Social media and criticism

Photo from politicspa.com 

It's election day in the United States, which means the campaigning that has taken over American (and some Canadian) media discourse is almost at an end. 

In the last couple of weeks, we've noticed a theme of campaign fatigue working its way into news stories, pundit commentary and "everyday folk" opinions; we're ready for this thing to be over. 

While I know Americans have reached this point at the end of most presidential campaigns of the 24/7 media era, it seems (to me, anyway) worse this time around. 

And I think it's at least in part because of social media.  

Social media is a great democratizer... mostly

Don't get me wrong: I love following Facebook and Twitter on debate nights -- quite honestly, to watch a political debate (or the Oscars, or a Bomber game) without social media now feels like only half an experience. Social media gives us access to far more voices and information than we've ever had before, to provide context and dissenting opinions to help us interpret the things we see and hear.

This enriches the experience for me; for the kind of person who always reads footnotes, social media turns every one of these experiences into an annotated text. Or, maybe more accurately, a Pop Up Video.

I'll admit that I have enjoyed the snark, too. But when lighthearted teasing becomes ridicule, and mocking turns of phrase takes over for discussion of substantive issues, I think we turn a corner -- and I think that's contributing to the campaign fatigue.

"He said something that came out wrong" is not the same as "he is an idiot and unfit for public service," but sometimes we react as though it is.

It's not just politics 

I recently had a discussion with a PR colleague about how it seems we're all just a little quick to jump to criticism these days. 

Social media makes it easy. Even for those of us using our real names online, we can hide behind the sheer numbers; we are lulled into feeling it's safe to criticize without really understanding the story behind the story, because it seems everyone is doing it.

But maybe everyone shouldn't be.

B.C. teenager Amanda Todd's tragic suicide earlier this fall was a wake-up call to teens, parents, educators and anyone who cares about kids. Shortly after her death, mainstream media and social media sites were filled with stories about the bullying problem, and particularly, the issue of cyber-bullying.

In my Facebook timeline, which is fed by friends tending to be closer to middle-age, the posts shared outrage and sadness that this girl could have been tormented to this degree.

But I discovered in a conversation with someone much younger that her Facebook timeline (fed by friends in their teens) contained posts suggesting Amanda Todd had gotten what she deserved. 

Is our growing culture of ridicule part of the problem?

It appears the "grown-ups" can easily recognize what's wrong when a teenager is bullied to suicide (and point fingers at those we feel should have done something about it before it was too late). 

But maybe we need to consider whether there's a link between that and our own behaviour. 

Do we think a politician would be at risk of committing suicide because a bunch of faceless tweeters made fun of him/her? No. But where is the line? At what level of celebrity must a person accept that the rest of us are allowed to ridicule him/her, with or without cause, and with or without any experience to validate our opinions?

We rush to judge people -- celebrities, politicians, business leaders -- and organizations for their missteps. We call anything in any way negative a "PR disaster" or a "crisis." Politicians feign outrage every day, calling for one another's resignation, and we either jump on board or we yawn. Outrage and mocking have become entertainment -- and that can't be good.

Questioning and challenging are important. 

It's important for journalists to question leaders and organizations influencing our lives, and to expose hypocrisy where they find it.

It's also important for students of public relations (in school and in the working world) to examine issues and crises experienced by people and organizations in the public eye, and learn from how they dealt with them.

But let's keep it productive. 

Your social media presence and your PR job hunt

Image from www.wycliffecollege.ca

Ask (almost) anyone in PR these days whether you should have an active presence on social media if you're looking for a job in the industry, and they'll say "yes."

While not every PR job uses social media at this point, most employers want to hire people who keep up with advances in the ways people communicate. After all, if and when their audiences "get there," they want to be ready.

So, get online -- that's the message.

But how much does it matter what you say?

More than you might think.

I've had a couple of interesting conversations recently with people who've discussed this topic with other people, whose position is that they should be able to say whatever's on their mind on social media.

"I shouldn't have to edit myself -- social media is for expressing yourself."

"An employer has no right to hold my opinions against me if I'm otherwise qualified for a job."

Strictly speaking, that's true (within reason). But it's important to remember the importance of context.

It's a fact that we all have the right to free speech (as long as it isn't hate speech). But it's also a fact that most hiring managers do online searches of job candidates -- and that they make judgments based on what they find.

Just as an employer may decide you're not cut out for her corporate office if you show up for your interview dressed for a nightclub, she may make assumptions about your professionalism based on what she finds in your social media footprint.

