Twitter is a good way of practising the public relations two-way symmetrical model of communication: It facilitates two-way engagement with existing and new audiences. It is an effective way to build mutual respect between an organisation and its publics. It is a great tool through which to cultivate relationships. It is an effective reputation management tool. It can be used as a means of gathering research and feedback that potentially leads to altering communication messages. It allows organisations to keep up to date with news on other companies or brands. It allows the SME/entrepreneur to utilise it as a listening tool and to monitor their companys image online. Research findings indicate that many SMEs/entrepreneurs are utilising social media to good effect through the usage of two-way symmetrical communication. Grunig and Hunts (1984) two-way symmetrical model represents a communication shift to conversation-based interaction. This study has found that the evolution of communication can strengthen customer service, increase brand recognition and develop brand loyalty. I can see from my research that Irish SMEs/entrepreneurs are using Twitter effectively as a source of two-way symmetrical communication. Four out of six participants in my research are using the site for feedback and are altering their products, services and messages accordingly. One participant mentioned that it would be foolish not to listen to your audience as people are now very vocal online about what they want from companies. Another participant noted that the valuable feedback you get from customers has meant that market research is becoming less important as you are constantly kept up to date on the mood of your audience. All six of the interviewees said that they built relationships from interacting on the site these relationships led to media coverage, new clients, new employees and new business partners. A number of participants said that their use of Twitter has meant that others thought that they were

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much larger and around for a lot longer than they actually were, because of the large following they had acquired on Twitter. It can be concluded that the relationship between SMEs/entrepreneurs and their publics has changed. Social media has created an entirely different communication channel for organisations in which a whole new set of rules apply. Social media engagement can now build up a companys reputation and help them to foster new relationships with their customers, the media and their peers. Research findings show that social media is a new channel for PR activity to take place through. The literature has concluded that PR and social media are directly related because they are both in the business of being social (Odden, N/A) and that the communications industry was one of the first to embrace the power of social media (Scott, D.M., 2010). Online communication is becoming more and more important because, with the new age of social media, dissatisfied customers have the capacity to speak to ten million potential customers (Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 2010). However, the research also suggested that having a social media presence is very time consuming and that SMEs/entrepreneurs should only get involved with it if they are willing to put in the effort as the end result is entirely up to them and results are not instantaneous. SMEs/entrepreneurs now have the chance to communicate better with their publics through social media sites such as Twitter, where they can monitor and control their online reputations and build new relationships. The research indicates that there are also disadvantages that come with SMEs/entrepreneurs engaging in social media. These include harming the companys image by automatically following and un-following people just to get a large group of followers on the site. In addition, there is the potential for bad publicity that can come about from posting insensitive, political or rude messages on the site. To ultimately conclude, the author feels that the use of Twitter by SMEs/entrepreneurs will significantly increase over the next couple of years in Ireland. Interest levels in Twitter as well as the sites potential have dramatically increased among the Irish business community in the last year. Also, the inaugural Social Media of Ireland Awards highlighted the best practise of how a company can utilise Twitter for their business. From this study, it is apparent that there is a lack of literature and little 53

information in public relations texts regarding the subject of Twitter as a two-way symmetrical model of communication. Thus, the findings from this research provide significant insights into the impact that social media is having on the SMEs/entrepreneurs in Ireland from a public relations perspective and thus thoroughly resolves the research question of this dissertation. 5.5 Final Words The research study has led the author to conclude that from a public relations perspective, social media is having a considerable effect on SMEs/entrepreneurs in Ireland, and the author hopes that this study will contribute to future exploration of this subject.

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Appendix 1 Letter to Interviewees

Hi __________, My name is Cian ORegan and I am a Masters student attached to the Department of Media Communications in the Cork Institute of Technology. I am studying Public Relations with New Media. I am conducting a research study as part of the requirements of my Masters degree in Public Relations with New Media, and I would like to formally ask you to participate in a research study on how Irish businesses are using Twitter. This study will consist of a semi-structured interview at a mutually convenient place, and should last about 45 minutes. If you have any queries I would be pleased to answer them. I hope to hear from you soon.

Kindest Regards, Cian O'Regan

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Appendix 2 Research Questions

What is your understanding of public relations? What are your views on social media? What are the advantages of using social media for Irish SMEs/entrepreneurs? Which social media sites would you use the most to interact with customers/potential customers? Has social media helped you to understand your customers/potential customers? Have you ever changed a product/service because of an interaction on Twitter? Have you built business relationships solely from your use of Twitter? Has your business gained respect because of your use of Twitter? Why do you think your business has been so successful on Twitter? What are the characteristics of a low-followed or an unpopular Twitter account by an Irish SME/entrepreneur?

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Appendix 4 Interview Transcripts

Margaret Smith of Umnumnum Interview
What is your understanding of public relations? Public relations for me is all about getting your name out there in the most positive light possible so that youll eventually get business as a result of it and also that there is a positive vibe around your name so that people know you for the right reasons. What would your views of social media be? Social media is something that was a surprise to me. I started a course on social media and up till then I totally dismissed it as something that wouldnt be for me. Its a challenge that one should go on Twitter and see how it works. I took to it like a duck to water and I never looked back since. So for me because I started from nowhere, I started with no money, its free, all it takes is time. I have a naturally funny personality and Im fairly vivacious so it lends itself to work well for me. Did you have a personal account first? No I never had one. I started straight in with Umnumnum What are the advantages of using social media for Irish SMEs? The advantages for me were huge; I was a stay at home mum for 10 years so it was a chance for me to dip my toes in the water. I was putting myself out there, taking a risk, and I started very small. I was able to build my knowledge as I went along with the amount of followers I had. Once I started doing it I started getting interested in it and I started doing courses in it, picking peoples brains on it. I started doing a digital marketing diploma early on in the year and it gave me a broader view of marketing and how they interact with each other. Was this course before you first tweeted? I read a book called What Would Google Do? and I was inspired as it was all about how to engage an audience and it was all free. I learned that having a community around your business is so beneficial as they do the advertising for you. Was there a period of trial and error?

