New media
Mr. Boyle, my 10th grade English teacher took one look at the first article I published in the school paper and quickly circled every is, was, were and to be, then handed it back. I remember the crushing feeling of defeat as I'd previously been so proud of the piece; easy lesson, well learned.
Nearly every time I assign a release to a young writer they turn in something riddled with passive sentences. My first piece of advice: drop the verb "to be." What I get back is often much better and they tend not to make the same mistake again. Though, I try to do it without the humiliation.
Facebook finally let us choose our own verb for our status updates, eliminating the annoyingly passive "is" from our writing requirement.
Thank you Facebook, for passing 10th grade English.
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on December 21, 2007 at 11:47 AM
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In our first conversation, we spoke with Dan about Fake Steve Jobs. This time, the senior editor from Forbes talks about lessons learned in the blogosphere and the interaction between PR people and business reporters. Check it out.
Posted by John Moran on December 12, 2007 at 8:23 PM
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Very, very few close friends of mine are on Facebook, and for those very few, their reasons for trying Facebook are similar to mine: We're learning how it fits into PR and marketing for our clients. More importantly, a large part of the group yet to adopt Facebook is comprised of former colleagues in public relations--and they still are in related fields. This past weekend, at a holiday party, I had to explain the concept of Facebook to many of them.
I wonder if, as a result, I should be more skeptical of the immediate impact of Facebook on my clients' work. Facebook's clientele is still young, and it is hardly the mainstream. While I stand by the predictions of many in terms of the impact Facebook and other social networking sites will have on PR, the immediate affect of those programs on a mainstream audience is a question of mine.
From a broader perspective, my experience this weekend--teaching many of my hip friends about what I think is the hippest new application on the Internet--demonstrates the important role as "perspective provider" that everyone at Schwartz serves for our clients. Since we are outside consultants for our clients, we need to be careful in cutting through the hype of new marketing tools.
I spoke with a potential Schwartz client recently who used Facebook with great success. I told him that for his needs, this made sense--his web application was for college students. But for any program that wants to target the mainstream, Facebook is only part of the equation. There is still no better approach to reach a mainstream audience than to target reporters who write widely syndicated stories. At least for now.
I say this despite some very recent research that notes how upwards of 40-percent of Facebook's users are over 35, according to Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang, and there are a total of 40-50 million users. That means some 20 million Facebook users are over 35. I guess my social scene is no longer part of tech communications early-adopter audience.
There are several nice summaries available of Owyang's presentation at the Web Community Forum last week, and certainly Facebook is discussed within any brainstorm related to promotion of consumer technology offerings. However, what I have seen in practice--both at holiday parties this season and with Schwartz's PR programs, is that Facebook is only the newest of many tools in the arsenal for promoting to the consumer audience. We're watching Facebook carefully, but only as part of broader programs--and numerous "outside-the-box" tactics--to reach consumers and grow traffic.
Posted by Ross Levanto on December 11, 2007 at 2:15 PM
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Until the New York Times blew his cover back in August, Dan Lyons had industry insiders trying to figure out the mystery writer behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog site. In addition to maintaining FSJ and his work as a senior editor at Forbes, Lyons has also published a book, "Options - The Secret Life of Steve Jobs: A Parody."
We had a chance to sit down with Dan recently to discuss a number of topics. For his take on the Fake Steve Jobs experience, check this out. Coming up next week, we'll talk to Dan about lessons learned in the blogosphere and the interaction between reporters and PR people.
Posted by John Moran on December 6, 2007 at 3:59 PM
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Tony Perkins is, literally and figuratively, AlwaysOn. He's the person who started the AlwaysOn web site for tech insiders in 2002 - and he's always ready to dish out opinions and insight on what's happening in business today. Tony founded Red Herring magazine in 1993 and published the book "The Internet Bubble" in 1999, which accurately predicted the troubles that would soon hit the industry.
Tony recently spoke with Schwartz about trends for 2008, including topics as social media, green tech and investment opportunities. Hear it here.
Posted by John Moran on November 30, 2007 at 2:36 PM
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Press releases take a lot of heat. Considering that over time, these standard tools of the PR world have proven themselves pretty effective, it's amusing that they continue to be the butt of jokes and constant redesign.
Back in the heyday of the dot-com bubble, you'd see releases loudly touting "paradigm shifts" and "robust, scalable architectures." We've tried to get away from a lot of this overblown writing, but it still gets through.
