On Sunday I attended the panel Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media, accompanied by my friend Stingray and other Weber Shandwick colleagues. The panel featured Jason Falls, Lee LeFever, Patrick O’Keefe and Darren Rowse. I must say, this was quite the opportunity to listen and learn.
The focus was on what NOT to do in the social media sphere and best practices on how to approach online communities when representing a client, place of work or when promoting yourself. The discussion was superb and I thought it brought up some key issues that we as public relations professionals must keep at top-of-mind when approaching new online communities.
Here are some of the big takeaways:
- Contributing to the community: Add value to the community you are starting to look at. Contribute positively and slowly gain respect before “shouting” your message. Don’t “use” a space that isn’t yours to begin with.
- Transparency in the community: If you are a public relations/marketing person or anyone for that matter, don’t come into an online community by going “under the radar.” Think about what you are doing and don’t try to avoid detection. Be honest and open about who you are and why you are there.
- Patrick O’Keefe gave some great advice about leaving comments on blogs and introduced me to some new phrases:
Adverquestions and Introtisements: these are really just advertisements in disguise. You come into an online community that isn’t already familiar with your voice (i.e. you don’t have “street cred”). You leave a question or comment that ever-so-conveniently includes the name of your client or a link to their web site. Simply put, it’s tacky and the community will instantly lose respect for you, instantly diminishing any credibility you might have.
I hope you’ll find these takeaways as important as I do. In the meantime, here are a few extra thoughts sparked by the conference that I’d like to share with you:
- At the conference I often heard term “Live Twittering or Live Tweeting.” Let’s think about what this actually means and evaluate the terminology: The mere act of twittering is done in the present, and meant to be “live” inherently. It asks “What are you doing?” not “What did you do this morning?” or “What are you doing tomorrow?” If we do tweet in past or future tense, that’s implied by the language we choose to use (i.e. I just went to…, I’m about to go…). But “live” twittering—aren’t we are already doing that by simply tweeting in the present?
- We’ve had the conversation about the terms “blogger” vs “journalist” vs “citizen-journalist” over and over again. There was a memorable comment from someone (sorry I don’t know who you are, but props!) that traditional journalists are supposed to be unbiased, however when a blogger starts out, they often let their biases be the framework for what they blog about. It’s often the defining mark and identity of a blogger. So, if a blogger moves into a role as traditional journalist (or “Big J” as it was referred to at the conference), must they also lose the bias that made them a well-known blogger in the first place? Just wanted to share the interesting perspective
On my personal experience: I’ve realized that one of the best ways to learn and shape how you think about social media is by having some of these discussions in person, in a room full of smart people with different experiences and ideas to put forth. For me, it was an experience that helped reinforce some of the key issues related to public relations in the social media sphere that help shape the way I work, think and act.
My advice: connect with people in your industry, have the conversations that help shape important issues and learn that it’s okay to listen and learn from the experts but at the end of the day, you must carry those lessons with you and think for yourself.