Peer to Peer
A lot of companies never got the memo that the Internet is a Peer to Peer medium, meaning that anybody with a keyboard, internet access, and a bad attitude has just as much power as a multi million dollar, multi national organization out here. Our cost to publish is less than a round of Golf, and is a hell of a lot faster. Even News organizations haven’t figured out that the 24 hour news cycle has been replaced by the 24 second news cycle.
Strictly Commercial
How and what we buy today, is not the result of multi million dollar ad campaigns, or clown suit marketing on street corners, but is more likely to be decided by somebody on the web, who posts their opinions about stuff they bought. Just see what happened to the Kryptonite Lock folks.
5 Monkeys
Ken Camp has re posted a bit he did back in 05 about Institutional Memory. It illustrates very well the problem of conditioning and ‘We do it this way because we’ve “always done it this way.” ‘, sinkhole of current commercial presentation on the web. This sinkhole is lined with the desperate PR Firms, clutching at the carcass of diminishing ad budgets, re branding themselves as Social Media Life Coaches, Conversational Marketing Guru’s and my personal Favorite, the Social Media Release.
Asumming that you have more brains than a gerbil, understand the difference between Evangelism and Fundamentalism, and haven’t swallowed the Blue Pill, a caveat. Before you pat yourselves on the back so hard you require surgery to repair a torn labrum, remember that we are monkeys too. Think Feldman vs Israel, AP vs Bloggers. What’s a internaut to do?
Fight Back with Doc Searls!
VRM aka Vendor Relationship Management is the latest attempt by Doc Searls to bitchslap companies into realizing what Peer to Peer means. Rather than telling you what I think he is saying, and what I think about it (this will require much more time than I have today) here is Doc his ownself.
Shelley, your cynicism is not lost on me. It’s funny that you’ve elected to pick on PR folks who have bent over backwards to expose the sausageworks and make substantive changes to the PR industry, but that’s your call to make.
With regard to SMRs, I feel you are “reacting to the reactions” more than to the ideas themselves, i.e., because a lot of marketing “types” have embraced the Social Media Release for the WRONG reasons, thinking of it as “the answer” for “social PR,” you’ve decided that the original concept itself is bad.
But if you were to actually read my posts on the subject (like this one: http://bit.ly/3xfzgF) I think you’d realize that I am in agreement with you that SMRs are SUPPOSED to be all about peer-to-peer conversation, about stripping away the marketing B.S. and making sure that people can ask direct questions and have a voice to the heretofore faceless corporation.
Since I doubt you’d disagree that those are worthy goals, I wonder why you’d attack the messenger. Unless you’ve not really listened to him, but only to what’s been said about him.
Again, your blog, your call. Good luck with it. I’m off to nurse my injured shoulder, to better rub my blackened eye.
Todd,
Pay Attention! Shelley doesn’t live here. Alan Herrell – the head lemur does. Please Update your Bookmarks.
My cynicism is a reaction to what I see as a trend to re invent PR as a new industry using the ”Web 2.0” ”Social Media” buzzwords to keep PR firmly between the company and the customer. To maintain the status quo and keep those billings coming.
The Static Web
What the internet has done since the first animated .gif has been to enable people and companies to make a direct connection between each other.
The first impact of this revolution by companies was the ability for companies to reach a worldwide audience, and to shorten the ‘time to live’ with their products and services. Being able to post new products and pricing info in moments, rather than a TV/radio/newspaper /magazine’s ad sales/marketing cycle (months) which in fast moving markets is critical between profitability and bankruptcy.
The first casualty and bellweather event was the first time that BYTE magazine ceased publication. This is particularly significant as at the time, BYTE was the magazine ‘of record’ for all things computing.
When advertisers discovered that they could build websites and promote their own products on their cycles, the need for funneling PR/advertising dollars to these media declined to the point that BYTE closed it’s doors.
They quickly discovered that on the web. color was the same price as B/W, which even to this day is not the case in the print world.
Now before you make the argument that PR and advertising are separate, save your breath. I don’t believe it and online evidence supports this. ‘PR’ tries to make the distinction between them, but companies do not. Plus PR firms seem to be offering consolidated services.
(when both hands are aware of each other, things seem to run smoother:)
PR’s other notable ’service’, and redheaded stepchild, ‘crisis management’ , suffers from making the arguments that it was a small explosion/oilspill/disaster, and it is too bad about the ducks, but you wanted it. But hey, different strokes. Moving on….
The Dynamic Web
With the invention of blogging tools, being able to create a website without even needing a website designer (i was one in a former life), the game has changed once again, and the PR industry is one of it’s first casualties.
One of the wounds being suffered is being demonstrated here.
We are having this conversation mano a mano, despite the fact that we have never met except online, are in totally separate industries, yet both of us have a certain wit, and a reasonable amount of intelligence.
Regarding my triumvirate of PR Social Media Guys, Solis is a relentless self promoter, and if he is to be believed, invented Social Media, PR2.0, and is attempting to be anointed as the Pope of PR.
Rubel is the energizer bunny of all things social media, but at the end of the day is still Edelmans’ dog.
You are the youngest of the lot, (and admittedly my favorite) and have not yet gone ‘Clear’ in the Church of PR. There is hope.
Regarding the SMR, filing the numbers off a press release and giving it a new coat of paint, does not in my jaundiced view, change it’s nature. it is still a press release.
Unlike Kevin Roberts and the Lovemarks Lunacy hoping for billable’s with user generated content, hoping we will wave our asses in the air and enjoy the smell of our burning flesh in a fundamentalist ‘future beyond brands’.
You are right in that ‘marketing types’ have clutched it to their chests hoping to staunch the flow of billing dollars going somewhere else. But then those are the lazy fucks whose idea of Social Media is an email list of folks who posted the word ’social’, and become fair game.
If I were you I would be more pissed.
The SMR concept is a good one, as you acknowledge that the ‘amateur expert’ is a much better high value target, whose return on investment is much better than using the shotgun approach hoping to hit the side of a barn whose side is growing exponentially every day.
The amateur expert is that person whose passion/fixation on whatever it is they are talking about, is as you mentioned in your personal branding post, is the target. Offline of course, we know them as those dotty folks with 300 lawn gnomes.
Taking the time to get know the prospect, one post and site at a time, is a daunting task yet will probably work much better.
Todd, this is not an attack, it is an opinion. And I do listen to you. Because If there has to be a PR industry at all, I would prefer it to be run by folks who are eating their own dog food, and not some asshole with a copy of outlook and some copy cut and pasted from some dusty textbook.
But hey, that’s just me.
alan herrell – the head lemur
P.S. I do hope your shoulder gets better, as it sucks not being able to swing with both hands:)