The latest debate is over the "Social Media News Release." SHIFT Communications has taken the lead on this concept, putting out a template for others to use. Today Search Engine Watch took the template to task for not really accomplishing its goal and Brian Solis fired back.
The problem is, we're debating the wrong issue. The problem isn't the format, its the content of the information we're putting out and determining the true goal for that information. Frankly, unless you're a major corporation like Disney, GM or HP, no one really cares that you just hired a new CEO. You may write a release and put in on your Web site, but do you really need to send it over BusinessWire? And does it really need to be three pages long?
No, we need to learn from bloggers and change our style. We need to start talking conversationally in our tone and attributing information to individuals. We need to write compelling stories, not just make announcements. This takes talent and skill, something many PR firms have in spades.
The most interesting news release I've seen recently comes from Google when it announced Android. What's that? You didn't see the release?
Right, there was none. They put out a blog posting on it. But, this is no less a news release than one formatted in the traditional manner and put on BuseinessWire. It's just a different way to get out information--one that is truly part of the conversation, not trying to push itself into it.
And the best part? It actually worked. Not because it was a blog post, but because it gave people information they wanted in a tone and format that made sense.
In fact, it included this paragraph, which you would normally find in any old press release (though, in the first person):
Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.
Yes, I know what you're saying--Google can get away with a lot more than any small company. And you're right, no Wall Street Journal reporter is eagerly reading every corporate blog looking for tidbits of information. But, we can learn a little more about writing for bloggers here, since the tone of the "release" was truly conversational. This wasn't written from high on a mountain top, but from a person with a voice. You can feel it in the very first sentence: "Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we're not announcing a Gphone." In fact, it IS from a person, it's attributed to Andy Rubin.
The bottom line: a release should become indistinguishable from everything around it, not because it looks different, but because the content makes sense and tells a real story.
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 28, 2007 at 7:23 PM
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The evolution of social media and technology is constantly causing companies and people to try new approaches and tactics to take advantage of and react to technology advancements.
Sometimes this can cause people to head down some very strange and impractical paths. This isn't unusual. It has happened throughout human history.
For example, I am reading a great book on naval warfare in WWI (Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie). To deal with the new submarine threat, the British Admiralty tried a number of initiatives.
One that has caused me great amusement was allegedly proposed by Admiral Sir Frederick Inglefield. He not only proposed the idea - he received authorization for it.
The idea was to train seagulls to block the lenses of German periscopes with seagull droppings. (Google it if you don't believe me). Eventually the program was dumped. The admiralty tried a number of ideas before they settled on something more practical...depth charges.
There are a number of lessons to be learned here. The most important one for us as PR and marketing practitioners is to keep our eye on the end goal and not get distracted and pursue something tangential.
We need to embrace and respond to changing technologies. Social media is changing the dynamic just as much as submarines did in World War I. But don't panic over new developments. That will only cause you to react in sub-optimal ways. You don't need to use and react to every social media tool that is created.
Clearly define your goals and then figure out the best way to achieve them. Ask yourself about the desired outcome. Determine the level of engagement and ask if it is sustainable in the long run. Otherwise, you may just end up training seagulls.
Posted by Mark McClennan on November 14, 2007 at 10:46 AM
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The high-tech industry is booming again, and smart PR and advertising firms are growing thanks to creative campaigns using new social media technologies. I am paraphrasing Doug Scott, the executive director of branded content and entertainment at Ogilvy. He spoke Friday, November 9 at a breakfast in New York City hosted by AlwaysOn. I attended with a Schwartz colleague to get an update on AlwaysOn and its upcoming OnMedia conference, and found the event very informative.
Scott is in charge of introducing social media to existing Olgivy clients as well as finding new business that would rely on social media exclusively. Olgivy clients are very different than ours, most having big, defined consumer brands. He spoke about how many of these established brands are exploring social media tools to extend brands for their products.
What I found enlightening was Scott went way beyond talking about how the Internet levels the playing field for companies by giving them a direct route to consumers. That was a given; Scott is talking about how every company needs to capitalize on this with a unique program to deliver a brand essence to consumers. I will not go into detail about some of the campaigns he mentioned, since I am not sure if they are public, but suffice it to say he's working on some very interesting programs.