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Oh yeah I didnt have a clue at the start, I watched Twitter for two weeks without saying a word and then one day someone talked to me and I wasnt even sure how to write back. What I find is that the more vulnerable you are on Twitter the better because if you say I havent a clue what I am doing people will naturally help you. The first person that ever talked to me Im actually very good friends with now and worked together with them for a while. I made a load of connections and a load of new friends. I have opportunities from it which I would never have got from sitting at home on my own. I have a lot of connections too with traditional media which people dont understand that there is a very strong link between the two. It is an easy way to get into traditional media by using social media. Is that how you got the job with the Cork Independent? We had a Twitter meet-up where I supplied cakes and the editor of the Cork Independent said, They are fantastic, where can I buy them? So I dropped them up a box and they mentioned me on their Facebook page and they asked me what I was doing and it all steamed from there. Twitter breaks you into a relationship; it brings you from being cold to immediately thinking you know somebody. Its a great opening for a new business rather than cold calling. You have some sort of basis where you have this relationship from. Would Twitter be the best site to interact with your customers? For me it would be. I like the instant aspects of it and its not like Facebook where you have to constantly check who is interacting with you. I use TweetDeck to filter to it but I also like the randomness of Twitter. I think there are ground rules on Twitter, a sort of an ethic where someone talks to you, you answer them back just like if someone walks into a room and talks to you, you would answer them back. Im religious about answering back as I hate it if people dont answer me. I think social media is all about manners, like please and thank you are so important. I set up my notifications to notify me when people re-tweet my stuff so that I can thank them. I re-tweet people back to thank them for being nice to me, its swings and roundabouts social media is real life but its just online. Its like if you were in a company you would act well its the same thing but just online its not rocket science and if I can do it anyone can. I have a 16-year-old who is my IT department but I have really taken to it. My approach to it is Im trying my best to sell things whether it is business to business or business to consumer. Im selling a night out so you have to know Im easygoing and fun. I have 77

this thing as well where I follow you back as long as you are chatting but I dont like it when people just keep going on, like this thing again, would you go into a room and keep start shouting at people. If someone is interactive thats brilliant. I dont just follow businesses, I would follow anyone anywhere bar Mars. I would follow anyone back once they are interacting. At first what were the type of people you started to follow? I got great advice to follow friends so that I would have someone to talk to and have fun that was the first order of the day. At the start I found one or two people I knew were on it and I looked at their lists and picked a few others I vaguely knew so that I could have a conversation. The first month I suppose I did follow 200 or 300 people and about a third followed me back because I wasnt talking back to them. Since then I havent gone out that much to follow people they have actually come to me. If I talk, the more people talk to me and then the more people look at me. It has been organic and I think that is the way to build your community. All those guys out there with ten thousand followers and about 15 tweets they are not engaging. I have 1,400 followers and I have 600 unique people then @ mentioned me, so Im interacting with at least 600 of those. That is very important to me that the more people I have, the more people know what I do. Im just lucky I dont really ask for them they just seem to follow me. If youre around long enough, you end up building trust and people know you are not out on the take. The hard sell does not work on Twitter. If I have to advertise my stuff, I just advertise it one day a week and about 2 or 3 times that day and thats it. My Facebook is linked to my Twitter and anything I put on Facebook I put it on a few times to catch the different people. Has Twitter helped you understand your customers better? I try to open up a conversation rather than tell people what I have, there is no point having something if people dont want it. I try to get peoples feedback as much as possible. I cant keep everyone happy all the time so I have to pick one or another thing and I do take peoples opinions. I have also used Twitter for advice from the different foodies and if I have questions its great, they are there at the click of a finger. They can give me advice and if I dont understand, they can explain what their experiences were and that helps. I can gauge by peoples reactions about things and then decide whether it is a complete no-no or if this could be good. 78

Have you ever changed a product/service because of the interaction of Twitter? Yes, definitely, on things like pricing, duration of courses and I use it for market research too. I know also by gauging from reaction if I pitched it wrong, then Id re-jig it and save face and try to re-launch. Have you built business relationships through Twitter? Yes a lot, I have met people that I can collaborate with and you know I started Cork Women In Business. When I started again after the course, I was a mother coming into the market and starting up was hard. I knew a lot of men in business but not a lot of women and not a lot of mothers. I was told to get a network so I took that and ran with it. Cork Women In Business in over a year old now. Its not a networking group, its a support group. We come together every month and we have a sort of learning situation. We have people who come in and give talks. Damian Mulley did a talk. The enterprise board and others, they have all come in. But most of all we are there for the cup of tea and the chat and the moan and the groan about what works for each other. We do a show together and we share. For me, at the start, I thought they were scary from coming into it being a housewife. I felt that going into a room and with the people being predominantly male, it was scary. But when you are in the networking group you say, Oh this is me it is fantastic and Im selling millions. Im very honest and I have attracted a group of women who are very similar to me and we enjoy the same thing. Some people have come and its not their thing and thats fine but we have a core group of fantastic people. I know they are at the other end of the phone if needed. We use Facebook as our meeting where we have a private group where no one can see. We can have a full private conversation on it and we dont actually have to meet. We debate everything before it happens; its like having a board meeting every day. I find Facebook brilliant for that. Did you use social media to form the group? Yes I did, the first thing was Twitter and the meeting was in my house in my front room. There were about ten of us and now there are fifty of us. That is the core group of us and there are people who come in and out; there are no rules as such. Its very informal you dont have to have a business as such to come if you want to come for a chat. We did have to put a price on it and we have to pay for the venue and stuff but thats it really. 79

Why do you think your business is so successful on Twitter? It goes in tandem with a discovery of my own sort of personality. For years I was trying to mask this sort of honesty, dampen it down and pretend to be like everyone else. I felt I had nothing to lose on Twitter, you know, I could just have discovered a week later. I felt people responded to honesty and authenticity very well. I feel if you are honest people can see it. I feel with Twitter you can see very easily if people are being false. I feel you do have opinions on their tweets and people look on me very fondly on Twitter. They know I wont praise anything unless it is very good if it is marvellous I will say it is, but I would not otherwise. I would say in a gentle nice way to them not to do that as it is not working for you. Most people would say thank you very much as they didnt realise that. Last week there was a young fellow and he started a new business and he asked me for advice well he asked generally for advice. Then I started following him and in the end I got an automated message back, then I got a RT and then I rang him and spent a half an hour explaining the basis of how Twitter works. Its the personal touch and he is starting a company that is building a community. I know the automate at the end saves time but I hate it and know everyone does and it could cost you in the end. My advice is not to spam and you have to bide your time until you can spam a little. You have to build relationships before people will put up with you. It has to be subtle, that is the key. I dont follow the marketing guru types. I have no interest in them. I have lost a few followers but I suppose over the last year I have lost only about twenty. Its funny that people that dont engage with me are still watching me. I was at the stage at the start that I was checking in all the time but I have stopped that. Some people were able to tell me where I eat and where I was and I thought that was funny. Has your business gained respect just because of your use of Twitter? Yeah, actually people think I am a lot more successful than I am. Some people come to me for advice and they have been in business a lot longer. I think its because I have a bigger presence on Twitter. Some people use you for your influence. But I dont mind being used every now and again. Some people would ask me for a favour to RT and thats fine once they dont take advantage. I dont want them to be clogging it up with stuff that isnt of any interest to me or to my followers. I love new things as you know, I entered the social media one day and ran with it. I love a challenge, I love something new. I love the social side of social media. You see, working from home as well, social media is my water cooler. If I sit down at home for ten minutes I could talk 80

