Jeff Bullas tweeted a past blog post today about why the PR industry should take social media seriously. If you read my last post, you know how I feel on the subject.  While the numbers he cites are a little outdated now, it still puts things into perspective.

USA Today’s audited circulation is now 1.83 million plus 16.9 online readers, which means getting a story in there has the potential to reach almost 19 million readers. That’s a lot.  But consider Facebook, which has more than 800 million users. That’s a whole lot more!

Obviously there are many differences between a professional, edited and respected news outlet and a social media site. But the sheer size of sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn cannot be ignored. They offer tremendous potential to reach a wide audience. They also offer a huge challenge in times of crisis.

So I’m with Jeff. PR needs to take social media seriously.