Following Scott, Anthony Noto, the Internet, entertainment, and cable analyst at Goldman Sachs spoke to a topic that is one of my current fascinations: Facebook. Noto predicts that Facebook will be a highly disruptive technology, much in the same way that Google has been. He believes that while Google disrupted the publishing model by eliminating the cost to create content that would generate traffic, Facebook will disrupt the content distribution model.
AlwaysOn is organizing what looks to be a pretty informative event in New York in late January: AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC. From what I heard at the breakfast, the January event likely will provide quality content and advice.
Posted by Ross Levanto on November 12, 2007 at 12:57 PM
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Tabblo founder and former client Antonio Rodriguez recently pointed out on his blog that mainstream America still isn't using many of the Web 2.0 tools out there. He's right. Stand on any soccer field and watch the parents snapping away on their digital cameras, then ask them if they planned to share those with the team via Flickr or if they were going to put them on a Facebook site, and you'll get a lot of blank stares. Most just email a few shots to relatives, or use a legacy service like Shutterfly.
Recently I spoke with the founder of TownConnect.com--social networking technology for families, schools, teams, etc. He told me that he isn't bothering with Flickr integration since most of his targeted audience--suburbanites living in communities like mine--don't use it.
Mainstream America will get there and start using some of these tools. It's happening slowly, but it's probably going to change how we measure all this. Today links in and out of a site drive search and Technorati rankings. But that kind of measurement relies on an active community of users who participate as much as they read. As the mainstream takes over, people will probably read more than they participate.
Sure, we all have statistics and numbers about how many unique visitors are coming to a site, but those are neither audited nor shared. That leaves us with sampling sites like Compete and Alexa, but those have their own issues in that they don't get large enough samples from smaller blogs. So without reliable numbers, how will we know what's popular?
That's why I love our CAIT concept, which tells us that by looking beyond the Technorati 100 or Techmeme Leaderborard, we can still have a simple way to evaluate whether a blog is worth our time. Because as this area continues to grow, figuring out who is reading and listening to what is going to become increasingly difficult.
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 9, 2007 at 10:13 AM
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I had a chance to speak with Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the founders of reddit.com. It took them all of 16 months to take their social news site from inception in June 2005 to acquisition by Wired and Conde Nast in October 2006. Piece of cake, right? Not a chance. Ohanian, Huffman and two colleagues spent countless hours in a small Boston-area apartment working on reddit. Their recipe for success is timeless - "work really hard and respect your customers."
To get their take on reddit's future, the social news movement, competing with Digg and lessons from the trenches of the start-up community, listen to this Schwartz-cast.
Posted by John Moran on November 7, 2007 at 12:09 PM
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What excites PR people the most about Web 2.0 is that some of the social media companies that are hot can help us do our jobs. A red-letter date for the relationship between PR and Web 2.0 came earlier this year when Facebook let third-parties develop applications to extend Facebook's functionality.
On November 2, Forbes published a Q&A with the founder of RockYou, Jia Shen. RockYou offers a very interesting business model. The company creates these third-party applications that can be selected by Facebook or MySpace users to augment their memberships to those social networking sites. As a consequence, the applications attract more users and encourage social interaction. RockYou can then "monetize" the user base by selling advertising.
From my perspective, there is certainly potential for using RockYou-powered applications as part of coordinated marketing campaigns that would combine PR and social media to drive web traffic. We are thinking about those campaigns each and every day at Schwartz.
They are already starting to happen. If you are a Facebook user, you see Facebook applications that invite participation in contests or other collaborative experiences run by companies. By relying just on your own list of friends, an interesting contest spreads rapidly. If it does not catch on, the cost for developing and executing these contests is fairly low.
Bringing this idea very close to home, more and more reporters have Facebook accounts. My colleagues and I will occasionally post news from our clients as part of our Facebook status messages. It's a non-assuming way to alert the reporters and analysts on our friends' lists, and certainly the topics we post are relevant to the Web 2.0-savvy Facebook audience.
Facebook offers its own marketing vehicles, where companies can "rent" space to include small little applications on Facebook home pages that promote an offering or encourage interactivity. Beyond these sponsored opportunities, there are a number of unique ways to use the social networking sites to augment PR programs.
The key is to use these sites judiciously and transparently. As recently noted in Twitter conversations including Robert Scoble and others, what you place on Facebook can be read by all of your "friends," so everything one does is open to criticism.
