New media, new mentoring: An exploration of social media's role in public relations mentorships

Abstract

This study explores the emerging use of socialmedia in mentoring relationships by publicrelations professionals. In-depth interviewswith 15 public relations professionals from avariety of specialties revealed characteristicsof mentoring relationships in public relations,and challenges and benefits related tofacilitating mentoring relationships online.The key guidance revealed in the interviewsincluded: allowing the mentee to lead theintroduction of social media; mentoring as anopportunity to provide guidance on mentee’ssocial media usage; understanding when tomove the conversation offline; and using theonline interaction as learning opportunity.Because there are currently no theoriesrelated to public relations and mentoring orsocial media and mentoring, theseexploratory findings provide a first step to thefurther development of a model of onlinementoring in the profession.