to anyone like this morning about half past four and I went to check the weather and there was someone else on, it was great, another insomniac. Its like having someone there all the time. I generally have made brilliant friends from it, brilliant. When you finish your blog would you get many comments? Im finding that difficult as they dont comment on Twitter. I dont like asking them to comment on the blog as I think that is very false, not real at all and that is an issue. But what I do then is that people that are interested in my business, I transfer over to Facebook and they like me there. Then for people that are only interested in what I have to say, I leave them on Twitter. I dont do the hard sell and say please like me on Facebook. I think there is no point in having someone there that has no interest in what you are selling anyway. Well I think quality is better than quantity, that the whole idea of social media is you want people who want to read your stuff and not hide it like if you were having this conversation in the days that people used to hide things. What are the characteristics of a low followed or unpopular Twitter account by an Irish SME in your opinion? Someone that spams, they never interact or they never talk, I suppose what is even worse is that they dont do even that. The worst cardinal sin of all, you have links from your Facebook on to Twitter. Someone asks you a question on Twitter and they dont check their account. That drives me insane if I send it to the two, Im always watching for about an hour and a half afterwards to see if they pick things up. Again its like not answering back, you are using that interaction its silly. People that re-tweet things if you re-tweet every time someone says something nice about you, that really annoys me. The hard sell doesnt work and even the bigger companies I feel like Eircom and Vodafone and all of them, they are working well. If an SME was just starting out and only wanted to use one social media site for their business, which one would you recommend to them? For me it would be easy as I started on Twitter and still believe it is the best as it allows networking and selling opportunities while also allowing you to plug into what's going on in your market and industry. It also keeps your finger on the pulse of everything that's going on.

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Deirdre OShaughnessy of Cork Independent Interview

What is your understanding of Public Relations? Public relations? Well, as a journalist I suppose we have two of public relations, we are at both ends of it here. My job as editor means Im definitely at both ends, we come up against a lot of public relations people in our work and we get a lot of help from them. We also have to do our own, in terms of an SME, and in my role there we dont have a PR person so its really my job to make sure the papers are giving out the right messages. As a company, we are at the right events; we are mixing with the right people, that we are bracketing a segment of the market. We are obviously a business to business publication in terms of people of whom we deal with and its that business that pays our wages. But its our readers, our consumers and the general public and they have the widest readership of any because we are free. So we have to see if they are sending the right messages to the businesses we deal with, the ad agencies, to local businesses, to national and multinational businesses and to the general public. It can be very hard to pitch between all of those. Within journalism I suppose there is a certain amount of reparation building for indivisible journalists for a newspaper as a brand, and also for a newspaper as opposed to news. We of course are very conscious of doing all those things. In the course of working on those public relations with a very limited budget, I found that Twitter and Facebook and other free media are the way to go for us. Given that we are an advertising outlet its funny that we dont do much advertising ourselves. I suppose we advertise ourselves quite heavily in our own publication. We do as much as we can PR-wise to get radio and television coverage, online coverage and we have been very successful in that really since we have started looking at it in that way. What are your views on social media? I think its the ultimate tool really and its sort of infinite. I think the possibilities are infinite in social media but that means the possibilities for both positive and negative things happening. We have overwhelmingly had a very positive experience from it. Despite the fact that we are here as a very small team with no professionals among us, we didnt pay anyone 500 euro to set up our Facebook page. We set it up ourselves; it was worked on by the editorial team here and by the sales team and me. I think thats 82

useful for us we are writers, that is our job anyway. In terms of dealing with the audience or pitching to an audience, we have dealings of that already. I think that maybe thats where some companies fall down because they havent got the experience of this sort of setup. I think with social media the possibilities are immense for it and, as I have said, we did have some negative feedback from it. We have one of the most active Facebook pages in the country and that includes all the national newspapers. We have had some negative feedback from that as well but I have felt that social media is quite self-regulating. People say its a hard mentality but actually it is in more ways than one. You feel if you set the tone right, our Facebook page tone is very jolly and friendly. It is not as serious as the newspaper as the Facebook page is a personality. If you set the tone in that positive light, you will see that people will be very reluctant to be overly critical. People are very welcome to come back with criticism or feedback or anything like that and people do regularly. People would ask why didnt you feature this or that or why didnt you interview a particular person and thats fine with us. They want to know why there are so many ads on the paper and I think if you are honest and upfront with people and you do your best to admit when you have made mistakes, you will find people can be quite good about it. Also you will notice that the few people who are moaning will be cut down by the peers instead of you having to do it. There is not really the case that you have to censor the page now there is a certain amount of people who we had to block but in general we know they are fake profiles set up by someone else. You can usually tell when someone is engaging or not. I think a lot of businesses are afraid of social media for that reason. I feel if you can stand over your product and if you are honest about your resources and about what you can and cant do, you are on to a winner. If you are using social media for a benefit like media companies like us, it cant be more useful. We have such a small news team in comparison to newspaper teams say 30 years ago but we are able to do so much more. You get criticism from older journalists who are so set in their ways. They criticise about journalists sitting on their chairs getting news from Facebook but that is not how it works as Facebook is not a story. It is the way you access the people or the story or whatever it is. The odd time you will access the story on Twitter and you will see if anything will come out of that but its an amazing tool for communications. It is just another way of communication but just with a wider audience. It is a totally different game than the way of the older journalists but I cant imagine doing my job without the Internet. I know there are journalists still working without the Internet; I am totally in awe of that because you would not know where to start. It is becoming more and more the case where you see 83

some websites taking their contents straight off another website which we dont do. You still have to have the principle of journalism check your sources and make sure the person you are talking to is a real person, whereas some journalists might not realise that you can still do that. You can still follow the older principles and make sure that what you are dealing with is real. There are different ways of doing it. There have been studies done. There was a guy in America, a journalist who disappeared for six weeks and got a new name and everything. He was tracked down on Facebook using Facebook solely, so there are so many ways it can be done. What are the advantages of using social media for Irish SMEs? I think they are massive, one of the things I suppose in Ireland is that we are a very small market. Naturally The Cork Independent is in Ireland and that is where we trade. There are so many of our advertising clients who have used social media already, there are people who have built their profiles already through no advertising but totally through word of mouth. That is what I like most about social media it builds up trust, it builds up a brand and it builds up a name. If people hear of a brand they would like to try, they can look it up on Twitter to see if they can get it in their local shop. There are so many brands particularly in Cork that have come alive through social media. In the city here for example there are a trio of restaurants: The Liberty Grills, Caf Gusto and Electric which all have the very same people involved and they are linked. They all work with social media and it has a massive effort it really works for them. You can put up a menu and say oh, that looks nice. But you have to keep engaging and I think though people say I heard of a company today who set up a social media profile for their business and they have 3,000 fans on Facebook... but even the person that did the social media left and he couldnt get a password. I think businesses need to be aware that this is a whole other part of your business, like you wouldnt let someone go away with all of your accounts its the same thing. If you cant manage your reputation yourself then you should not have it at all in the first place. At the same time I dont think you need to hire a new person for it; you need just to give someone responsibility for it but make them aware it is a major responsibility and not something they can forget about. But there are a lot of businesses using Twitter to effect, but my point about Ireland being a very small market was that we are being told export, export, and export. The way to get the name out there is online, its like you can smoke the duck all you like but how many people in Ireland are going to eat the smoked duck? But then they have a huge market for it in Britain. But we have the language advantage in that 84

