Is Social Media A Public Relations Tool?

Adam Denison made a comment on my last post about social media, and believes that social media should be strictly a public relations tool. I could not agree that social media is just a public relations tool. And by asking that question I wonder how you define social media, and how companies can use social media to communicate with customers? I certainly believe that public relations strategy can play a big role in how you develop a social media communications strategy. I think many disciplines can provide tactics and strategies for a successful implementation of social media by a company, including: Marketing, product marketing, development, customer service, journalism as well as public relations.

Adam also asked the question,

"If so, how do you best work with marketing folks to make sure they don't use social media as another marketing channel?"

this question assumes that marketing is all about a sales and advertising strategy. The concept of marketing can be defined as the process of understanding the needs and wants of customers, so that a company can satisfy those needs and wants efficiently and profitably. This to me is actually what social media is all about as social media involves the participation of the audience in co-creating content, similarly marketing is all about listening and understanding what customers actually want and need. Now, many, many companies believe that marketing is really advertising, the process of having a product, and then trying to sell that product as much as possible. That is definitely part of marketing, but does not tell the whole story. Where do you think the term marketing research comes from? Marketers who really understand how to implement marketing, and understand the concept of brand embrace social media tools; it frees us to follow the marketing concept to its logical conclusion.