Category: Social Media

Living Life in Black and White

Increasingly it feels as though I’m living a secret life online, dipping in and out of all of the truly inspirational (well, OK, quite interesting) things that are happening in a world of PR somewhere else.  Google reader turned up this blog post today highlighting a range of great ideas for things I’d love to do myself and none sounding so close to the cutting edge of technology as to be impossible.    Then I turn my attention to the office I’m actually working in at the moment.  From here the online world feels like a technicolour Oz with me still stuck in sepia-toned Kansas.  Forget Facebook groups,  Twitter and webinars.  At the moment not only is there no digital strategy, I can’t even get security clearance to get through the internet firewall to update our website.   The notion that “Web 2.0 technologies have made participation more fun, accessible, instantaneous, trackable” is great, except it doesn’t feel that it has much to do with me at the moment; a month into this contract and wondering where’s the best place to start just to get the basics right.

The etiquette of blogging?

Thanks to Richard for his very rapid comment on my last post.  I answered him back in a comment of my own, but was then reminded of something I read on Richard’s own blog about leaving the comments space to everyone else (I’ve already had my say in the original post, after all).  I find it almost impossible not to respond if someone comments on something I’ve written (or as my husband would put it, I am constitutionally incapable of letting someone else have the last word).  Are there rules about this kind of thing? And should I look on bestadviceforum to find them?

By the way, for anyone who’s not sure what the term means (I wasn’t myself) this is what Google Juice is…

Expert schmexpert

I have now achieved internet recognition and can stop blogging.  My last post has surfaced on the bestadviceforum website – as I accidentally discovered, much to my astonishment this afternoon while looking for something completely different.  So there I am, an online expert (at least an advice-giver of note) – proudly next to “how to buy a designer diaper bag” and “abusing the UK tax system from the Isle of Man” (haven’t read that one, but assume it’s not a “how to” guide).    I am now linking back to myself in an act of rampant egomania, in the hope that I can create a circular reference loop which will create a virtual black hole which swallows the internet (in my head the Dr Who theme is playing now…)

Has it?  Is there anybody there?

Citizen Journalists 1 – Newspapers 0?

Rupert Murdoch says that the internet won’t mean the death of newspapers.

On the Huffington Post today, Arianna H says that she is continuing with the cohort of citizen journalists who so succesfully provided content for the “Off the bus” coverage of the US election.  In fact she is expanding their numbers, believing they can make a significant contribution to the site’s editorial process.

I wouldn’t want to bet against either of them, but can they both be right?

The Murdoch argument is that newspapers are failing not because of inroads made by online news sources, but because editors aren’t giving their readers what they want – Charles Warner (writing on HuffPo) has already described that as ” like blaming horses for the decline in the sale of buggy whips because of the invention of the automobile.” So I guess we know where he stands…

Old and new media

I’be been pondering the challenge Richard has set in his latest post – trying to decide whether or not social media means the death of PR.  The huge effort that the Obama campaign is still putting into new media (yes, I know not all of it can be defined as “social media”) seems to suggest that for PRs this is just a new channel – albeit  of a new and so-far unpredicatable type – which they can use if they know what they’re doing.  There’s a piece in today’s Observer which details the enormous returns Obama got from his very well crafted online campaigning which tends to suggest that, IF the message you are trying to spread resonates with the audience you are trying to reach AND members of that audience use social media networks to communicate with each other, then social media can be a means of spreading a PR message which is exponentially more powerful than more traditional methods.  So the answer to Richard’s question is : no,  as long as the PR is adept at finding messages which resonate – and that’s always been the trick that good PRs know how to work.  Right?

My pondering has been interrupted by my niggling doubts as to why Arianna Huffington, queen of bloggers, is advertising a proper, old-fashioned  book she has written about how to be a blogger.  Surely, if you want to be a blogger you already know that such things exist, so you’ve seen them online, so you are web savvy enough to use the internet.  So, wouldn’t you use google to find a site that tells you…  I appreciate that won’t have the Arianna Huffington seal of approval on it, and I’m quite cheered to see that books still count, even on HuffPo but I can’t stop wondering about who on earth is going to read this.  What have I missed?

So that’s how you do it…

I was wondering how I was going to keep up my conversion to social media without having to give up my day job and leave the children to fend for themselves.  Then I found this on PROpenMic , five easy steps to managing a tidal wave of information whilst still leaving you time to wash, sleep and eat.   Shared in a spirit of community – I hope it helps someone!

Megaphone or conversation?

I was  interested to read Sarah’s post about CEO blogging, and agree with her about the lack of thought behind the call “I must have a blog”.   For many senior people in organisations I’ve worked for, blogging is seen as either a vanity publishing opportunity for sharing their unique vision with a grateful world; or just another comms channel – a pipe to squeeze some corporate messaging through.

This seems to be a pretty basic misunderstanding of how things work.  I remember reading an article Emily Bell wrote for Broadcast (I think and I can’t find a link) saying that you can’t target people with messages online –  the process only works when people feel they can contribute and participate.  I can’t imagine there are many CEOs (or senior civil servants) who would be genuinely happy to set out their thinking on a blog to let customers – and competitors – pick over it and join in.  And even if they were they wouldn’t have time to really engage with what came back to them.  And if they weren’t, what’s the point?

The collaborative nature of  blogging ought to work for business, though.  A small, personal example.  My husband runs a trade association which offers its members expert support in solving technical manufacturing problems.   He is setting up a series of members’ blogs in the hope that they can share best practice, good ideas and wizard wheezes across the industry for the benefit of everyone.  It’s not exactly “the CEO addresses the nation” and it won’t be of any possible use to anyone outside the industry, but it absolutely meets the needs of that community, and isn’t that the point?

A late entry at the blogging ball

Typically, on the day I decided to take the plunge and set up a blog, the Today programme  gleefully told me that blogging is so completely over that anyone who has a blog should close it down and hop off to Twitter  instead.    Apparently the blogosphere is sinking under a “tsunami of paid bilge” and most people have an attention span which is too short to deal with more information than they can get in a typical txt msg or tweet.

If even John Humphrys is telling me that I’m behind the times I evidently have some catching up to do.  But having been prompted by blogging enthusiast Richard Bailey to set up my own space, I’m now really excited at the thought of having somewhere to organise my thoughts about the best way to manage a PR business through what promises to be a pretty grim recession.

PR Week ran one of their “thought leader” supplements about the future of the PR agency, recently which came up with some interesting ideas about how agencies can rise to the challenge of the credit crunch.  The tone was pretty upbeat – there may be trouble ahead but the PR industry is well placed to weather the storm and our communications skills are always going to be needed.  Cheerily, for me at least, there was some suggestion that more business will be outsourced from inhouse staff to freelancers.  This allows companies to cut their overheads and not have to pay for all those expensive fripperies like heating, lighting and pension contributions for their staff.  This means that I may be able to keep paying the mortgage, but may never be able to retire.  Suggestions as to whether this is good or bad news will be very welcome!