Social Media for Strategic Communication: Creative Strategies and Research-Based Applications, by Karen Freberg teaches you the skills and principles needed to use social media in persuasive communication campaigns. The book combines cutting-edge research with practical, on-the-ground instruction to prepare you for the real-world challenges you will face in the workplace. The text addresses the influence of social media technologies, strategies, actions, and the strategic mindset needed by social media professionals today. By focusing on strategic thinking and awareness, it gives you the tools they need to adapt what you learn to new platforms and technologies that may emerge in the future. A broad focus on strategic communication—from PR, advertising, and marketing, to non-profit advocacy—gives you a broad base of knowledge that will serve you wherever your career may lead.

This book seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of influencer collaborations from a strategic communication perspective. The contributors tackle strategic influencer communication from multidisciplinary perspectives, from varying actor foci, and from different methodological frameworks and methods. Influencers cross traditional boundaries in many ways and oscillate between intimacy and publicity, authenticity and commercialization, ingratiation and critical distance. From a strategic communication perspective, this variability makes influencers hard to capture: organizations can cooperate with influencers to achieve both marketing and PR objectives. Influencers can act as cooperation partners, integrating commercial content into organic narratives, or as independent critics. Influencers also combine different roles that have traditionally been occupied by separate actors such as intermediary, content distributor, creative content producer, community manager, testimonial, strategic counsellor, and event host. The combination of these roles in just one actor opens new opportunities for strategic communication and can produce appreciated synergy effects. It is therefore hardly surprising that influencer collaborations have become a firmly established instrument in the toolbox of strategic communicators. The chapters in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Advertising and the International Journal of Strategic Communication.

Social Media and Strategic Communications provides truly comprehensive and original scholarly research that exhibits the strategic implementation of social media in both advertising and public relations.

Today almost everyone in the developed world spends time online and anyone involved in strategic communication must think digitally. The magnitude of change may be up for debate but the trend is unstoppable, dramatically reconfiguring business models, organisational structures and even the practice of democracy. Strategic Communication, Social Media and Democracy provides a wholly new framework for understanding this reality, a reality that is transforming the way both practitioners and theoreticians navigate this fast-moving environment. Firmly rooted in empirical research, and resisting the lure of over-optimistic communication dreams, it explores both the potential that social media offers for changing the relationships between organisations and stakeholders, and critically analyses what has been achieved so far. This innovative text will be of great interest to researchers, educators and advanced students in strategic communications, public relations, corporate communication, new media, social media and communication management. --

Social Media for Strategic Communication: Creative Strategies and Research-Based Applications Second Edition teaches students the skills and principles needed to use social media in persuasive communication campaigns. This book combines cutting edge research with practical, on-the-ground instruction to prepare students for the real-world challenges they’ll face in the workplace. By focusing on strategic thinking and awareness, this book gives students the tools they need to adapt what they learn to new platforms and technologies that may emerge in the future. A broad focus on strategic communication – from PR, advertising, and marketing, to non-profit advocacy—gives students a broad base of knowledge that will serve them wherever their careers may lead. The Second Edition features new case studies and exercises and increased coverage of diversity and inclusion issues and influencer marketing trends.

International Communications Strategy is about the cross-cultural challenges currently facing PR practitioners. Offshoring, globalisation and the rise of China and India have been triggering unprecedented change in the communication sector. New channels of global communications are also being opened up by social media tools, bringing different cultures across the world together instantaneously online. Understanding cross-cultural aspects of PR includes understanding the culture of different societies, online culture itself and cross-border uses of social media. Communication is seen less and less as an operational function. While in the past organizations seemed to need communication practitioners only for colourful brochures and press releases, you are now expected to provide strategic advice and help senior executives to engage effectively with stakeholders in various parts of the world. At the same time, you are required to be knowledgeable about social media and internet cultures and to be able to link on-line and off-line PR work successfully. By providing information on alternative approaches as well as containing cross-cultural case-studies and examples, the book will give you points of reference and ideas that you will be able to use every time you are asked to provide strategic communication guidance to senior management/clients.

Strategic communication comprises different forms of goal-oriented communication inside and between organizations, their stakeholders and the society. Strategic communication is an emerging practice and research field integrating established disciplines such as public relations, organizational communication and marketing communication into a holistic framework. The field is based on an awareness of the fundamental importance of communication for the existence and performance of all organizations. This textbook offers a broad insight into the field of strategic communication. The main aim of the book is to give a general overview of theories, concepts and methods in strategic communication. The book also aims to develop an understanding of different perspectives and the consequences each one has for practice. After reading the book the student or reader will be able to define and reflect upon strategic communication as an academic field and professional practice, describe relevant theories and apply these to communication problems. The authors apply a reflective and practice-oriented approach meaning earlier research or theories are not only described, but also discussed from different critical perspectives. A practice-oriented approach means, in this book, that the authors strongly emphasize the role of contexts and situations—where strategic communication actually happens. This book will help business and communications students to not only define and understand a variety of strategic communications theories, but to use those theories to generate communication strategy and solutions.