Well-known PR blogger and social media expert David Phillips of Internet Services Ltd opened the discussions at this morning’s senior practitioner breakfast roundtable on social media by talking about the growth of interactive media. While the traditional media such as newspapers continue to lose readers and advertising revenue, social media offers an increasing number of ‘eyeball opportunities’ said Phillips.
Practitioners need to think about how they ‘package’ their stories and should be producing new media releases, as opposed to the more usual variety that are emailed or mailed. What makes new media releases different is that they contain a hyperlink to online information, and both the release itself and online content – down to the number of words, visuals and audio they use – are structured for immediate use by the media – e.g. internet, blog, podcast, videocast can all be used to get the message across.
‘The media is the message’ argued Phillips, and early adopters of the technology will benefit from the opportunities and a whole new array of communication platforms.
Opening up the topic for discussion, participants talked about how PR practitioners bridge the gap between existing and social media and take their stakeholders with them; how they will need to keep pace with the evolution of ‘push technology’ or risk losing out; and how they must continue to take the ethical high ground and to act with transparency and integrity.
With social networking forums like MySpace selling for billions of dollars, the sky's the limit on the value being placed on relationships. And as relationship management experts PR professionals are in a very strong position to take the lead in using new technologies to manage the reputations of their organisations and client.
