While the majority of public relations professionals are active on social media, a study suggests that the full potential of the medium as a public relations tool has not yet been reached.

The research by Cision UK, in association with the Canterbury Christ Church University, shows that a high number of PR professionals are not responding to comments or engaging with posts and discussions on social media - nearly 40% of PRs never respond to queries from the media. This statistic suggests that PR professionals are largely using social media for promotional, rather than conversational, purposes and are thereby missing out on an opportunity for improved communications.

Almost three quarters of PR professionals use social media to promote content and nearly half of PR professionals believe social media has made them less reliant on journalists to get their story out. The medium is particularly favoured by the public and not-for-profit sectors due to budget restrictions. However, despite its advantages, PR professionals say that the industry’s adoption of social media has grown, rather than reduced, their workload.

The ‘Social PR Study 2015’, which explores the impact social media technologies have on PR professionals’ work, shows that more than two-thirds of PR professionals use social media daily, with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn being cited as the most popular social media tools.

PR professionals still cite email and telephone as their most common and preferred forms of communication with journalists, despite the Social Journalism Study 2015 showing that only 23% of journalists want to be pitched to by telephone. 49% of PR professionals still favour the telephone.