The News and B-M: What I Learned

Throughout the month of February I collected news about Burson-Marsteller to create a comprehensive Chatter Report about how the news depicted B-M. I spent a good time of my Spring Break going through all my Google Alerts, B-M Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, and YouTube videos. What I found was an astonishing amount of positive news where B-M’s employees, executives, and areas of expertise within the agency were highlighted for their work. There were news about awards; there were news about hiring of excellent PR professionals (Bob Pickard as CEO of Asia-Pacific) (http://www.prweekus.com/interview-bob-pickard-burson-marstellers-new-asia-pacific-ceo/article/163475/); there were news about studies and research done by B-M which were heralded as expert advice on a certain field (Social Media Check-Up of Fortune 100 Companies)(http://www.digitalperspectiveblog.com); and finally there were news about clients and how B-M was helping them with the positive propagation of their image (SPAM products and Hormel).

B-M is in the forefront of relaying from within positive news about their agency. The Twitter account @BMGlobalNews had forty-seven news leads for the month of February. B-Mers are encouraged to make use of Social Media – be it through Twitter, Facebook, or Blogs – to disseminate a positive image of what the agency is producing – not only for their clients, but for the public in general. One example was the previously mentioned Social Media Survey created by Proof Digital Media. This survey in another time – long, long time ago, in a far away galaxy and before the internet – would have been shared only within the company and with certain clients as a research tool. In the past, maybe it would have been printed 100 times as an example of the arduous work done by executives at B-M, but in the present time it has reached an enormous amount of people (including me) who would have never had the capacity to know about it.

As many people has said – Social Media serves Public Relations – and the news I read about B-M for the month of February definitely prove that B-M is using Social Media to disseminate its Public Relations strategic plan – be it for the agency or for its clients.