Facebook and Twitter is largely through English and we can get all English speaking markets that way. I think if people use that well, it has endless possibilities. Would Twitter be the site you use the most to interact with people of all the social media sites? No, in terms of the business, Facebook would be. For my personal account Id say Twitter more so. I would regard the two of them quite differently. I would be a lot more prolific on Twitter than on Facebook, purely because I have a problem; in terms of journalists like myself, a journalist has to built a brand as well, separate from their newspaper but also in tandem with it. Everyone in our newsroom now tweets but it took a while for them to get into it and we can see the value of it now. I myself have an iPhone so I am on Twitter all the time, its the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night. It had an immense effect for me, I got some radio work from it and I also got some TV work from it. With me being in Cork I would not have gotten it otherwise, Dublin is the focus for all these things seeing as its the centre. But people see you on Twitter and say Oh, the Cork Independent, I didnt come across that. There are a lot of Dublin producers and researchers who think of Cork and say Oh, The Cork Independent. You see, they see me and they see the paper tweeting. You interact with a few people on Facebook. How exactly would that go about, would it be personal in a way? No, not really on the papers Facebook page no it wouldnt. Every morning our trademark would be, say, Good Morning Cork, every single day during the working week. We do not do it at weekends. If during the week, we dont put it up until, say, 12 oclock people would be asking are we dead and thats a really healthy thing. As we are a weekly paper its so important to have a presence all the time. I know a lot of the people who use the Facebook site never read the paper at all; they are two separate audiences. Thats another thing we have to offer to our advertising clients; we can say we have 10,000 fans on Facebook, we have 150,000 readers. Basically we have almost three separate audiences, the Facebook and the website people are probably closely linked. But the same people dont read the paper or use the Facebook or the Twitter, so we can spread our news in so many different ways. We can also spread value to our advertising clients that way as well; we are a free publication so thats the way it goes. But Facebook would be the way we interact the most with, say, the ordinary people on the street. I find Twitter is still mostly media people or people who are interested in 85

media, say political nerds and that sort of thing. But there are a lot of people on Facebook who Twitter would never occur to and it would be of no use to. Even people who ever enter competitions or people who want to know what is happening to the primary school down the road. There are the people who a local source on Facebook everyday is very useful. They come to us and say, My water isnt working and we can say, The City Council told us this. It could be up on the City Council website already but they would ask us because we are an authority on it. I think that kind of thing is fairly healthy for the brand. If someone asked you a question on Twitter, would you answer everyone? Yes we generally would. Has Twitter helped you understand your customers? Twitter, yeah, well I suppose because we are a free newspaper, our customers are our advertising clients and our readers are into that process and they are our audience. We would put up an Indo opinion which is our vox pop every week and we go out and about and do a face-to-face and we do it on Facebook and Twitter and you would see different answers coming in from different places. It does also show you, if you are monitoring Twitter, the local issues that people are actually interested in. We can be puffing away on a local issue like St. Marys Orthopaedic and nobody might be interested and there might be about 20 people twittering about the Tank Field in Montenotte. We notice that some particular story might be of importance in relation to the City Council but actually nobody on the street gives a toss about it. We dont have a budget for market research and that is very valuable but one thing that will, Twitter has the loudest voices which are the ones that will be heard. The people on Twitter are the ones who will write letters to the editor anyway. But on Facebook it is much more an ordinary person level. We see on Facebook, where one of the things that I found very surprising was the VAT rate cut last week and we asked if they thought it would be passed on and 7 out of 8 people said no and that they didnt expect it to be passed on. They said they needed it to pay staff and they wanted to regenerate it and be able to employ maybe another staff member. I think that would have been very important to the government if they had known that. It also shows you that people are thinking differently than what you had thought they were. It also shows that you can never assume that you know the way people are thinking. 86

Have you ever changed any part about the business because of an interacting of something you have learned through social media? Yeah we probably have, our website, we have just redesigned our website and a lot of that would have been on account of social media, due to the fact that social media is existing and the fact that we are so involved in it and also because of the feedback we have gotten from people. Some of the things that are on the website would be as a direct result of the feedback we have gotten from social media. Now you can click into the sections a lot easier and it is a lot more searchable and our digital edition now is much better. Some people had complained about that before and I suppose like every business, our resources are limited and more limited than some. But on the other hand, because we are so small, we are very much able to react to things. Because I am the editor and I also look after social media and if people say to me, Oh, you have a typo in this article, I can just go away and change it right there and then but I couldnt do that in the old way. So I suppose thats there for two reasons: the immediacy of social media but also the immediacy of a very small site. We are blessed in that regard really if you look at bigger newspapers, any of the national newspapers, they have so many processes to go back through. If you look at any of the national newspapers they have so many processes and people that they have to go through. There marketing department is looking after their Twitter so that has to go back to the newsroom to the journalist, subeditor and the editor. But here, if someone says to me that this is wrong I say, Sorry about that and I go away and I fix it. I think it adds to peoples feelings that we are very local, very contemporary and young and that we can just react to things and go with the flow. We would quite regularly ask for feedback with the new website; we have a poster up saying If you are happy with us, e-mail us. On the site, as well, if you go into any news story the journalists name is obviously up there but their Twitter account is also up there. You can tweet at the journalist about what you think about their story. I suppose we have modelled certain aspects of it on news journalism and things which we are able to do within our resources, we have done. I suppose probably some of the things we have done are not within our resources and we have spent time trying to catch up, but that is what life is anyway so you just try to adapt. I suppose the one about the journalist on Twitter; I said to the journalist, If you have a peculiar story, tweet it and see what the reaction is. I notice that people dont usually come back about things; people with a mistake usually come back. We had one story about I dont know if it was about a religious story or about Christmas or Easter and the Church of 87

Ireland came back and said, You didnt do anything about the Church of Ireland. So then we decided the following week to do a feature on the Church of Ireland. Now, I suppose he would have contacted us anyway in another form, but that would show you the feedback is still there and we have it on to make a sort of short cut and people will think of it before they have a serious issue or whatever. Have you built relationships solely from your use of social media and in particular Twitter? Absolutely we have two columnists who write in our well, inside our column on the political form who I know solely through Twitter. I would generally make a policy of meeting people from Twitter if we were going to use them in the paper or if they were going to use us for something. We have a policy of meeting people to make sure you have them in good faith, so thats one example; there are probably others. We would also have a policy of, for any of our columnists who are on Twitter say like Sarah Waldron who writes our fashion column, we would ask them always to tweet out their column. We would tweet it as well just so that we would kind of spread to all the different audiences as much as we can. So, you used it in that regard as recruitment was it something you went about or just something that was built up over time? Over time really, its all networking and people who are going to be interested in something like that you will come across it some way. Twitter is just a more immediate way of that happening. I have only been working in Cork for two years and I have found Twitter and Facebook absolutely invaluable. I find it invaluable with regards to networking, connections throughout the city and even geographically. Im sure I would have come across these people anyway but I already knew them from Twitter so that was lovely. Do you think your business has gained respect because of social media and Twitter? Yeah, absolutely, I think as news source outside of Cork we are the most active online of any of the media. I think Red FM would be as active as us but in a different way, not so much news-wise. We would actually be very well respected outside of Cork because people know us as the one that is constantly on Facebook. Within Cork as well, people would have always known there was a free newspaper. Its funny really a couple of 88

