By Jamie Adams
The recent Presidential campaign was a solid and ground-breaking example of successful marketing and publicity. Never before has a Presidential campaign used social networking technology to the fullest: blogging, RSS feeds, YouTube, Twitter, social communities and more. In this article, I'll take a look at technology and social media and discuss how it has shaped my own career in the field of public relations.
I thought I was ahead of the curve with social technology, as I have years of handling PR for a top technology publisher and past experience with high-tech clients in an agency setting. The last few years however, I have definitely seen a shift in the abundance of new PR tools and feel myself grasping for knowledge when it comes to new strategies and tactics in the industry.
Whereas I used to sit for hours on the phone calling reporters pitching the latest and greatest new product or story, my day is now filled with things like answering customer questions on Facebook, creating avatars in Second Life, monitoring Twitter, or attending technology webinars over lunch to make sure I'm up on the latest trend. The difference in the industry is night and day and I can honestly say its' an exciting challenge - social media has brought a welcomed transformation to my world of corporate public relations.
Traditionally, PR professionals spend a majority of their time researching and crafting the right message, finding the appropriate tactic and audience to disseminate the message to, and educating or engaging that audience to take action. Though all remain the staples of a solid communication program, social media has modified all of these key components of PR - not only altering the way we do public relations, but the form it takes and how we measure it.
The write stuff
Writing and research are probably the two most valuable skills in PR, and with the development of social media, communicators have had to actually change how they write in order to make use of the new mediums.
Take for example the fundamental piece of communication, the press release. The basic template has altered from its traditional form to an ever evolving social media release. The new look and feel has less story and more facts, bulleted lists, embedded audio/video, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social tags, bookmarking sites like Digg and del.icio.us, and hyperlinks galore.
Beyond search engine optimization, which is undoubtedly the most beneficial part of the social media release, the new design provides media elements in a user friendly format making it easier for journalists to prepare a news story.
Writing in a variety of new social venues changes the style, tone, and word choice. Much of the new social mediums use less technical jargon and formal writing in their messages. A common strategy is to use quick facts to concisely get a point across, as well as a more relaxed tone to be more relatable to customers.
