ISSUE MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: ÜLKER “APRIL THE FIRST COMMERCIAL” EXAMPLE

Preventive work and strategic-based approaches emerge as the first condition of organization success  in all disciplines and practices dealing with management. History's perspective on events which focuses on solving the problem after it happened  carries significant risks today, both in terms of organizations' economic motivations and in the context of strategic objectives. Information technologies that evolve with a very fast motion do not only make life easier but also put forward management activities which are sensitive to the continuous crisis. Issue management, which expresses all efforts to prevent the emergence of a crisis, is a compulsory management approach as a consequence of having been in a non-stationarity environment where the institutions do business. Issue management requires to plan communication activities to attain the organizational goals and to ensure the continuity of organizational life in public relations practices, that have become increasingly important for institutions, in recent years. Trying to manage the issue in the context of primarily communicative goals requires issue management skills and strategic public relations perspective in a continuously variable environment and differing agendas in various forms throughout the day. The media and other components of the agenda, especially the political agenda, in our country, the approaches of the organizations in a preventive manner to these developments and changes; obliges them to analyze in a proactive perspective. Organizations, are directly or indirectly affected by these changing conditions. This effect requires constant monitoring and effectiveness in prospective inferences. Organizations need to consider the topics that make up the agenda of the public or the potential issues that may arise in future periods, as well as in the context of public relations in modern management approaches. This study, based on the“April the 1st. Commercial” made by Ulker Company, examines the issue management in public relations, which is a proactive communication type, by making use of  case study method. Related commercial is examined on the framework of competitor analysis of subject management as a form of strategic management and on the principles of planning communication behavior for changing circumstances and in the context of social media messages of competitors. Social media messages of Torku and Eti brands, corporate pages of brands and sharing of managers related to Ulker's going to crisis form the sample of the study.