Posted by Ross Levanto on November 3, 2007 at 2:39 PM
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In school, my mother always cautioned me to be responsible and study hard or any infractions would go on my "permanent record." I had visions of a metal vault in a big building where files on everything I did, from getting in a fight with my best friend to my less than stellar performance in Mr. Corr's Spanish class, would dog me through college, my job search and the rest of my life.
The truth is, there now really is a permanent record, and every company and individual has one. What's worse, these records aren't written on paper and stored in a musty vault--they're graven in digital bits and available for everyone to see.
We talked about this at PodCamp 2 - Boston this past weekend. It was a gathering of hundreds of social media experts, public relations practitioners, bloggers, podcasters and videographers to discuss the future of communications and marketing.
The term that was used was a person's (or company's) "digital footprint." It's important to remember that everything we do is recorded, tracked and accessible. Everything anyone says about your company--be it an employee, a competitor, a happy customer or a disgruntled customer--becomes part of the footprint. And unlike footprints in the sand, these digital footprints will not be washed away. They may become fainter, but they are always there for people to see.
I am writing to remind people about this and provide a few steps they can take.
1) Keep track of your footprint. Just like you monitor your bank account and credit report, monitor what is being said about you and your competitors. If you do not have Google Alerts set up for every term of interest to you, set them up today. They are easy to use and free. Don't let others define you.
2) Provide employees with blogging and commenting guidelines. You do not want employees saying something on behalf of the company, or that gets associated with the company, that will dog you for years.
3) Think before you post. The line between personal life and professional is more blurred than ever before and will get even blurrier. Eventually Google Image search will get Facebook photos. Everything you write and post online impacts your personal brand. Be smart.
4) Make your digital footprint work for you. Just like the first day of college, you have a chance to remake yourself in whatever image you want. If you want to be an expert on a topic, start commenting on it. You can build and shape your footprint.
In conclusion, your mother was right. There really is a permanent record on you and your company. Take control of it.
Posted by Mark McClennan on October 29, 2007 at 8:49 AM
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About a year and a half ago, Tom Foremski (former Financial Times writer, now publishing the Silicon Valley Watcher blog) put out a call to trash the traditional press release and replace it with "new media communications releases." Essentially, releases would be deconstructed into special sections in order to make it easier for journalists to get the info they need - the news itself, quotes, financials etc. Since Tom's call to arms, there has been plenty of chatter in new media and PR circles about these new announcements. The current ruckus has to do with sneaky PR firms trying to have their new media releases picked up as items that appear to have been written by a reporter. This may be fascinating stuff for those in our business (actually, it isn't), but it's going to be awhile before we see any dramatic change in the lion's share of press releases.
What can be done to improve everyone's lot? A few suggestions...
Organizations issuing press releases:
* Listen to what journalists and good PR people are saying - stop stuffing every empty cliche, buzzword and acronym into your announcement.
* Tight, clear headlines - assume the reader only sees your headline and sub-headline, will they know who you are and what's newsworthy?
* Less is often more - trophies are not awarded for the most words used in a release. You will, however, pay higher distribution fees and put your intended audience to sleep.
* Embed links in your press releases - it's a great way to bring interested parties to your web site where they can obtain more information.
PR agencies:
* Stop writing to impress the client - it's not important that the VP of Marketing knows you can speak their jargon. It is important that you tell their story in a clear and compelling fashion to the outside world.
* Push back - if the VP of Marketing scoffs at your draft and insists on more jargon, you have a responsibility to explain why the campaign will benefit from news that is written in English.
* But they're demanding we issue junk - if they ignore your counsel, move on. Let's face it, you're going to pitch the story the way you think is going to maximize coverage. If the release is a stinker, don't include it in your pitches. Which brings us to our final point -
* Use some of the tactics Foremski advocates - after the conventional release crosses the wire, send the reporter what they need to write the story. If all it takes is a quick pitch and the release, fine. But for most reporters, it's better to send a quick pitch with a variety of pre-packaged components (quotes, financials, graphics etc.).
Press releases are an organization's official announcement of news. They are not designed solely for journalists. The audience also includes investors, customers, prospects, employees, communities and analysts. Companies should issue news that is concise, compelling and easy to understand - and PR professionals should promote it accordingly.
