PAN Communications prSPEAK

In 1964, author and media pundit Marshall McLuhan introduced a controversial concept that would forever alter mainstream media (and subsequently, our role as PR practitioners): “The medium is the message.”

In his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan writes that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways and argues that any given medium affects an individual’s understanding of its content.

Without getting mired too deeply in his media classifications of hot/high definition and cool/low definition media, much of McLuhan’s theory revolved around the senses receiving the communication: sight, sound and touch.

As PR practitioners today, our job is ultimately to ensure the successful receipt of our clients’ messages by their target audiences. Far too often we labor first and foremost over the content of our message—be it a press release, bylined article, white paper, blog post or tweet—while relegating the message’s delivery and medium to an afterthought.

While there is consideration for the medium, the decision is generally influenced by the content and target of the message, e.g., “We want to reach young adults, ages 18-24 who earn less than $60,000 per year… let’s Tweet!” or “Our buyers are teenage guys… let’s do a YouTube campaign!”

Of course, I’m making generalizations here, but the truth is that many times we choose a particular medium based on the statistical, demographic information of its audience rather than taking the time to understand the effectiveness of the medium for influencing the “aha!” factor.

Successful PR is more than having a great message. It also goes beyond delivering that message to the right recipients. From start to finish, it involves a series of decisions that, as mentioned above, ultimately ensure that the right message (read: understood the way it was intended) is received by the right audience, leading to the right response or action. In a presentation to the staff recently comparing various wire services, junior associate Adam Novak comically quipped, “If a press release goes out over the wire but nobody sees it, did it really go out?”

Obviously, the medium is going to impact the successful delivery of a message, but let’s not forget that our job is not just to deliver the message. Rather it is to make sure it is received and interpreted the way you, or your client, want it to be.

We have tools at our disposal today to create and distribute content quickly and easily over any medium imaginable, and at PAN, we’re finding that clients are eager to make these a strategic part of their message. Where “pitch” and “press release” were formerly limited by pre-defined parameters, PR practitioners around the world are now enjoying the freedom and creativity to reshape the way we do our jobs.

Recent technological advances have provided us with unlimited access to information and the opportunity to communicate with anyone at any time. The Internet, instant messaging programs, and smartphones have revolutionized our culture and the way our society interacts. However, the question remains as to whether our social skills have been enhanced, or harmed by the innovations of the information age.

Much of what makes us human- our gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, enunciation, etc.- are often lost or misunderstood through electronic communication. With the sense of anonymity we feel typing onto a screen, our words become depersonalized, misrepresented, and they can easily be misconstrued. We create virtual personalities that are often more recognizable to our peers than our true personality.

We can essentially live out our lives sitting in front of a computer screen; we can order our groceries online, communicate with friends, stay updated on world issues, sustain a job, learn a language, and virtually satisfy a dream by creating a Second Life. While the prevalence of these advances certainly has benefits, is it ever truly as genuine as the real thing? Where has face-to-face human interaction gone?

Even our emotions have become compilations of punctuation signs – , <3 , >:-(

How long before our soul, the core of what makes us distinctively human, becomes misplaced in a binary world of 0’s and 1’s?

Was in a meeting today and the topic of ’social media’ came up, again… It got me thinking about all of the opportunity and work being done by folks in the communications field – but to date, a number of organizations haven’t had the chance to see any of their benefits due to the need for immediate visibility/ROI (see sales).  YES ink is good – YES communities are good, but at the end of the day, people spending money with you and that have a budget being watched closely these days want to see their name in print (do I think that is correct, no – but is it true, in my humble opinion, yes). We in the PR industry know and understand the value of social media tools – but it is getting the client up to speed on its value and need is what takes some time and patience from organizations today.

 

We as an industry need to understand and realize that there is more of an opportunity out there today and that we have to put our clients in front of it. By finding some balance between traditional and social media tactics, I think you’ll see the most positive results.

 

As I have been reading in the trades, Twitter and blogs, organizations need to see the value (read into revenue) from social media tools/campaigns in order to accept it fully. Will it come, yes, but for now we need to use our industry smarts and insight to convince them that “if you build it, they will come” – someone already said that right?

Many of us here at PAN follow Chris Brogan via his blog and Twitter (gotta love the random one-liners). He had an especially good roundup of “50 Online Applications and Sites” that people should consider on his blog today that caught my eye. I’m happy to say that I’m using many of them including: Twitter Search (good one for our clients), Twitter itself, FriendFeed, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora, Yelp, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and Wordpress among others.

I can’t believe how many of these there are, but must say this is one of the best roundups I’ve found to date. Plus it’s so well organized, and we know I love organization!

So if you’re feeling a tad bit… overwhelmed shall we say, by all the social media and online applications out there, use this list as a good starting place and pick out some new sites to try. Also add Scour.com – the new social search that pays you to search and give feedback on results – to your list of favorite sites. It just launched and though it’s not on Brogan’s list, it’s an amazing online tool!