- Tiger Woods' One-Percent Problem
- In Social Media Monitoring, You Can't Always 'Trust Your Instruments'
- Give? In this Economy? In Minnesota! Today!
- When it Comes to Social Networks, Some Things Are Best Left Undefined
- Story...More Important Than Ever
- View Archive >
- About this blog
- Branding
- Corporate
- Healthcare
- Interactive
- Media
- PR
- Research
- Search Marketing
- Social Media
The Lead
|
« Are You Listening? Twitter Can Help. Ask SkyMall... | Main | Susan Boyle should be on everyone's "Most Beautiful People" list » People ... not audiencesPosted by Tony Morse on April 14, 2009 at April 14, 2009 11:46 AM Is it me or is "social media" almost the "e-commerce" of the late 90's ... everyone's talking about it, regardless of their industry, profession or even generation (yes, my mother was asking about Twitter a couple weeks ago). People everywhere are calling themselves gurus and the younger generations seem to be the go-to people for understanding the technology (tools) and how to use them.
But wait! Deirdre Breakenridge and Brian Solis, in their recent book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, remind us that "Social Media is not just a new tool in the marketing belt. It is a new opportunity to engage customers and cultivate relationships." We're living the shift in how companies communicate with and engage their audiences ... in fact, Breakenridge and Solis urge us to purge the word 'audience' from our vocabulary and focus on PEOPLE. Should it surprise us that firms are hiring anthropologists if, as Breakenridge and Solis suggest, "PR is evolving into a hybrid of communications, evangelism, and Web marketing, strung together by the teachings and benefits of sociology, anthropology, and psychology"? I guess not. As communications professionals, our job is NOT to just learn the technologies, but to adapt to the changes in how people interact, gather information, make decisions ... and relate these changes back to the programs we construct with our clients. At Padilla, I'm grateful we have our SMERFs (Social Media Elite Response Force) to keep on top of the trends and tools ... the rest of us need only to think in terms of conversations and people; rather than messages and audiences. So ... go forth and be human. Participate with people. Be social and ignore the tools....
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsI'd add that there is WAY too much focus on the technology. Forget the technology for a minute. This whole Social Media Movement is a HUGE deal. But it's not an "advancement." It is a reversion back the way people used to behave. People and businesses are talking. They are talking in their own voice - like a person - like a person with an actual personality. Focus on People. YES. Focus on acting like a real person. Posted by: Cam at April 15, 2009 5:04 PM Post a comment |
