This edited book presents a comprehensive, research-led coverage of the progressive ways public relations (PR) and social media is utilised today. It offers innovative research approaches to explore PR and social media initiatives, and in so doing, provides guidance on how to direct PR communication across the complex canvas of social media where some of the communication can be highly emotional varying from overt expressions of loyalty to brandjacking.

Progressive organisations are carefully engaging with their audiences in multiple social media channels with organisational goals including commercial success, sustainability or employee morale. The analytics offered by social media channels help organisations to learn about their audiences as well as design highly personalised content. This book extends our understanding of the ways PR and social media can be utilised for communication that resonates with target audiences in varying context. Through the academic research presented, readers can also learn innovative ways to investigate and improve their own PR and social media practice. The book’s main themes include the power of engagement, progressive management use of social media channels, business influence, social-influencing for non-profit causes and political impacts of targeted social media communications.

Social Media for Progressive Public Relations is for scholars, researchers and students of PR and communications.

Chapters 12, 13 and 14 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.