weeks ago, I mentioned that it was my second anniversary with the paper. Then people were saying, Is the paper there that long? and when I told them it was there six years they were amazed. I said, You only know it as a result of Twitter. They would have known there was a paper but they would not have known the name of it or taken much notice of it. I think one of the things that has happened people in the last five years is people have started using free news online in a way that they would never have trusted before. Now people have adjusted to reading news online and believing it, now they will look at a free paper and realise there is no difference and that it is actually the same. I think that free newspapers have probably grown up a bit in that process. If you look at the Limerick Post, they have an app and now they are the only Limerick newspaper with an app. We dont have an app yet but we are getting there and people now see there is no distinguishing between a free paper and a bigger newspaper. Why do you think your business has been so successful on social media? I think its all about the tone; its very important that someone is managing social media. Also, its very important that they have the right tone to deal with people, that they know what is appreciated and what is not appreciated. I mean, we might get narky comments the odd time if I started posting ads on Facebook, but ads pay my wages and its the way I have of earning money so literally that is what I would say to someone in person. I would say the same to someone on Facebook in a friendly way, like Id say, Oh we have to eat! I have to advertise sometimes, but I will try to keep it to a minimum. That is our policy we try not to advertise too much, but when we have to, we do it. Obviously at times the paper is full of ads and we have a ratio of ads in the editorial but without that ratio the paper would not make money. People are now starting to realise that especially in the difficult times we have, but it is about always adopting a particular tone online where you would speak to someone in person. If you are speaking to a person online about something, keep it about yourself and not about your company. You see, where AP have forbidden their journalists from expressing opinions online well, thats ridiculous. I think because we are a local company, everyone knows we have a stake maybe in some of the news stories, even personally as individuals. I would comment myself on a story but the Cork Independent would not comment on it. I think online it is very important to have that line where you say, I work for the paper but this is my personal opinion. I think once you have the tone right, everything else will fall into place. You have to deal with people in a respectful and sort of friendly way. I have different rules for my account and for the papers 89

account. I suppose thats why I tweet more often than the paper. I remember, because I used to tweet more often before, the wrong thing has gone out on the wrong account. I remember one time I said I would love some cheese and that went on the Cork Independent Twitter! So I mean that can happen, but the majority of people on Twitter think thats just hilarious. Because we are a small company and we are local and people know who are behind it, they would just say, Ah Deirdre, cop on like and thats fine. If it was the Irish Times and I said I would like some cheese, well, that would be an issue! We are lucky we got away with that; cheeky boy company, sort of thing that is fine, you just have to keep the line there. A lot of companies would let a grad or an intern do their social media but I keep control of that myself because I think it is such an important message. I think every message is so important and one bitchy thing could lose you 100 followers just like that. I have been away for a day and someone has put up ads and we have lost followers, and its as easy as that, thats how you lose people. Things like incessantly posting loses you people or not posting enough loses you people. Its a very fine line really; its something you learn as you go along. We have constantly built up followers and I dont know at what stage I should say we have enough. I mean it is still Cork, and how many people in Cork are on Facebook? Thats the big question. Its ultimately about the tone and how you deal with people and measuring where to pitch it. In your opinion, what would you think of the characteristics of a low-following social media presence or Twitter account what do you think they do wrong? They get the tone wrong, theyre overselling too much really like, We have a sale on, you can do a certain amount of that. Like I say, we intersperse our stuff like that but its not meant to be an ad. Its like the sort of the difference between PR and advertising and people dont understand the difference. PR is softly, softly while advertising is not. Social media is softer again than PR. You have to remember if you appear on someones Facebook wall and if you have someone who is on Facebook all day you are in their head. You have to respect that you cant be in their face; if you are constantly bombarding people with just special offers and you are not engaging with them. I think engaging is massive as well, like you asked if we always answer questions if people come to us on Twitter or Facebook, well we do our best. It is only an oversight if a person does not get answered or if we are not sure if they are asking us. If we have no way of answering a question, we would generally try to get an answer and come back to it. We always would engage and keep things light. A lot of Facebook pages for 90

newspapers sites, and breaking news have just set up Facebook pages in the last couple of months and they seemed to have learned this as well when you put up a story, you just dont throw up a new story. You would put an introduction to it like, What would you think of this? and it kind of breaks the rules of journalism in the way you have to express an opinion on it and get people to express an opinion on it. But that is the rule of social media in that you have to engage yourself to get other people to engage with you. If an SME was just starting out and only wanted to use one social media site for their business, which one would you recommend to them? For a start-up SME that is dealing with the public, like a retailer or a service provider, I would certainly suggest Facebook. Facebook is the easiest way to reach the widest audience online and it can be used in partnerships with other local businesses and with, for example, local newspapers like ourselves if the business is dealing with a geographical market. Almost all the businesses that advertise in our newspaper now include the Facebook logo on their advertisement and it fills the role of an expensive website for many of them. Twitter in Ireland is still a niche site that is mainly used by online businesses, media professionals and technophiles whereas Facebook is increasingly used by older people (who have the money to spend), teenagers (who have the power of persuasion over those who have the money), and a much wider demographic overall.

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Matt Kane of Curious Wines Interview

In your own opinion, what is your understanding of public relations for a business? Well, it would be your whole face, peoples perception of you, your customers perception of you or your potential customers perceptions of you. It is trying to communicate your message to the public. What are your views on social media in general? I think it is a great thing. We have been in business since 2008 and from the start, it has been an inexpensive and cheap way to get out there. It is a fairly new phenomenon; it is something that every small business should be doing and every large business as well. The Internet is so democratic and all of a sudden you can do what the big boys are doing. Actually you can do it better because you are more nimble, more flexible and you can adapt a bit quicker to that sort of thing. Like sometimes, like your man in the Honda ad says in the very slow voice, Its not like I dont think that leadership is a good thing but you get the best out of people when there isnt a manager looking over our shoulder. What would you think are the advantages for Irish SMEs of using social media? Well, Ireland is constantly trying to increase its export and thats a very good advantage as it gives you nearly worldwide spread and worldwide visibility. There is great potential for Irish companies to do that. But also for us, we dont have a great interest in exporting as we are importers but we can touch base with everyone who is local to us, even Dublin, Galway and all over Ireland. It is not just a case now of opening up one retail outlet and concentrating on a 20-mile radius, but now you can reach the far side of the country. What it does is it gets you into a big plan base really, so you are not just looking at the local area. Which social media sites would you use the most to interact with your customers? Twitter and Facebook. Could you describe the interactions on each one? Well, with Twitter we just try to be ourselves, I think the thing is there is a lot of mystery around how to use social media on the platforms of Twitter and Facebook and I 92

