By Leeanne Bland

Despite the dramatic increase in the importance and influence of social media, it still isn’t the main forum where the daily news agenda is set.

Social media has its place – but for informed commentary and information on the news of the day it is all too often the much-maligned print media that sets the news agenda – not only for for TV and radio but also for social media.

Clearly, this is not always the case. TV and radio can often break stories which are followed up by other media. And of course President Trump is a good (or bad) example of how social media can be used to break news. But in reality. Trump’s use of social media was usually a case of “press release by Twitter”, possibly because he wasn’t very good at handling journalists’ questions. But the widespread social media interest he generated more often than not stemmed from traditional media coverage of his comments.

Post the Trump Presidency, social media commentary and opinion is even more likely to follow what was reported in the traditional media.

And this is really the way it should be. The media is a (usually) unbiased but influential third party that evaluates the information received, and turns it into impartial coverage of the facts.

The media is not perfect in this role, but it still has the trained, expert and competent people to do the job – as well as a commitment to get it right.

It is why media relations is so important in reputation management and opinion forming.

However the importance of “relations” in media relations isn’t always understood by spokespeople of organisations. As a result, they don’t always take advantage of opportunities presented, and don’t spend the time to build journalists’ understanding of their organisation, which in turn can sometimes result in less than accurate coverage.

This blinkered approach to media relations can work against spokespeople and their organisations in so many ways – especially in issues or crisis management. Trying to explain how an organisation works and the benefit of its products when you’re under pressure is a thankless task (just ask Optus or Qantas).

And with social media it can become an even bigger problem with potentially hundreds and thousands of people adding their views and misconceptions.

Having a relationship with the media where individual journalists understand the business and know some of the executives, must always be a benefit. Yet we still find some business executives don’t appreciate that media relations is a two-way street.

Having contact only when you want and have something you’d like to see covered is not a productive relationship.

Too often executives ignore calls from journalists because it doesn’t suit them at the time. Often for no good reason. And simply ignoring calls is just plain rude anyway.

But every call from a journalist is an opportunity to improve relationships and understanding, even if you’re not in a position to help with the particular story a journalist is working on. And you never know – it might lead to coverage that influences a potential client to get in touch.