Monday, July 20, 2009 Marcom A to Z — E for e-
Pick your favorite digital application: Web sites, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter. If you’re unfamiliar with and aren’t learning about these tools, you’ll become professionally obsolete. It’s that simple. Technology drives the entire marketing industry today.
I’ll focus on PR in this post. These new channels add tools to the arsenal that facilitate information collection and distribution, as well as conversation and dialogue. To Grant Thekan’s point in his post, Digital marketing lesson from Sir Alex, it’s important to strategically choose the right e-channels for a given situation. Failing to at least consider all available channels is to practice PR in a vacuum.
Today, it’s do (adopt and evolve) or die (by becoming irrelevant).
I read an interesting blog post recently by Valeria Maltoni about Google Wave, a new online communication and collaboration tool to be launched later this year: Will Google Wave Eliminate the Need for PR as Media Relations? Threatening! Will PR lose a tool or part of its strength with the next technological evolution?
No. If public relations is practiced as it should be, the fundamental deliverable is not a news release or a tweet or a (insert the newest widget or output option here), but rather strategic counsel. To be good, effective and worthwhile though, that counsel must include information about every applicable opportunity, tool and option that will help drive desired results.
Here’s the challenge: Technology is evolving at lightning speed. MySpace gives way to Facebook which seems to be giving way to Twitter, and so on. Today, we must be professionally nimble, learning each day about the ebb and flow, growth and decline of tools that help us communicate. Just because an e-option might be a flavor-of-the-day doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adopt it in its heyday if it helps us effectively reach a target audience.
This is an exciting time! More open communication channels exist than ever before. Because of that, PR as a profession has and will continue to be influenced with each technology that’s introduced. The e-app becomes a tool, just like the news release. Strategy is changing too because, with so many possible channels for communication, truth (of direction, messaging, brand, etc.) is not defined by an output of information but rather by everyone with an internet connection and the desire to speak their mind.
Consequently, PR should stand firmly on its most basic and unchanging deliverable, strategic counsel to drive effective two-way communication, while adopting and evolving each day as the next best game-changing e-options come to life.
This weekly series discusses marcom concepts by the letter — from A to Z. The next post: F for Fun.
Reader Comments (2)
Maybe an unqualified post coming from someone who with one connection on LinkedIn?
Mike,
Thank you for reading our blog and this post! We can all continue to learn about digital channels. And that's what this post was about — learning and adopting. In response to your comment, I must point out that I have about 130 contacts on LinkedIn. Please link with me here. Please keep reading and commenting. These posts are thought-starters. The topics will come alive and we'll all learn something new with a little dialogue.
Anna