dont think it needs to be like that. We just dont complicate it; we would be just ourselves and become friends with people on it as opposed to becoming people who are just trying to sell you something on it. The way we approach it is to be friends and if people dont like us, then that is fair enough too. On Twitter we have a very soft approach to people and they are very happy to follow us on it. They read our tweets, have a bit of fun, crack a few jokes they dont have to be wine readers as such, but they follow us anyway. In that way, when people start following you and they read your tweets, they know you are there and they start interacting with you. Then we are part of the scene, we are contactable and then they know that we could do them a good deal on wine if they need it. I feel just being there and being cool about it and they know we are contactable if they need us and that is how we open the way of communication and they know we are accessible. Facebook is the same although it is different in the sense that it is slightly more difficult to get followers. That is something we tried to toy with, how to try to get more followers. We tried competitions and a few other things like Facebook ads but Im not a great lover of the ads to be honest. With Facebook, we do five blog posts a week, well sometimes four, but I try to do five, and Im posting then every day on the Facebook page. The other day, there was something just posted on it about a naked wine maker and I put it up for a bit of fun and it got about 9 comments on it even though I thought it was a bit obscene, it was just for a laugh. We are going to be updating our Facebook page very soon so watch that space. Twitter then is just about random comments and out of them, I might put in tweets that would link to our website. Then that would get conversation going, and in the wine business, we have got certain brands and certain wines that we try to build up and through Twitter and Facebook, we can get certain followers for that. What would you think is a more personal relationship Twitter or Facebook? Probably Twitter I would say, but then Facebook has possibly more potential. If someone posts a comment on our page, it opens up a conversation about things. There is no hard sell about it we love talking about wine and the page opens up a lot for us. Has social media helped you understand your customers and your potential customers? Yes it has, it is very important to listen and in terms of our product and the business we are in, our sales and getting first-hand feedback from people in the shop on certain wines really determines what you sell. So you know that the demands of certain wines 93

are what you increase on and the sales of certain wines are better. Twitter and Facebook are very good ways of selling as you would have people asking about some particular wine and then you notice that people will start asking for the same wine in the shop and its then you realise that its time we started bringing some of that wine in. You would get a general feel about wine from Twitter and Facebook just like you would if people were talking to you about it in the shop. Its also been great from the point of view that you could see if they have an interest in a certain product; I think this is one of the great advantages of Twitter. You learn a lot about customers from the Twitter and it is invaluable, though you would learn more face-to-face with the customer, even though with Twitter you have it in print. We did a national wine drinkers survey last year and there was another smaller survey done recently so we are actually using our Facebook, Twitter and blog followers that way for market research. Have you ever changed a product or a service from an interaction you had with your customers through social media, from their feedback? You would get certain feedback on things or you realise something is not selling and then you would check it out. In terms of the website, we have changed one or two things and its probably from the feedback that we got from Twitter and Facebook. It really does make us speed up things a bit from the feedback we get. Especially at the start, someone might have suggested that we put in a My wine section on the website which is a personalised account you can have on curious wines. It recalls all your previous purchases and you can also score the wines and take some points on the wines. We got a lot of feedback from Twitter and Facebook on that. We do need to work on the site it is getting a facelift at the moment and we are going through phase three on it. You will see a lot of changes on it and it is going to be a lot more user-friendly, that is going to be a great help and we will see what our followers think of it. When you are making those changes, will you announce them to get feedback along the way? Oh, we will that is very important to us, we have a news sheet as well and we get a lot of awareness through that. If we hear people talking about a product, we will order it in it is a combination of e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and all that which comes together and it makes your decision. They are always fairly good ideas. Have you built business relationships through your use of social media? 94

Yes, we have with some restaurants though we find that some restaurants arent up to the kind of activity on the social media scene that we are as yet. It still helps a lot, like a client we have and I try to post a recipe every week and I like to get a recipe off the restaurants and its great. I feel that its a little favour for them and its a little contact for us. People seem to like recipes and its what they like to read. You might not get a lot of comments on it but you would get a few tweets on it like, last week it was retweeted to so many followers, so we get that kind of thing. The one I put up last week was just my own but I really feel word of mouth is the best sort, but I feel that the social media sort of thing does amplify that. I would interact with restaurants through their Twitter accounts with just like friendly comments. Even restaurants that we dont supply to at least they know we are there if they are ever stuck. We get to know them a little bit so if we ever decided to drop into them if would not be just a cold call to them. I feel that if some day I ever wanted to phone them up and I said, This is Matt from Curious Wines, they would know who we are. There are some people who have been marvellous to us like Damien Mulley he does the social media classes and he gets business owners to go to it and there could be 30 or 40 people there. The last one I was at, I think there were about 50 people there and Damien used Curious Wines as one of the examples which was great. He does that sort of thing quite a lot and it is great. From that point, it is great and also with journalists. Journalists have learned what we were doing through our Twitter and Facebook pages so that is certainly a great help and an article was written a few weeks ago about what we were doing. Then Ann Donnelly is the SEO expert in Clonakilty and Im friends with her and we are always chatting with her and she tweets and she recommends us to everyone. Would you have a loyal base of people who would re-tweet your stuff? Yeah, its good to have core followers and then you have people that are chipping in. Do you think that your business has gained respect because of its use of social media? Yes, absolutely, the other great thing is I think its great for Irish business if something goes wrong, you can just dive in there and sort something out straight away. I keep an eye on things that way and its lovely to hear of people recommending us. It gives you a better idea and you know that you are doing things right.

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Could you compare your profile now and your profile if you didnt use social media? I think it would feel like I wasnt doing enough to be getting out there. It would also be very expensive to try to get out there, with the likes of newspaper ads, radio, and it would be very bad on money as well. Without social media, you would not get people to use your website it just doesnt happen that way. I would think that our sales would be down a lot if we did not use it and then we would be struggling. We do outsource it but from what I understand, it does not take too much money to do so we have a budget for it. She also builds the website to be very user-friendly as well so that also helps. Im not sure how many of our sales are online, but Id say about 30 percent or so, but like every other kind of advertising, it is hard to say how much is from social media. The thing about this one is it is free and it is growing Facebook has over 1 million users now; we cant ignore that. I think that advertising on newspapers and radio etc. is very expensive. Maybe at Christmas time, we do a little bit, but I think its money down the drain. You have got to be very careful with your money as every penny saved is a penny made. Our blog is separate from the website but it has been set up like that so people that click on to one will go to the other. The blog is very important as it is getting more people into it and it is speaking about wine terms and getting more people interested in it that way. It gives you a great safety to have the blog and it gives you the opportunity to get discussions going about the wines. Then maybe once a month we would change the offers over and it will get the sales going. Then all of a sudden it turns into a great sales channel as opposed to something people go to read. When we first had the website, we were advised to set up the blog and that is how we got into good habits from the start. Its all about routine now but we are at stage three now and we always have to stay ahead as when we updated our website, it was the best wine website in Ireland. So we have to keep it up, we cant sit still, we have to constantly improve it so thats what we are going to do from now to Christmas, saying Whats the next step? all the time. On Twitter at the start, for the first month or two, our tone was not right, it is very important to have your tone right. We were doing it all wrong at the start and then we got some help on it and now its great. We went along to one of the social media classes as well and those types of things help you so much to understand things better. We learned that people do not want to follow you if you are always on about hard sell all the time or if your tweets are all about offers etc., it really does become less effective in the end. If you be yourself, people are more inclined to listen to you and 96

