Public relations has of course been around for a very long time and has been used in many different types of situations but in 2019 PR is very different from before. Social media, as we all know, has taken over basically everything in our lives? and PR is no different.
Every business nowadays has at least one social media account where they post about 
their product or events happening etc and this is pretty standard but the use of social media is growing and with this the demand for companies to have more of a social media presence. Bloggers and micro influencers are becoming more and more popular and the only thing businesses can do is take advantage of the new age of PR.
Are Micro influencers the new way of doing PR?
They say micro influencers are the influencers of the future and I would agree with this. Micro influencers are those people we see on Instagram who are local bloggers just writing about what their passion is and they have a significant amount of followers. They will promote some products for either a small fee or for free and eventually it will lead to them getting sent free items to try out and show their followers what these products do. At least that is how they start off…
Once these bloggers start to get a good following companies will tend to take full advantage of this, it seems that the public trust ‘peer’ recommendation over company advertising. If you look at the likes of Topshop, huge brand in the UK and the rest of the world they have worked out the best ways to do their PR. Topshop in Belfast have staff that are also bloggers or ‘micro influencers’ and if you look at any of their Instagrams you will see how they incorporate the Topshop brand into their social media posts = PR for Topshop and well dressed bloggers for their Instagram.
The world of blogging
Blogging has always been around but it used to be that only certain people read blogs and those people usually had blogs themselves but now blogs are everywhere! Now blogs and PR have in a way rolled into one and we can’t get away from them. In Northern Ireland alone there are so many bloggers that are working or aspire to work 
with companies. Tiffany Brien is a brilliant example of a local girl turned local celebrity, if you look at Tiffany’s Instagram or her ‘personal blog’ as it is known you will see how affective PR can be in the world of blogging and social media. She has 56.11k followers on Instagram alone and nearly every post she put up has some type of organisation tagged in it, ‘Tantastic’, ‘Boux Avenue’ and ‘Daniel Wellington Watches’ are just a few of the businesses who have caught on to her influence in Northern Ireland and beyond.
So, back to the question at the beginning, ‘Can PR survive without social media in 2019?’ I’m leaning towards no… Social media is one of the biggest platforms used to connect everyone all over the world so why wouldn’t companies use this to their advantage? It creates local celebrities, it is the first place I look if I am trying to gather information on a company. I think it is actually strange if I look for an organisation on Facebook or Instagram etc and they aren’t there and I am sure I am not the only one. I hope I have give a bit of an insight into how PR and social media are becoming intertwined and who knows maybe one of you could be the next big social media influencer.
Aoife Ni Cheallaigh Bairr is a final year BSc in Communication Management & Public Relations student at Ulster University. She can be found on Twitter: @aoifencb