Lansons Live
Social media wave set to thrive in 2010
Like a wave we've been watching approach the shore, 2010 will be the year when the tide of social media finally breaks over Brand Britain. Making landfall are customers in their thousands - all expecting to be heard and spoken to through these new communication channels. There was a time not so long ago when the only way to get something done was to write in. Now - as companies such as 02 on Twitter are demonstrating - customers can expect and receive instant attention, all in 140 characters or less.
Putting customer and company together like this is a pure communications play – so what role for PR? In this evolving environment our advice moves upstream. Social media is just another channel – like TV, radio or newspapers. Each type of channel has its own mandate and its own content requirements. So just as CNN radio found out the hard way that it couldn’t simply rip the voice track off TV news reports (“These are the faces of the captured servicemen” just doesn’t cut it on radio) we’re here to give our clients advice and guidance over what works best and what doesn’t in these new comms channels.
"...online PR is growing up the supply chain like the proverbial beanstalk."
Some things don’t change with the medium though. You still need something to say, which translates to “content” in the online and broadcast world. Then how you package up that content becomes the skill. The latest Harry Potter might have you spellbound for three hours in the cinema but leave you fidgeting after an hour at home. The 30 minute travails of life in Albert Square might be a perfect from the sofa but irritating on an iPhone train journey. Quality and context are at the same time absolute and variable. So what works well for one production won’t for another intended for a different milieu? In an environment of these potentially treacherous shifting sands knowledge of both production and distribution are key. So, far from being squeezed out, online PR is growing up the supply chain like the proverbial beanstalk.
2010 is also important for another reason. To continue our aquatic theme, it is the year when we will become immersed in the internet. 3G phones, smart devices and the applications to make them useful will hit critical mass and the concept of pervasive computing at last becomes a reality. Instead of being “logged on” at home or work in front of a large box, we will be perpetually online through phones and music players. Just look at the augmented reality applications for the iPhone. Lost in London? Just hold up the screen and see the nearest tube stations superimposed. Now imagine that extended to bank branches, sales offers, restaurants, cinemas… All this content will need creating and sponsoring and we want our clients to be at the forefront. This means combining our creativity and production expertise with our clients insights and brand values. To deliver the definitive, robust, compelling collateral that means our target audiences need look no further for their information.
As science fiction writer William Gibson famously wrote (in the Economist) “The future is already here, it’s just not well distributed”. Indeed so, but the gap between the haves and have nots is fast narrowing.
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