Marshall McLuhan is Still Wrong

by Dan Ward

Another day, another article discussing how social media makes traditional PR less relevant.   The latest comes from Chris Hogg at Digital Journal, who opines that “social media relations is more important than good PR.”

            Chris’ article, which continues to advance the stereotype of public relations as a “let’s pitch the news media” business, suffers from a serious disconnect. 

He correctly notes that “forward-thinking companies should have conversations with their audience and customers rather than talking at them,” but seems to believe that this is somehow separate from “good PR.” 

Connecting with the audiences that are important to your success is the essence of good public relations.           

Almost daily, I see similar posts and tweets declaring that social media makes public relations less important than ever, but as my colleague Roger Pynn wrote on this blog more than a year ago, the opposite is true.

Sure, social media allows companies to talk instantly and interactively with their customers and communities.  But does that mean they know what to say, when to say it and how to say it effectively in order to drive action?  Access to a medium of communication does not guarantee understanding of its use. 

And yes, traditional publicity has become less important as the media landscape changes.  But “good” PR pros have been advising clients for years to look beyond publicity to connect with their audiences.  We advocated such strategies long before Facebook and Twitter were invented, and will continue to advise clients to pursue a multi-pronged approach to communication.

Social media has changed everything, but Marshall McLuhan’s famous statement is still wrong.  The medium is NOT the message.  Message must always come first, no matter whether the medium is a hand-written letter or a 140-character tweet.  Crafting the right message and choosing the right medium to influence opinion and motivate action (and sometimes deciding when not to speak at all) … that’s “good PR.”

Experts. Or Not?

by Roger Pynn

A while back I wrote about invective and how the volume of online conversation is making life in the digisphere more and more unpleasant.

Just as interesting as the volume of passionate advocates and combative opponents alike is the tendency to anoint themselves as experts … whether they are talking about fried shrimp dinners, health care reform, their favorite martini bar or least liked public official.

And, because so many people are talking on almost every topic imaginable, both the proponents and their foes seem to be claiming the collective voice as being on “their side.”

Seth Godin suggests in “True Believers (and the truth)” that the Internet is what has amplified the volume of debate and that the loudest voices may not be the best point of reference when making the case for or against something, suggesting “they’re wrong far more than they are right.”

Coming as I do from a background in the dying art of journalism, I’m tempted to say “yes, Seth … I think you’re right. In fact, you’ve proven your point because you have failed to quote anything – statistical evidence from research, anecdotal evidence, etc. – that proves how right or wrong the voices really are.”

It strikes me – but I have nothing to back up my position – that the Internet isn’t to blame for the decibel level. Rather access has provided us all with an endless roll of free paper on which to write, ALL TO OFTEN IN SHOUTING CAPITAL LETTERS, whatever we believe to be true as if it were of biblical veracity.

Whatever happened to judgment? When did we stop questioning things before we started preaching them as gospel? Where did we lose our collective ability to study things before proclaiming ourselves experts?

Invective & Social Media

by Roger Pynn

I may just have to find a new social network. Everywhere I look people are SHOUTING at each other. The invective is ruining the experience of staying in touch with people. Even people I like and respect are SCREAMING at each other, calling each other things they don’t mean … not even realizing they are ATTACKING.

And if you point out the decibel level, they reply by turning up the volume and HOLLERING back that they are not mad or angry … just SMARTER THAN YOU.

I told an old, respected friend yesterday that the cost of everything on our political plate right now … from bank bailouts to buying up GM and Chrysler to whatever happens in reforming health care and insurance will pale by comparison when the blood pressure of the debaters finally explodes and we have to pay for the cleanup.

Shhhhhhhh! People … whisper, please.

Note to self: you could make a fortune developing software that filters invective the way virus scanners keep out those nasty worms that take over your computer, steal your identity and turn it into an agent of the Namibian lottery.

When the Edits Stop

by Kim Taylor

Today a colleague in the local PR community posed a question to the Twitterati:

“What’s your take on editing blog content? When employees write posts, should employers edit sentence structure, punctuation, etc?”

