PR Technique Aug'07

Social Media

The run down on understanding, embracing and using social media effectively

Some PR professionals don't dare to mention it, others can hardly stop talking about it: social media. Even though many companies outside marketing and communications still hardly know what's going on, people who work in these industries all realise that social media will change the way we work forever. The big question is, of course, how.

Simply put, social media are online tools that are aimed at, and rely upon, people who share. Share what? Well, basically everything that can be exchanged digitally. There are tools for sharing opinions (weblogs), audio (podcasts), personal information (Facebook, MySpace) news (Digg), information (Wikipedia), video (YouTube, Joost), photos (FlickR) and much more. Virtual worlds such as Second Life can also be considered social media, because they incorporate many of these features.

At the moment, there still is a clear distinction between traditional media (newspapers, television) and social media. This distinction is becoming more blurred by the day, however, as publishers all around the world integrate social media features into their offerings and new technologies such as ebooks and interactive television become available. Eventually, there may come a time when all media will be social.

But we're not there yet. The phenomenon is still in its infancy and rapidly changing, making it neigh impossible to look further ahead than a year or two. Still, a number of trends are taking shape, for which you could prepare yourself.

First, you should accept that you will (further) lose control over your corporate messaging and perhaps even your brand. Whether you like it or not, people will start sharing information (if they are not already doing so) about your company and products via social media. Their influence on your reputation will likely become bigger than anything you say about yourself.

When looking at the impact of media coverage, the biggest difference between traditional media and social media is probably the sheer amount of voices. When something really newsworthy happens at your company, it won't be just a couple of journalists doing an article. Thousands of people could be discussing your company and trying to engage with you within a span of hours. You'll need to be able to either leverage this potential or minimize the fall-out, depending on whether the news is good or bad.

The best thing you can therefore do is to embrace social media and get ready to interact with your customers. After all, the best way to influence the conversation in a social network is to participate in it. If you're not quite ready yet to engage in social media yourself, you should at least keep a sharp eye out on what's going on, for instance by enlisting a monitoring service.

Last but not least, you should at all times try to be as open and honest as possible. This may require a radical change of culture, but it's vital to survival in the social media world. Social media aren't made by veteran journalists who have learned to deal with corporate mumbo-jumbo. No, they're made by normal, everyday people, who thoroughly dislike companies that intentionally try to hide behind vague or incomprehensible corporate statements. So be open, and be honest. Remember that, and you should do fine.

Tips:

Be prepared to lose control

Learn to deal with huge numbers

Embrace social media

Be open and honest

Erin Atan

Vice President Asia Pacific

LEWIS Global Public Relations