Posted by John Moran on October 25, 2007 at 7:21 AM
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I'm tired of going to events in which someone stands up and says "So, can you tell me what exactly defines a blog?"
Yes, this is an important question for someone just coming to the table, but many of us are well beyond that and the discussion is now about more high-level topics, such as "how are the current crop of blogs affecting coverage?" and "how can bloggers, reporters and PR people work together?"
That's what last night's great event at the Cambridge Innovation Center was all about. Scott Kirsner put together a great group of panelists, including Bijan Sabet, venture capitalist at Spark Capital; Barbara Heffner of CHEN PR; Don Dodge, director of business development at Microsoft; Jimmy Guterman, editor of Release 2.0 and blogger at O'Reilly Radar; Scott Kirsner, who writes the Boston Globe "Innovation Economy" column; and Nabeel Hyatt, CEO of Conduit Labs. Both Schwartz Communications and CHEN PR sponsored the event, as well as Morse Barnes-Brown & Pendleton and the Cambridge Innovation Center.
The panel was just a start, as I was charged with running around the room to bring in discussion from others attending the event. Dan Bricklin has a few pictures as well as the full podcast up, so rather than me running through the whole thing, go and have a listen.
Discussion items included:
- Why do you blog?
- What is your most popular post?
- How addicted are you to statistics?
- Where do journalistic ethics come into play?
- What does blogging do for your business?
- How do you maintain an authentic voice?
- How do people who cannot write well engage in this environment?
- What role do edited blogs (like this one) have both in the corporation and in the blogosphere in general?
- Can you do a "news" announcement only through social media?
Don Dodge shared great pieces of advice--both of which I violated on my various blogs--that he received from Robert Scoble.
First: include your own name in the name of the blog. Of my personal blogs only two have any part of my name involved, the Tanoblog and Tanophoto. And second: include your picture. While my picture is on my Schwartz bio, it is not on my Media Metamorphosis page, which may be why Paul Gillin didn't include my name in his roundup of the event.
I also enjoyed the discussion on edited blogs, in which Nabeel noted how the corporate blog at Conduit is, in fact, edited. The point is to have a common voice and to acknowledge that the company must come first, in this context. But also it's because there are people within the organization who have great thoughts when they're standing at the whiteboard, but do not have the ability to express themselves in writing. In this case the editing process is not about sanitizing the content, but about saying to those who are more self-conscious, "hey, we've got your back."
I found the ethics discussion to be among the most interesting and will be writing more on that later. But let me just share this from Don Dodge on conflict of interest: "No conflict, no interest."
On a personal note, I got a chance to meet David Laubner, who writes the excellent 93South blog, one I've been reading for some time.
In all, a great discussion of some of the primary issues facing modern tech journalism. I'm sure there will be more discussion on the various Boston-based tech blogs, but the podcast is probably the most complete recounting of the event. Though, not everyone identified themselves before speaking, so it sometimes be tough to follow.
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on October 24, 2007 at 12:34 PM
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Peter Kim of Forrester recently reported that Forrester "data shows that 6% of US online adults use Twitter regularly." There has been some debate on the accuracy of the numbers, and it makes interesting reading.
As Schwartz's first (and heaviest) Twitter, I wanted to post briefly on the numbers and what they mean to companies.
To be honest, for the sake of this discussion, it doesn't matter if the numbers are accurate. What matters is there are vibrant and growing networks that are providing new and easy way for the average person to communicate with others.
Twitter is a great tool for PR pros. Using Twitter I have found out
- About stories reporters are planning to write
- What matters to reporters so I give them the information that really care about
- New reporters and mavens
- What is being said about my clients by consumers
This is powerful stuff, particularly the last point. This technology directly impacts the consumer and changes the way we interact. With Twitter's search functionality it is easy for people to find and join all kinds of conversations
As a PR practitioner or company, should you tweet on Twitter? Perhaps. You need to make the call yourself (although I am happy to share my opinions). But you must monitor Twitter and the other applications like it (Jaiku, etc).
You don't need to become a power user and active on every social network and communications tool out there. But you should be engaged and you need to monitor them.
It is relatively painless, requires minimal investment (The tools are free, it just takes time) and provides you with potentially valuable insight. These conversations have always been going on. Now there are just more of them and they can have quicker impact.
We need to use every appropriate tool in your repertoire. Your competitors are.