then it is more effective. The tone is very important and people check it not because they want to buy all the time but they are interested in learning more about wine also. Its like we are giving them free advice in a way. Our consultant got us on to Twitter, Facebook, boards.ie and the blog was the most important part of her role at the start. We won the Blog Award recently and the Silver Medal Media Award last year and then we got Best Commercial Website and the most recent one is the Bord Gis social media award. I do five blogs a week and that is very important to me so I try to put an hour a day into doing it. We dont have a rigid schedule for tweets though we probably should so that is something I should improve on. Michael and I both do the tweets and we just have to keep an eye on it to make sure we are not repeating things. When there are only two people working away at it, thats fine. In your opinion, what would a company be doing wrong to get a low following in social media? I suppose with blogs that are only updated every six months, it isnt worth their while. Their blogs should be very frequent and of course the tone is another thing that I cant stress enough. The thing is not to come across as just being a sales person, and the tone is the thing that we got wrong for the first couple of months at the start. The tone should be playful, friendly and very soft sell. If the blog is good, they will follow you anyway even if they are not going to buy your wines. Its all about word of mouth at the end of the day and people who dont like wine might tell their friends about the blog. By using their blog as just a sales pitch and also by posting stuff that is not relevant or interesting. It would be wrong if we just spoke to the wine people by making it just for the elite. Its not the ones who have done their diplomas in wines that we are talking to as they are not our customers as such. Our customers are people who have a little disposable income and who just like a little drop of wine. I would think that about 1 in every 15 or 20 of my tweets are promotional. Whenever we change over our stuff, like at the end of the month, then we will tweet a few of our special offers. We dont take advantage of the people by not doing it too often. If someone told you that they wanted to use one social network to interact with and learn about their customers and gain respect, which would you pick? The whole of the social media Twitter, Facebook and blogs are very important to our business especially in relation to sales, relationships and marketing. We also have a newsletter and a mail-out customer database which is also very important to us. With 97

regards to the whole of the social media, I think that the newsletter is most beneficial to us. Twitter and Facebook are also very important. I think that in time Facebook will take over from Twitter; it has a lot more followers and more potential and that is why in phase three we will have a better landing page and that sort of thing and we will get people who can sign up to the newspaper straight away. It really has great potential and Im looking forward to that.

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Christina Giliberti of CG Online Marketing Interview

What is your understanding of public relations? I suppose gaining marketing and sales connections with a potential audience and customers, that could be online or offline. There is a difference between online and offline. Id say that offline is more sales based while online is a little bit more market focused. What would be your view on social media? I work in online marketing so I would be a bit of a fool not to be involved in social media. At the same time, I see a lot of benefits from it. I see a lot of companies gaining business and gaining connections from it. What would be the advantages of using social media for Irish SMEs? I would say there are quite a number of benefits in that really; it opens up a lot of doors for us and it is very easily accessible. It is a very open channel in terms of You can drop in any time you need to and you have got a ready, waiting audience there. I suppose with regards to small businesses, to coping with big issues, its breaking barriers and putting them on an even playing field. There are huge amounts of benefits. I really think the smaller ones can be just as successful as the bigger ones on social media. When you take cost out of the equation, you really start to think that is your biggest gain and when you think of the amount of people working on a product in a corporate company... the other issue is cost and if you break that down, you can see that one person can manage it quite easily. That is where you can see that small businesses can manage at the same level. Which social media sites would companies use the most to interact with their customers? Well, Facebook I would say is probably the primary one and then if you are going into the recruitment sector, that would be different, and then theres Twitter. I suppose if I had to pick which site was the best with regards to interaction between the business and customers, it would be a battle to decide between Twitter and Facebook, but I would say Twitter. Sometimes I think Twitter could be a little bit easier as I think Twitter is more personal while with Facebook, you are talking to the whole audience.

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Do you think social media can help companies to understand their customers more? I would say they could definitely listen a bit more to their customers because when you are looking at other communications, the customers feel they havent got the access to come forward and say what they need. On the website where you can have comments from customers who would not usually come forward and do it, you have this open dialog; they are a little bit braver to give their feedback, a bit more comfortable to give their views. They will say things like I dont like this or that and then there are those that say I really like a certain thing. I think it is very good to have that connection. I do think they have to do a little bit of market research to engage in this way. Before, companies would have had to outsource their market research but now they can do it directly and it is much easier for them to do it that way and gain such useful information. Do you think companies would ever change a product/service because of an interaction on social media? Yes, when you are appealing to an audience and you are selling a peculiar product or service, you need to know if the demand is there. The way you can do that is through feedback and social media is the way to do that. You can ask a certain question and get opinions back on it and if you have enough people saying I want this to be done this way and not that way, you would be foolish not to listen to them. I have heard of a lot of companies who have changed things because of the feedback they have received from customers. I work with a lot of companies at the moment and I know they are definitely listening to their customers and taking on board the feedback. They would be open to suggestions and obviously they have a lot of product research gone into it; they would consider promoting more products or bring in a certain range if the feedback was there for it. Some companies might not want to change their core products because they have put a lot of time and energy and cost into them. If companies hear that their customers are mainly interested in a certain product, then they would try to push that more. Through social media, they can see if customers are very interested in a product and then they would push that more, knowing that is what people want. Do you think that companies can build relationships solely from the use of Twitter? 100

