Social Media. The Medium isn’t the Message, the Message is…
I had an interesting day yesterday with @jwatton (VP Marketing at ShipServ) discussing the ins and outs of Online PR, Social Media and web marketing at large. One of the things we touched on seems to be a recurring theme right now, so I thought I’d give it some thunk-time.
It’s this…
Where should we focus our energies in this brave new world of Social Media? Is it on the ‘media’ itself – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc? Or is it on the message – the content that we produce?
My money’s on the latter (and so is John’s).
It strikes me that any time spent thinking about the relative merits of the media is wasted. We have something to say, we say it. All that matters is that our choice of network (media) is appropriate – it needs to help our comms effort, and, if it’s going to work really well, it should also help the recipient.
Social ‘Media’ isn’t ‘Media’ in the good old sense of the word. It’s just a bunch of tools for telling, saying, thinking, communicating. This is a no-brainer. Twitter is an open mic – a semi-public address system for whatever’s on your mind. Whether or not it’s appropriate for ‘PR’ or ‘branding’ is neither here nor there. If you have something to say and it’s worth saying, then say it…. If your followers find it useful and interesting then so much the better. They may even re-Tweet you (woah!).
This also means that who creates the message in the first place is irrelevant. What matters is that the message works in context. One blog post may wither and die, another may go stellar, but the reason for this will never be the author…. it’s all to do with the quality of the content. I think this is an important point to make, because it’s often lost in Social Media translation.
Naturally, as a PR guy you’d expect me to say this, but the beauty of Social Media is that it scales almost infinitely and it’s your audience (and/or Google) that decides whether or not your stuff is working. That’s a very, very different thought from traditional PR… and it’s exciting.
It means that to succeed – to generate more buzz and interest than the next man – all we need to do is focus on producing useful/interesting/amusing/insightful content… ‘Authenticity’ is absolutely irrelevant in this respect. I don’t care if the CEO wrote the blog post or his flack. If it’s good/helpful/etc, then I’ll link to it. Same goes for Wikipedia entries and most other forms of online content (within the realms of the ethical, of course. I’m not suggesting you do a Belkin here!).
The Medium, then, isn’t the message – the message is. Use whatever channel you feel will fit the bill. Hire whoever you want to create the message. Just make sure it’s useful and it’s well executed…
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Roger Warner
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Kat
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Pat
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Michael Hartland
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