Posted by Mark McClennan on October 19, 2007 at 2:30 PM
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Whenever someone comes to me asking about blogs and other social media sites, I get the same question: what are the top ranked blogs? I try to point out that there are several ways to cut this, but people still want numbers.
The short answer? Size doesn't (always) matter.
I've long been critical of the idea that links determine much of anything, partially because they don't measure number of readers, but also because they assume that readership equals active participation from other blogs.
Shel Israel has made the point that if you have a blog with no links and three readers, it comes up as unimportant in the blogging world, but if those three readers include President Bush and his Chief of Staff, then it's influential.
Still, in the PR field we have a problem. Clients pay us to get them the best possible coverage in a defined period of time. So here at Schwartz, we've focused on what we call CAIT. That is, Community, Author, Intelligence and Topic. For each we ask a series of questions:
- Community--Does this blog have an active comment community? Are they gaining links from other bloggers and reporters? Do reporters/influencers/analysts read them?
- Author--Does this person put up their name? Do they work in the industry? Are they an analyst? A competitor? Interested party?
- Intelligence--As you are reading the posts, do they make sense? Are they in line with what you know about the industry? How do those commenting react?
- Topic--What is this blog truly about? Did the author write a piece about a client's area just once or is it a regular topic?
We look for a balance of all four elements. The reason is pretty simple: social media relations isn't about the big audience, it's about the right audience. So if a blogger, podcaster, vlogger, Twitter user or anyone else influences a community in an intelligent way that speaks to the topic of our clients, then that's someone with which we want to talk.
The fact is, these same concepts can be applied to just about any media and will work properly, but in the traditional media world we tend to know understand this concept inherently. When dealing with social media we need to be taught.
Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on at 7:30 AM
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OK, maybe Al Gore didn't actually invent the Internet, but he has certainly demonstrated the effectiveness of combining traditional media with new Internet media. Gore's crusade to combat global warming was recognized last week with the announcement that the former Vice President will share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Panel on Climate Change. Author David Rothkopf told Thomas Friedman, "Gore, even without the presidency, used all the modern tools of communication, the Internet, video and globalization to reach out and galvanize a global movement."
The key phrase is "modern tools of communication." Gore wisely used all the tools at his disposal. Inexplicably, many organizations today are still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to utilizing new forms of digital communication. There are tremendous advantages to be gained by combining traditional and new Internet communication tools. You may not need to spark a global movement, but I'm sure a movement within your market space will do just fine.
Posted by John Moran on October 17, 2007 at 12:51 PM
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Today's New York Times has an interesting story on ABC-TV's attempt to bring the Nightly News to the millions of people who now get their news online and rarely, if ever, watch the traditional evenings news broadcasts.
While CBS and NBC mainly use the Web to repackage their regular nightly news shows, ABC's "Webcast is an entirely different animal, sometimes resembling a younger, more technologically advanced version of the traditional 6:30 p.m. report. It is intended in part for people who view Web pages on iPods and cellphones, and ABC executives say they are deliberately aiming to please the 25- to 54-year-olds whom every news organization covets."
ABC acknowledges this "a first step toward a future that looks increasingly digital and multimedia." They're right, and it's only a matter of time before the other networks do the same thing.
PR agencies, and our clients, should also be making this transition to a new digital world. There are exciting opportunities for those that do it well.
Posted by John Moran on October 12, 2007 at 11:23 AM
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The public relations business is at a real crossroads. The advent of social media means it's now impossible to control messages perfectly. Communications is becoming more real. Raw. Genuine.
This is a very good thing.
Social media is here to stay. But so is traditional media. In fact, the traditional media that makes it through this crossroads will be even more powerful than before. They'll have cracked the code on integrating both types of media with the kind of rich, full content that develops and grows audiences.
This blog explores what's happening in the ever-evolving communications world. We'll talk about how companies can benefit from these changes. We're also tackling trends we see in the media and the industry practice groups we cover. Opinions, best practices and interesting tools are all fodder for discussion.
Our job, as PR professionals, is to help guide our clients through this new and ever-changing environment. It's going to be fun. As I mentioned in a recent panel sponsored by PR News, "Ten years from now, we're going to have great jobs, just very different jobs."
Hope you enjoy our thoughts.
Posted by Mike Farber on October 2, 2007 at 9:56 AM
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