4 reasons the PR team should handle social media

This hardly means these organizations have adopted social media en masse (62 percent have an active corporate Twitter account, while only 58 percent maintain a Facebook page), and it presents an opportunity for those without a social presence or those who remain inactive in those channels.

This prompts an important question for the laggards: Who should be in charge of running these things, anyway?

If the headline didn’t already tip you off, the answer is the PR team. Here’s why:

The PR agency or team is best equipped to respond to inbound media requests

When a reporter reaches out to the brand via social media, your organization must be prepared to respond promptly. If the reporter doesn’t get a quick response, he or she will move on to find another source.

The PR team already handles inbound media requests, so they are prepared to coordinate interviews and provide the journalist with any background information for the story.

The PR team also has a better grasp on which journalists have already been in communication with the organization or have written previous stories, and social media provides additional channels through which the PR practitioner and journalist can communicate.

PR understands the organization’s messaging