Just in case you missed the article on Mashable that featured a couple of choice quotes from me, you can read it here: The Future of Public Relations and Social Media.
The article was fairly expansive so if you don’t have time to read the whole thing, take a look at this jaw-dropping case study. INgage Networks used social media to save hundreds of thousands of dollars:
INgage Networks‘ Corporate Communications Manager Kathy Saenz explained how her company saved $270K in expenses via social media. They had previously paid $250K annually for an external PR agency, and $20K in events budgeting for venue, traveling and promotions expenses. They saved all of that money by bringing their PR in-house and focusing on social media. Instead of running large events at expensive venues, they now run webinars. Of their latest webinar, Saenz said, “It was a targeted B2B audience we wanted to reach; [we] broke record attendance numbers. We didn’t have to pay for anything as a result. Great exposure and big money saved.”
Thanks for sharing this with your audience Amanda! It was about re-focusing and training our existing team, trading the time we previously spent in conversations with our external PR team, and instead using that time to create our own PR opportunities.
Ted Rubin posted a great blog that you can reference – http://48isy.th8.us/.
Every company has its unique environment and must make its own evaluation. External PR is right for some. But for us, we found that building our own personal relationships was the most impactful – with the added bonus that most social media is free… saving $270K out of our marketing spend.