Public Relations and Social Media

Public relations is widely understood as the management function that creates and maintains mutually beneficial relationships with organizational stakeholders. Social media are online applications that allow users to create and share content with others. Social media have become important communication channels for public relations messages in recent years by helping public relations achieve organizational goals, while building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders. Public relations in the health care industry shares the goal of building long-term relationships and increasing organizational profit with other industries, but is unique in that it is also motivated by the desire to increase the quality of care provided within a rapidly changing health care system.