Social media offers many opportunities for companies to advance marketing, PR, and CRM goals. But social media and PR in particular have a natural symbiosis; they both exist in the public space. Now, obviously there is much more to PR than just being public, but many PR goals can be more easily and immediately channeled through social media than the goals of other departments.
This natural coexistence of social media and PR creates an easy opportunity for being in the spotlight without really being on the stage. Many companies have been able to take only tiny steps onto the social media stage, but enjoy huge attention and applause. A Twitter account here, and a Facebook page there, and voila!, you are now an industry leader in "social media". You are now in the spotlight of the social media stage, even though you have only stuck a toe out from behind the curtain. You are using the hype of social media to magnify the spotlight.
There is very little right or wrong in business, it's mostly succeed or fail. I won't say it's wrong to take advantage of the hype with empty PR ploys, but I will say unless these empty social media tactics are backed up with substance, they will fail in the long run, and cause damage to the brand.
The thinking behind using hype to jump into the spotlight is that you limit your investment and maximize your return. And who wouldn't want that? But this is short-term thinking. You can fool some people for now, but you can't fool all of them for always. And the ironic thing about social media is that the people you can't fool are the consumers that matter more; the influencers.
The best PR accomplishment you can achieve with social media is creating an effective and sustainable new channel for your business goals. Dumb PR and smart PR both love social media, but for different reasons.