Great resource for any nonprofits embarking on social media communication plan (and for my final assignment!). Twitter part is extremely helpful, as I, personally, was still unsure how to use Twitter in an organized way.
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Solis and Breakenridge November 17, 2009
I am not in the PR industry. So honestly, I was a little shocked to know that PR people, in 2009, still need a whole book to tell them about all this. Groundswell seemed somewhat too basic as well, but, OK, that was April 2008, and the target audience was more general, i.e., “our clients, and the world” in the authors’ words, people who are afraid of being left behind by the new wave of social media. But this book is specifically for communication professionals, who are supposed to be media-savvy, and, well, communication-savvy. In the world where everyone is blogging and twittering, seriously, do they need to be taught by a 300-page book that they should listen to the conversation among customers, engage in the conversation, and talk to them instead of pitching? Some suggestions sounded even comical, such as “[start with] setting up Google Alerts and [...] monitoring http://search.twitter.com”—wait, wait, you have a PR job and you don’t know what to do with Google and Twitter?!
Then I came across this video, and sort of understood who the authors of this book are talking to and trying to convert.
I’m sure few people would agree with him (in fact, of course, puzzled tweets immediately followed), but the fact that such a 1.0 view as this still can be presented in public illustrates the die-hard ancient regime of the PR industry.
What is useful about this book is, while the other readings assigned so far (Groundswell, Here Comes Everybody, and The Long Tail) all discussed what has changed, and how and why it has changed, focusing on the strategies required in this new environment, it puts more emphasis on what then we should do and lays out the tactics to carry out the strategies. The idea of social media release, equipped with elements that enable the release to be shared, discovered, and retold, is important to keep in mind whenever we disseminate information online. The list in the appendix of the social media by category offers a good overview (though I wasn’t really impressed with what the authors call the Conversation Prism—especially, I don’t get the point at all of paying 20 bucks for a static poster version…). And “Defining and Measuring Success” section in Chapter 18 (pp. 264-267) is a simple but practical guidance to get started.
I suppose, unlike PR in big businesses, which is resistant to the shift from the world of thick clip books to online conversation with people, small nonprofits like my client would more readily embrace the PR 2.0, since grassroots campaign has been part of their culture. One-to-one relationship with the constituents is all the more important for the cause-related organizations to gain and maintain support from them. Being small, they can be more responsive and flexible, and utilizing various online communication channels is often more cost-effective than competing with large corporations for attention from few media outlets. The benefit is more obvious.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the intervention to Jack O’Dwyer goes—how will he, and his comrades, defend the traditional PR? There should be something to what they have to say, but, how relevant could that be, and how long could that remain relevant?
