Brave New World of Communications; You're In or You're Out

We're pleased to share with you the first of an ongoing series of guest columns Lois is writing for O'Dwyer PR.  This was published on August 7.

It must have been extremely odd for the live actors of early radio and TV broadcasts when very few people had radios or TVs.  It was like putting on a play for an empty theater.  Unless they were performing before a studio audience, they would have no idea if they were playing to a handful of people or to no one at all.

This is where we all are venturing these days in the wacky and wonderful world of social media. “You need to be part of the conversation” is a refrain you will hear from all social media consultants.  We have used the phrase ourselves when educating our clients about how the world of communications has changed so dramatically in recent years. 

But the big questions are: what conversations? With whom are you conversing? Where are the conversations taking place? And, most importantly, is anyone listening when you do converse?

When I began doing PR in the mid-80s when hair bands reigned and shoulder pads were huge, our tools to “get the message out” were phones, voice mail, snail mail, faxes and live tours or press conferences (if it was really big news). 

Over the last 20+ years, the fashions of communications have changed more gradually until about six months ago, when social media truly exploded (in my humble opinion).  That’s when the impact of blogs was documentable.

The credentialed journalists building strong blog presence contributed tremendously to this shift.  The implosion of the print publications, particularly in the technology industry, shifted into high gear during this period, pouring many great writers into the blogosphere where they quickly found work writing for an existing blog or beginning their own. 

Email is omnipresent and continues to be tough to manage.  Snail mail is almost prehistoric (in some ways it grabs attention, as it is so unusual to receive an invitation on paper these days.) Instant Messaging is in full force, with most people being bilingual (AIM, YahooIM, etc.) And Facebook is a site for grownups too, alongside LinkedIn and MySpace (for professionals much younger and more daring than me.) 

Adding Twitter to the mix means you can have micro-blogging conversations with hundreds of people at the same time all day and night long.

So just like the adventurer who decides to climb Mt. Everest, the business professional venturing into this scary new territory of social media needs expert help.  They need to find the right Sherpas to summit successfully, safely and cost effectively.

So here’s our" Social Media Sherpa’s Guide to Becoming Part of the Conversation."  Taking a page out of pop culture magazines, we’ll take the usual components of a communications program and then suggest what tool is “in” today, was in “five minutes ago” and is just plain “out.”  [Click on the "full screen" arrow in the top right hand corner of the widget below.]