Exploring the Indications of Rising Social Media Usage in Turkish Public Relations: A Survey of Turkish Internet Users
Bilgen Basal

Abstract
Through a non-probability quota sampling survey method, this paper explores the reasons of why Turkish Public Relations (PR) professionals need to allocate a respectable amount of their communication budget to social media along with traditional media. It analyses the perception of PR communication activities in social media for consumer and media relations. Survey results show that almost half of the respondents believe that social media, which enables PR with 100 % interactive communication, provides an easy and a fast target group determination. More than one third of the respondents believe that social media provides consumers to forward their opinions directly to the brands, provides brands to listen to consumer opinions in all social media platforms and provides a clear measurement of brand and consumer communication. One can conclude that there is a positive relationship between social media engagement and buying intention as well as education and social media engagement.

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