Exploring the Benefits of Social Media Used by Government Public Relations Outfits in Ghana: A Case of Pubic Relations Department of Ministry of Information

Abstract

This study determined to explore the benefits of government public relations use of social media at public relations department of ministry of information in Ghana. Primarily this study analysed the social media tools used by the ministry of information to assess whether the use of social media benefits the practice of public relations at the public relations department of the ministry of information. The study was anchored on the social presence and media richness theory. With the PR department of the ministry of information as the area of study, this study employed in depth interview, questionnaire as well as peer review articles and with the help of purposive sampling technique selected all 15 respondents to help the researcher explore the benefits of social media use in the practice of government public relations. Findings of this revealed that social media is used in public relations practice in the PR department but with partial use in relation to internal communication. The findings also revealed that facebook and twitter are the most preferred tools for external publics, mainly because of ease, reach and speed in use. WhatsApp was preferred for internal publics mainly as an alternative to traditional media. These social media tools are used mainly for informational updates and respond to enquiries. Respondents were in a unanimous agreement that social media has improved service delivery at the PR department. This study concludes that the benefits associated with social media is rich in meeting communicative and service objectives in public relations practice in government, but there was lack of right approach to implement it. The study recommends that there should be a development of a harmonized media strategy, offer training to the office staff and embrace social media tools appropriately for internal publics with a bit of friendliness.