When we began blogging here more than a year ago, we faced similar questions. After all, successful blogs are typically conversational and aren’t written in robot-speak.

But, does that mean they can’t be grammatically correct? Does editing for Style affect tone? If a writer asks, “do ya know what I mean?” do we feel the need to edit the ‘ya’ to a ‘you’?

The fun and challenging part about Web 2.0, 3.0 or whatever point 0 we’ve reached, is that it’s a learning process for everyone. What works for GM’s FastLane blog might not work in another corporate environment.

If you’re just beginning to blog or still trying to find your voice, do what works for you or what best represents your organization. It’s the Internet, there are no rules.

Twitter Tattoos

by Roger Pynn

Listening to a presentation by frenetically-paced social media watcher Peter Shankman at the Florida Public Relations Association’s annual conference, reminded me of all the foolish things we tend to do when we’re young.

Don’t get me wrong. Shankman is interesting and I’m as interested as anyone in the evolution of social media … but I don’t have a tattoo. I don’t know whether Shankman has one either … but that’s not the point.

Like those cute little butterflies and other designs popular with young women, and the bicep barbed wire that seems to be the body art of choice for muscular guys, the things we are “saying” online will be around for a long, long time.

Shankman shared some of the statistics, but then in my inbox came this engaging Erik Qualman Socialnomics video on YouTube about the Social Media Revolution.

If those numbers don’t make you think twice, nothing will.

There’s a simple point to remember: there’s no way to take back what you tweet, and my guess is that finding a remedy to that may be just as tough as finding a way to get rid of last summer’s tattoo when you find out your dream job is with a company that prohibits visible body art.

Just as you should choose a tattoo design very carefully, best to choose wisely what you say in your favorite digital social neighborhood.

Woe is the Tweeter

by Roger Pynn

The tweetisphere is all up in arms because ESPN has limited the tweeting of its employees, but should it be?

According to The Times the guidelines prohibit ESPNers from having their own sports-related blogs and Web sites, and if they are going to be part of online conversations about sports they need to seek approval from their supervisors first. As well, it prohibits them from discussing ESPN policies and procedures re how items are “reported, written, edited for produced,” the Times story said.

From some of the comments I saw today, you’d think ESPN had just torn up the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but I’m sitting here trying to figure out why people can’t just see that what they say reflects on them as a professional as well as a person.

I am the majority owner of my business. I have two minority partners and a number of employees and an even greater number of clients. All of them should be able to expect me to use good judgment in my conversations … online or otherwise.

We’re developing a set of guidelines for our company and while they will probably tell our people not to talk about company policies, this will be one policy they are more than welcome to discuss … as long as they do it in good taste.

Separated at Birth

by Roger Pynn

There’s a fascinating generational discussion going on in our office about the line between personal and professional as it relates to social media. It boils down to whether you can have a private life in these show-all, see-all digital environments.

There’s consensus across the generations that people need to use their heads when tweeting, posting to Facebook and other communities … and there are boundless examples of people – mostly young – who don’t seem to get that. Irreverent language is everywhere and personal rants that put the speaker at odds with people they have to do business with seem commonplace.

One of our team tweets for business but jealously protects her space on Facebook as a personal digital neighborhood. “Friends” have to be real friends and while she says there’s nothing she posts to Facebook she wouldn’t want to share … she simply doesn’t want to share her personal life in the business neighborhood.

I, on the other hand, think my gray hair has taught me there’s no difference. I can’t escape the business world I live in – nor do I want to – and whether it is online or at the supermarket, what I say is going to be heard and I have to temper it or prepare for deal with the reactions.

We are not born into our business lives, nor were we separated from them at the birth of social media.

What you say is what you get.

Where are We?

by Roger Pynn

If you’ve ever gotten confused trying to remember which of your social network was the place you first saw or “heard” something, a white paper by Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang predicts they will eventually be much more like one single network … that networks will follow users more than users will follow them.

