How Social Media Can Destroy Promising PR Careers

Liz BridgenDe Montfort University

Leicester, UK

PR is increasingly performed via digital platforms

And that’s a good thing, yes?

Digital platforms allow us to work flexibly Online we can be judged on merits and not by gender, ethnicity, sexuality and age More opportunities for networking and knowledge

But life’s not that simple: My research

• Women do MORE of the basic PR roles such as administration, media relations, blogger relations or event management (even if they’resenior)

• This leaves LESS time for career-building social media activities

• Men leave juniortasks behind as they progress

• (And did you know, men in PRtweet more than women?)

Women in social media …

• Women more likely than men to run an organisational Twitter feed

• Women more likely to be involved in blogger liaison

• Overall, women more likely to be involved in mechanistic (uncreative?) social media roles

It’s not social media that’s destroying careers,

it’s not being able to use it effectively

1.Women take creative or network-building social media roles into their lives on top of their other public relations/domestic responsibilities

2.Women ghettoised into mechanistic social media roles, where the ability to use their ‘communication skills,’ work with key messages and be the spokesperson for a company inhibits the building of personal networks and connections

• Bridgen, L. (2013). The boys are back in town: Rethinking the feminisation of public relations through the prism of social media. PRism 9(1) http://www.prismjournal.org

• Images from www.thirdcity.co.uk and www.Publicasity.co.uk – with thanks