« PR and search marketing | Main | Is e-mail a dead medium or are graphics making it ghost-like? »
April 22, 2008
Are you in the social media circle(s)?
There was a time when New York, Boston or San Francisco PR firms had the advantage of claiming they did lunch with key reporters and analysts. Nowadays, traveling in the right circles is just as important, but they're online/mobile circles. The PR pro's job is to connect with the pundits, reporters and citizen journalists by reading and commenting on their blogs, earning your way into their Facebook friends list (and not getting blocked), joining up on the right social networks and groups, taking part in Twitter conversations with the right people, etc. At the least, public relations professionals need to know who the socialites are, what they're saying and with whom they're dialoging. More than ever, social media is earned media.
Posted by Bob Brin at April 22, 2008 10:02 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.psbblog.com/mt-tb.cgi/100
Comments
Bob,
I couldn't agree more. We've made contacts with people on Twitter that we would never have reached through traditional means. While it's still new, social media users feel like they belong to their own special club. IMO, social media is what golf club memberships used to be.
Melissa
Posted by: Melissa Paulik at April 22, 2008 12:30 PM
Great point, Melissa ... like any of us, the ones trying this out are probably excited to be found. Although, lately it's becoming pretty clear that the majority of media types just aren't on there yet.
But Bob, at some point can it go too far? How many disparate groups can agency pro join just to be ready to share client news? Can a generalist survive?
My take is that corporate communications departments are going to have to seriously elevate their internal resources to cope with social media relationships -- and the agencies will have to play tour guide...
Posted by: Ken Kadet at May 2, 2008 9:33 PM
Hi, Ken, yeah, we can't join every social media circle and our job will be to know which ones matter, while spotting the up and comers. I think that knowledge is what takes us beyond being just generalists because it means we've specialized in an industry or topic area and really become immersed in it. I agree that internal communications departments will have to decide where to put their energies and, more importantly, their company experts will need to get engaged with social media too because it's no longer possible for communications people to simply broker relationships. As "tour guides" PR pros (internal and agency) need to be on the bus, engaged in the dialog, and so do product and brand managers, engineers, etc. Large and small companies are struggling with whose job it is (Interactive, PR, advertising?) and PR folks need to seize the opportunity to lead the discussion about resources, internal coordination, rules of engagement, ethics, transparency and cross-functional strategy.
Posted by: Bob Brin at May 4, 2008 12:38 PM