In a recent conversation with a PR colleague from the Baby Boomer generation (no age provided, #ageism) the topic of social media came up. Handles and hashtags (@’s and #’s) and follows and likes; it was all a little much for him. To make matters worse, he wasn’t feeling the pressure to encourage his clients to create social media strategies because so many of his clients were older and, because they didn’t understand social media, weren’t interested in venturing into murky waters they didn’t understand.
I spent a good 30 minutes trying to explain to my colleague how social media and PR are hand-holding best friends who should be given every opportunity to “hang out” with each other. (Read my Huffington Post piece on the subject). I waxed poetic about what happened to PR when social media came onto the scene — how a PR executive’s job, while expanding somewhat in nature, also got a boost it had never before seen in a tradition that had been around for more than a century. I pointed out a recent live Twitter feed I had penned and the incredible PR ROI. Having organized and orchestrated the PR for the political event and, satisfied that the top media had arrived, I pulled out my laptop and sat down to live tweet the debate as it got under way. In 140 characters or less, using hashtags and handles, I reported the entire debate, live and in real time as it happened. The debate was live nowhere other than on my laptop. Thanks to my agency’s commitment to social media and Twitter, the debate was being reported to more than 6500 Twitter followers. I had done my prep-work for weeks, tweeting with hashtags and handles to my company’s followers (with retweets and favoriting by others) so those who were unable to attend the event knew they could follow the debate @sassemedia. I explained to my colleague, “if you go back to my tweets and read from the bottom up, you will be reading an article on the debate: what was said, who said it, etc.”
Therefore, when it comes to explaining social media to those who can’t quite understand its importance in mainstream marketing and PR, simply put, social media, and Twitter at its core, is extreme short-form journalism.
If magazines are long-form journalism (3-thousand to 10-thousand words) and newspapers are a shorter version of long-form journalism (1-thousand to 2-thousand words) and radio is short-form journalism (50 to 200 words), then social media is extreme short-form journalism.
If you can shift your mind and think of social media this way, “extreme short-form journalism,” then what you post will start sounding a lot less like the theater of the “I-don’t-get-it-therefore-I’m-not-interested” and much more like what it is: the opportunity to shout out about yourself or your client in timely, tiny journalistic pieces, short “sound” bites, if you will, ripe with messaging without all the extra clutter.
No longer will saying “Happy Pizza Day” feel like a waste of time. Now you’ll see the benefit of writing something more informational. For example, if you are a physician or a nutritionist: “On Pizza Day we’d like to remind you that #pizza can be healthy, especially if it’s made with a whole wheat crust. In fact, there are 250 grams of cancer-fighting lycopene in 1 cup of tomato puree that tops a traditional pizza pie. Eat up, but as with anything, not to an extreme.” (Please note: I am neither a doctor nor a nutritionist, so please do not quote my nutritional post as medically approved information; it’s merely an example).
Expanding on this example further, “Happy Pizza Day” takes on a new meaning for different companies:
- Pizza restaurants may use the day to offer extreme incentives for pizza pie purchases. Since “National Pizza Day” falls on February 10th (the second month, 10th day), a fun incentive could be 2 pies for $10, two slices for 10-cents, all orders for pies placed by 10am will receive pies for $2. (I’m merely thinking out loud, here. Incentives offered are business specific and depend on various factors, issues and concerns – such as location and target market – that need to be taken into consideration when planning a strategy).
- Retailers may choose to offer complimentary pizza. Their social media post could read, “In celebration of ‘National Pizza Day,’ we will be serving complimentary pizza (all day, as supplies last, etc.).”
- Nutritionists may write a post that provides general nutritional facts about basic pizza ingredients and, taking their social media commitment one-step further, add to their post a link to a blog about pizza, nutrition and healthy, at-home pizza recipes.
Note: For those interested, our research shows there are at least three days set aside to celebrate pizza:
- “National Pizza Day” – February 10
- “National Pizza Party Day” – May 16
- “National Cheese Pizza Day” – September 5
The bottom line here is to not ignore the free-gift that social media has brought the world at-large. Use it as an additional PR platform to talk about yourself/your business. Find the right venues for your target market and create a strategic plan. If you cater to teens, know that in droves they’ve left FB for Instagram. If your target market is 40 – 60 year-old women, you’ll find them on FB (that’s why the teens left!). If you are a designer, Pinterest and Instagram are incredible places to show off your work. If you are a psychologist and you are writing blogs, show off your work by posting links to those blogs on LinkedIn, Twitter and FB. Ask yourself: Who is my target market, where are they hanging, what are they saying?
We will be getting into target markets in more detail in Part 3 of our social media-specific blog, “Rules of Engagement.” On that note…
Coming up next in Social Media Part 2: Preparing for 2014 Part 2, i.e. Qs 3 & 4
In Parts 3 and 4 of our social media blog:
Part 3: Rules of Engagement: Do you know where your target market is hanging out on line and are you engaging them in a way that reflects the essence of your business?
Part 4: Now that you understand social media, do you have a social media strategy?
And for a review of our series of 2014 blogs:
- What are you long- and short-term goals?
- Who are you? – Defining your brand: Do your verbal and visual messages (your brand) speak to your target markets?
- What’s your PR plan for 2014? (FYI-If you think you don’t need public relations, well … you are wrong).
- What is your marketing plan for 2014?
And still to come…
- Do you have a plan that enables the trifecta – PR, marketing & social media – to work together to support growth in 2014?
- Does your website have a call-to-action? Is your content up to date?
- Do you have a blog? Why this oddly named entity is so important to your marketing, PR, social media and SEO strategy.
- Do you even have an SEO strategy?
- Does your 2014 strategic plan incorporate public relations, marketing and social media within your overall business cycle to support growth and sustainability?
