As social media expands, don't forget where the audience is

It’s getting difficult to stay on top of all the new social networking and digital communications platforms available today: Google Buzz, Foursquare, Posterous and Google Wave are seeking to match the more established communities like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It wasn’t always like this; new media channels didn’t just sprout up every week. To say it’s changed the daily activities of PR professionals over the past ten years is a drastic understatement.

But while our work process has changed, a PR professional’s core responsibilities remain the same. Any media channel or outlet we pursue has to reach an audience that offers the right combination of relevance and size for the client. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time, and we all know time is money.

That might sound like PR 101, but it’s worth keeping in mind as we figure out what to do with all these new social media channels. It may be tempting to try plastering our clients across every new network in order to be perceived as forward-thinking and comprehensive. But in the end, it amounts to throwing resources where the audience might appear over time vs. where the audience already is. And that’s not a recipe for PR success, that’s a boondoggle.

Of course there are exceptions. Companies like Dell and Zappos have reaped big rewards by being among the first brands to “get” Twitter. But for every Twitter, there are 20 Plurks and Jaikus, and you won’t be seeing case studies on how brands utilized those channels anytime soon.

The lesson: familiarize yourself with what’s new and hot, but know the audience before diving in with your client’s brand tied around your waist. I’ll leave you with a few helpful stats on the audiences of some established social media channels, for consideration when planning social media campaigns:

• Foursquare is getting a lot of buzz, and I won’t be surprised if it continues to grow quickly. But right now, it’s hosting “only” one million check-ins per week vs. 50 million tweets per day.
• While Twitter has 75 million total users, only 17% of those accounts were active within the last month.

• LinkedIn now has 60 million users, and probably surpasses Twitter in active participants. I believe it’s underutilized as a PR channel, particularly for B2B companies.
• Facebook is the real deal: 400 million users, more than doubling in the past year, with 175 million people logging in every day. Every organization should have an official presence on it at this point.