I'm just going to go ahead and admit it: social media scares me. I don't think I'm scared that I won't understand it, or that I'll be defrauded of my identity, I think it's that I'm scared of change. Every time I'm presented with a new application, tiny alarm bells go off. They usually say something like "Who on earth would find this useful?!" or "Who needs this?!". Sadly, the alarm bells are often wrong. The more I use social media, the more I find myself wondering how I lived without it!
At college, we have a weekly four hour class that is dedicated to proficiency in social media. Last week, we were presented with an online midterm exam that posed five important questions about social media and its implications for PR practitioners. Here are the responses I came up with.
one.
In her article “PR 2.0”, Deirdre Breckenridge asks Brian Cross, director of Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Group in Saint Louis, to evaluate PR’s ever changing role. I think Cross is pretty accurate in his assessment of how PR’s role is going to change with the advent of PR 2.0 and increasing use of social media. The tides of PR are changing, and a big part of our role as PR practitioners in the future will involve helping the companies we work for to access their niche markets. However, as Cross wisely points out, we need to develop blogger relations and online community contacts just the same way that we would develop other media contacts. This is where personal brand comes in. By having a great personal brand and actively participating in the online communities that interest you, you can build some social capital for yourself. That capital is sure to come in handy, especially when trying to market products and services. If you, as a PR practitioner, know what a certain niche market wants, you can help your company to either develop something to suit the niche market, or tweak an existing product to be more beneficial to consumers. It makes sense to employ a PR professional to “keep an ear to the ground”.
two.
Who has the authority to write history? And what gives them the right? Technically, everyone has the authority to write history. Everyone’s version of events and life experiences will be different, but when added together, the whole has the ability to be far greater than the sum of its parts. In the past, history has been written by the winners, but now it’s time for ‘everyman’ to step up and give input. Twitter and blogs are great for this, because they are platforms which are largely uncensored where users can post their thoughts, feelings and ideas. Arguably some bloggers and tweeters are more popular than others. Is that because of some sort of hierarchy of authorities? Maybe. But all of us have the capability of becoming an authority on a subject – it’s not some sort of feudal system that you need to buy your way into. Instead, you buy your way in with social capital, which can be difficult but not impossible to obtain.
Out of all of this mish-mash, what is important? And what should we take as canon? I’m not sure yet. I think only time will tell what has shaped our culture and what hasn’t. In the mean time, we need to keep filtering through the drivel to find the things that matter to us.
three.
Marshall McLuhan developed a tetrad of media effects that asked four questions about any medium. They are:
1. What does the medium enhance?
2. What does the medium make obsolete?
3. What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
4. What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?
This model can help us to interpret social media.
The medium enhances a knowledge free for all, and the ability of subject experts to add value to discussions. It also allows people who are seeking an understanding of a topic to connect directly with the experts in order to further their knowledge. Social media also enhances face-to-face contact. If you have been involved with discussions with an individual online, you probably know what they look like, and therefore can seek them out if you’re at a conference. You can also cut out a lot of small talk. Take Twitter, for example. If I ever see @GuyKawasaki on the street, I’ll be able to ask him some great questions about alltop and how to build a social media empire. Ditto for that Mashable dude.
The medium is starting to make one way and structured communication obsolete. Of course, it will take a while before everyone adopts this way of communicating, but we’re well on our way there. Again, Twitter is a good example. If you’re following a celebrity or personal hero, all of a sudden you’ve reduced your degree of separation from six to zero. That’s incredible. You now have the opportunity to be directly heard by someone in a different social strata than you, without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home.
Social media is retrieving a feeling of community that people have been lacking over the last couple of decades. With the internet taking off, people found that they were able to sit in seclusion at home and conduct a lot of business from there. Let’s face it, you can do pretty much anything online: you can buy all of your clothing and food, bank and pay bills, connect with the office and play games. You never need to actually contact another person to do any of those things, just click through automated pages. Social media has brought people with similar interests into online communities, allowing them to share common experiences and knowledge. In fact, one could argue that online communities are better than geographical communities, strictly because you can choose who you associate with: you’re not limited by who lives up the street or around the corner.
When the medium flips to extremes, it becomes social media overload. Personally, I’ve experienced a bit of this myself at times: it’s challenging to filter through all of the material that is available and determine what is interesting and informative, and what is just plain ignorant. This overload has the potential to discourage users from engaging with social media.
four.
Who IS Jamie Zawinski, and why does he matter to PR practitioners? Zawinski a.k.a. jwz is responsible for a lot of the freeware that computers operate today. With the advent of freeware came the public’s ability to access more of the information that the internet has to offer. Freeware is also more easily manipulated than software that is owned by larger corporations, so it’s easier to build off it and develop new applications. He lead the way for other developers to market other freeware and online applications that are making the world of social media expand. He was also all about simplicity and functionality, which is key for any social media application. The less desktop application clutter we get and the more we can organize the necessary clutter, the better. Facebook (before all the apps!) is a great example of a fairly clean online application: it’s white and blue, you can’t customize it, it’s all one layout, and it’s tabbed for ease of use. Essentially, what jwz has created, the world has taken and run with. What he has done is important, because without him, social media and online applications might be radically different, or worse, not available.
and lastly...
five.
What can we expect to encounter when using social media as a PR tool? You can expect open and honest feedback from content consumers, especially if there is room for anonymous comments. Content consumers expect to see their concerns replied to in a timely manner: you can’t just leave comments (especially negative ones) unadressed. To do the best PR you can, you need to monitor content posted online and reply promptly to address any concerns of consumers. Listen, monitor and adapt to what your content consumers are saying.
Well world, there you have it. Five not so simple answers about a not so simple tool.
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