Needless to say, PR hasn’t been the same since social media entered the scene. Luckily for brands, the changes have been good:

Successful PR is about making a connection. Not only does social media allow companies to do just that by creating a direct line to their customers, it allows them to get personal and shape their image in ways traditional advertising can’t.

From reputation management to customer engagement, social media lets companies listen to their audience, understand what they want, and respond to them in real-time.

News has always traveled fast. When it’s traveling at the speed of 500 million tweets per day, it’s important to keep up.

Thanks to social media, breaking news has become a constant stream of information that’s accessible for all to see. No more waiting for the evening news or the morning paper to hear what’s trending around the world. Now that anyone with a smartphone can be an amateur reporter, it’s also changed the relationship between PR professionals and journalists.

Through proactive engagement on Twitter, companies can stay on top of the latest information that relates to their brand, relay that information to their audience, and become a resource in the process.

By end of 2014, Facebook had roughly 1.35 billion monthly active users under its belt. That’s a lot of status updates. It’s also a lot of potential customers looking for the services you provide.

Whether you’re looking to grow locally or dominate globally, social media lets companies spread their message to the customers they want in the locations they want. By combining social media outreach with keyword research, you can optimize your posts to align with the services people are searching for.

Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. LinkedIn. Instagram. YouTube. Yelp.

We could go on.

With so many social media platforms to choose from, there are that many news ways to reach and connect with loyal fans and potential customers. Social media allows companies to meet users at their level and in ways that will resonate with them. By understanding your brand, your goals, and which platforms are best suited to your message and clientele, your company create a message that can be heard on any channel.

Quantifying the successes and failures of a PR campaign used to a be a timely, costly exercise in trial-and-error. It wasn’t until after you spent millions and the ad finally aired that you could determine if your investment at the Super Bowl paid off. Now, with resources like Google Analytics and Hootsuite at your disposal, you can instantly evaluate the ROI of your campaign dollars and maximize your profits in turn.

As powerful a tool as social media can be, it takes a well-developed plan to help reach its full potential. If you’re interested in taking your PR to new heights, feel free to learn more about the benefits of a strategic social media marketing plan.