Yes I do, I think there are a lot of companies that are just coming in now that started out on social media, even companies that dont need their websites anymore which is quite interesting. For somebody in my area, I would be saying to them, if you are small and have a very regular presence, maybe you dont need one as you can connect very easily with the customers through social media. If you are in a consumer industry, I think it might work much better through Facebook. I find Facebook very good for business and for linking to things from it. I think it is mainly consumers from Twitter but there are lots of connections as well. If you are blogging for a peculiar area, you will pick up a lot of connections there. Id say social media is a little bit stronger for the consumer. I think Twitter is mainly for consumers again, but with lots of connections as well, if you are blogging for a certain area, you will pick up some of the networking connections, so social media is a little bit stronger for consumers. One of my clients have done very well through it, it made them more of a social thinker and they have achieved over 5,000 and gained over 300 in a month now that was a very good one. I can see friends who have worked in the industry and have worked up in Dublin and they are very well connected through it. A lot of people would have gotten contacts through it and the interaction through it is great for business. You would obviously need to be online for the interaction and want them to come to the website to keep it going. I feel that anything that is a way of commutation is going to work very well all round. There are an awful lot of benefits from social media but there is a line there too and I advise people to keep it friendly. I know someone and he says that a lot of people would know his name and know his profile and he expects that but he doesnt want people to know all about his family and where he spent his holiday. My advice is to separate his business and keep his life private because there has to be some kind of boundaries. The thing is you should use both your websites but in a different way, like sometimes there is a different audience there. Im the same with mine my Facebook one is mainly for advertising because I think that is more consumer driven as they are in that frame of mind when they are in that channel for Facebook, while if they are in it for leisure they are not in the frame of mind for shopping. I think it works really well to have your business separate. Then again, if you are setting up jobs, you should see what market you are appealing to and that really works very well on Twitter and Facebook. You do have to know your boundaries if you are trying to sell something and not to be seen like it is some sort of scam or having people thinking that you are a stalker. I do think you have to gain respect on Twitter and Facebook and it has to be mutual. The thing is firstly to meet people on it and then you get to know them better and have respect for 101

them, and them for you. I think you can get to know people online by respect and then that respect will have to grow and to continue, and that is how things go. I know of a lot of large companies that have a large following on Twitter and it has helped them a lot, like Vodafone and O2. They have done very well through it it is very good for their customer service, some people have got problems and they are calling up the customer service going on about it, but now they are putting their notes up on Twitter. Margaret Smith of Umnumnum has done very well with Twitter. I think its because she has that kind of personality and she is very social and active on it and she has a very big following on it. Another big company is Bloggertone they are very big; because of social media, they are huge. They have about seven accounts. I would definitely advise my customers to engage on Twitter though it might be very new to some of the companies. Even though you might be very sociable, it is not the same as if you are trying to meet up with people. The thing is, I always stress you do have to give them respect, be conscious of how you tweet and be compassionate to people. It has to be personal and individual and you have to have a personality and voice and you have to be you to be yourself. At times I do see them doing things wrong but it is not always their fault; with social media, they say that they have to keep the guidelines, and if something is private and confidential, to keep it that way. I think it is offensive if they dont keep to the guidelines, so if they dont understand, they just come back to me and I will help them with it. Sometimes they are in breach and that is very dangerous again, it is a trust thing and if they dont keep that, it would affect their reputation. From the start, you have to be very aware with everything you write down, that people can see it and you cant retract it. I see a lot of it in forms and we have to tell them to go back and clean up the mess. I feel the important thing is to make them very aware of it from the start and make sure that before you say something, you think first. I feel I have a verbal contract with people and I have to consider what I say before I say it. We would have had comments that had not been thought out properly and got a bit of reaction from it. You have to make sure to have proper attention to detail for the clients. You have to be careful with the comments you make, like anything religious. You have to be careful about political comments too. Some people can pick up on something in a positive way while others see it in a negative way. I do think people get better over time as they start getting conscious of what they are doing. It is not something I want to hide I want people to see that we are all human and we all have to learn and we all make mistakes but we learn from them. Nobody is 100 percent transparent but we are dealing with peoples businesses and we have to deal with problems the best way we can. I 102

think you have to balance things as well and always try to think how you can use things to your advantage. If you are responding quickly to your customers, then they will do the same to you and respond quickly to you as well. What would be the characteristics of a company that is doing badly/having a low following on Twitter? I was working with a company I wont say the name and when they approached me, they said they were doing badly on Twitter, getting nowhere and doing nothing business-wise. Then I had a look and every message they had was offer on this and that, they were consistently doing the hard sell and the hard sell does not work. Occasionally, you can drop little sneaky bits in but in the beginning, you have to be very careful and build up a relationship before you start selling something. You should start by saying what you are up to, showing a few videos and asking what others are into. By doing the hard sell, straight away, people just see what you want it has to be mutual. I think another big mistake is not responding to people; people are often asking questions and when they dont get a response, they lose interest and will not ask about something again. If you dont bother answering or just give a negative answer, you wont attract people. That is when we start saying to them, we need to know about that product and you need to start answering peoples questions. They have to conform to the rules and not just to delete all the questions they do not want to answer and then others going on to the site will say, I could not be bothered with them, they dont even answer. That gives people a very negative view of things. My advice is to never, ever ignore a comment and to be very careful in what you say. You have to always respond head on and people have respect for that. When they did what I told them, it worked a lot better for them but they had to realise they had to do some work themselves as well to make social media work for them. The big mistakes are the hard selling, ignoring comments. I have seen a lot of competitions not being used properly or setting up profiles instead of business pages. I think people just do not know how things should be set up and not understanding correctly that what they are doing is not correct. That is the trade I am in and I have to pull them up on it. I think people should keep their tweets down, especially at the start otherwise they will never build up their relationships. Its like in the sales field, you do not just go straight in. You have to keep building the relationship all the time, there is a background in doing it and a way of doing it. If you do it right, then the people will start to invite you and then you just keep up a friendship and it goes from there. In time you generally start to realise what people want or else 103

they start to tell you and then you know the time is right. A person will mention I liked the blog you did on this or that, have you got anything else about it? and thats how it goes, they might be interested in it without any hard selling from you. That is the ideal way of doing it if you can. If someone told you that they wanted to use one social network to interact with and learn about their customers and gain respect, which would you pick? I suppose I prefer Facebook and only because there is so much more you can do with it. The others are so much more limited 140 characters and just links and that. Its nice, its good and its direct messaging, yes, I think I would probably go with Facebook. I like Facebook because you have the calls, the interacting thinking, you have got more to say with the multimedia and you can give them your e-mail. I know in some companies I worked with where the thing they did wrong was the profile and then I asked them why they set it up that way and what their reasons were for maintaining it that way. One of the reasons was that people could message them that way it was a marketing thing which is something I did not appreciate. I feel it is better if you can just give them your e-mail, and that is the way they set it up on this channel. The one thing is, you can take a look at your stats and get the impression of posts but it is definitely a concern that you cant because you need to feed off it and keep them in the loop. There are lots of other ways you can work, that you can send to people on the list, you can ask them to refer and to send on links. It is a little bit of a concern but you can tag people and stuff but the thing about that is I am very conscious of tagging people and you have to be very careful. I think once you get the interactions going and people trust you, then you are alright. Some people would post breaking news stories just to get peoples attention. Im not a fan of doing that if I see something in the title, I want to read about it. Maybe it is good marketing but it is not for me. By doing that, you may have gotten my attention on it but that is all. The thing is, if you have a good title, you have to have good contents as well. Then I would be loyal and come back and really engage in what you are doing. With regards to SEO in social media, it has already impacted things especially if I do any training about blogging, I teach people a little bit about SEO. It would have a bigger impact on the larger companies and people should always read their blogs and keep in contact about things and keep keywords in the main contents and keep them in the title. Your wording in the contents is very important to keep people interested.

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