Think of it like the ability to port your personal phone number from one wireless carrier to the other. You’ll have a single identity for which you are known in numerous online communities and you’ll participate in even more conversations. To those who sometimes feel overwhelmed by all this networking, hang on for the ride.

And to those who are already beginning to worry about the commercialization of these communities, hang on even tighter.

As Randall Beard wrote on MediaPost:

“future social web will make ‘portable’ the opinions, insights and knowledge of friends — which all research shows is much more trusted than any other information source–as consumers travel the Web and interact with brands, products and services.”

Although Beard also suggests that Owyang’s view of the future will include the ability to expose or hide personal information as you travel from network to network, there’s little doubt that consumer relationship management executives will demand greater technological support for tracking and monitoring consumer habits.

Where you go and what you say have never been so open to interpretation. And as if this weren’t enough, check out AT&T’s “familymap” product designed to “let you know where your kids are at any time.” For $9.99 a month you can locate up to two phones in your family plan with a gps tracking system.

Can’t you just see it now? The wife goes shopping and her husband calls to say “that store’s too darned expensive. Move on to something more moderate.” To which she will reply, “as soon as you leave that sports bar I’ll be glad to shop somewhere else.”

Twitter: It’s Not about Relationships Anymore?

by Kim Taylor

When I joined Twitter more than a year ago, I was skeptical. Why would I want to tell everyone “What I was doing,” or better yet, why would I care what they were doing?

After slowly getting the hang of it, I realized it was a great way to build relationships … relationships with people you may not have had access to before. Even if those “relationships” came in the form of 140-character tweets, you still felt like you had some connection.

It’s not about numbers for me, I have a mere 636 followers—a small number relative to the millions some celebrities have acquired. Even smaller is the number of folks I follow. But within those 500+ people is a select group of twitterers whose every tweet I look forward to.

What I’m not looking forward to is for those people – who I’ve come to respect – to begin making money off of their following (me), with a new form of ‘sponsored tweeting’ by local Internet Marketing firm, IZEA.

Don’t get me wrong, I think IZEA’s paid blogging format has created tremendous opportunity for bloggers and companies alike. So, if it works for traditional blogs, why can’t it work for microblogs? Because I don’t read blogs to build relationships … that’s what Twitter’s for.

Follow me @klt_CandP, where my tweets won’t be sponsored by anyone but me.

I Want to Know … Right Now!!

by Dan Ward

Late last week, I posted a tweet that generated some debate … after reading tweet after tweet proclaiming the L.A. Times and other traditional news media irrelevant because “celebrity gossip” outlet TMZ broke the Michael Jackson story, I said this:  “Enough … getting ‘scooped’ on MJ doesn’t make newspapers irrelevant. Role isn’t to be 1st, but to provide in-depth reporting & b’ground.”

My point wasn’t to defend newspapers; they ARE less relevant today than 5 or 10 years ago.  But the problem isn’t just that they are getting scooped.  It’s that in their rush to join the online revolution (which they admittedly neglected for far too long), they’ve forgotten what has always made them different … their ability to provide depth and background to a story that you just can’t get from a 100-word blog entry or a 30-second TV news clip.

It’s this rush to feed information to a public expecting immediate gratification that leads to headlines like this, from none other than Time magazine: “What Killed Michael? What the Autopsy Could Reveal.”  The autopsy could reveal a million things … drug overdose, undiagnosed disease, even a moonwalking accident.  Maybe instead of competing in the speculation game, Time should report on what the autopsy actually does reveal.

TMZ is a fun read, and should be commended for its amazing wealth of sources and ability to move quickly.  But it also makes statements like this, which I hope to never see in Time: “And this is interesting … Katherine Jackson apparently doesn’t know Prince Michael’s date of birth. Yesterday, in the guardianship papers, she listed his DOB as 1/21/02. The birth certificate says he was born on 2/21/02, one month later.”

Time and the Times both got scooped on that one, but perhaps they chalked up the typo to a simple mistake by a woman grieving the tragic loss of her son.  Being first isn’t the same as being right.