The online search doesn't take much time -- and if the employer finds you posting things she feels reflect poor personal judgment (e.g. trash-talking current or former employers or clients; expressing discriminatory opinions; appearing to prioritize drinking/drug use over professionalism, etc.), she might just save herself the effort of going any further with the application.

This doesn't usually extend to expressing yourself politically: most employers (unless they are political parties or affiliated organizations) are unlikely to decide against hiring the right person because of their leanings to the right or to the left. (And if they are, you might want to consider carefully whether you want to work for them anyway.)

But if your social media "brand" communicates "I'm a loose cannon" or "I value partying over anything else" or "I discriminate against people for [insert reason here]," that says something to an employer.

It says "I'm going to be difficult to manage, and I may create problems for the organization both internally and externally."

Think before you post

Just remember: anything you post to social media is "out there" and can be found by a potential employer.

Do you have a right to express yourself? Yes, you do.

Does the employer have the right to choose job candidates based on her own judgement? You bet she does.

If you're looking for work (in PR or anywhere), what the employer perceives trumps everything else. It won't matter what the circumstances were behind that series of tweets or Facebook messages or blog posts -- you may never be given the opportunity to explain the context for a posting that casts you in an undesirable professional light.

You might send joking tweets which your friends know to be sarcastic -- but if a potential employer sees those tweets without knowing the context, they could lead to incorrect conclusions about your values and professionalism.

Those incorrect conclusions could cost you a job interview... and you might never know what put you out of the running for a job you wanted.

Talk when your publics are listening (and listen when your publics are talking)

First-year Creative Communications students are building their first publicity campaigns; in class, we're talking a lot about how to plan publicity activities to have the best shot at earning our publics' attention. We think about our audiences' preferences and habits when we choose tools, when we choose locations, when we choose messages... and when we choose timing.

We know more people tend to read newspapers on the weekend, and more people tend to listen to radio newscasts during commuter drive-times than in the middle of the afternoon. More people tend to be in shopping malls at mid-day than first thing in the morning or last thing at night. More people tend to be shopping for flowers and chocolates today than most other days of the year.

Knowing these things helps us plan how and where to reach the publics we hope to reach -- and if we plan to use them in our communication plans, it's important to realize there are behaviour trends on social media, too.

Last week, Argyle Social tweeted a link to its "Social Timing Insights Infographic," which illustrates the importance of knowing your publics' habits related to social media. (Follow the link to check it out on Argyle's website -- my screenshots below are a bit tough to read.)

Which social media are your publics using? And when are they using them? It matters, if you want to attract their attention.

Argyle Social compares social media activity for businesses reaching out to business customers (B2B) -- for example, providers of business computer systems -- with activity for businesses reaching out to consumer customers (B2C) -- for example, grocery stores.

This is great information to get us thinking... but it isn't definitive (and doesn't claim to be). If you want to reach your publics using social media, you need to research which platforms they're using and when they're using them.

They may align with the overall trends Argyle Social found, but they may not. For example, in the B2C market:

• It's possible parents of newborns are using social media at different times from parents the same age, socio-economic status etc. whose children are older (and sleep through the night). 
• It's possible high school students are using social media at different times than college and university students just a few years their senior. 
• It's possible a shiftworker's "weekend" falls during what the rest of us call the work week. If it's shiftworkers I'm hoping to reach, I should consider that in planning my social media timing.

As in all things PR, the better you tailor your approach to your publics' habits and preferences, the better job you'll do reaching them.

And the better you measure your effectiveness this time, the better-positioned you'll be to improve next time.

With social media, companies should go all-in

I recently caught up with a communicator friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, and as will inevitably happen, we started talking about PR.

Specifically, we were talking about how important it is for businesses whose audiences are using social media to participate in social media – and the challenge that remains, especially in larger corporations, in persuading upper management that engaging with audiences online is worth the inherent risk.

“Even if they just opened a Twitter account and used it to blast out their news releases, it would be a start…” she said.

Social media requires two-way communication

I completely understand my friend’s frustration. She feels her client’s continued absence from Twitter and Facebook works against it, and she’s right. Her client is discussed openly on both platforms – customers talk about both good and bad experiences.

Some call the company out when they’re unhappy with their service, hoping it will respond to the public embarrassment and give them what they want. It’s what [some] people do on social media… it’s part of the deal.

But because my friend’s client isn’t there, it doesn’t respond. Occasionally an employee will catch something and try to address it from their personal account, but it isn’t anyone’s job to do so (that my friend is aware of, at any rate). There is no corporate account, so it’s just unaddressed ranting for the time being.

Unaddressed ranting voiced into the wilderness isn’t good for your brand. Unaddressed ranting to your face is worse.

Today, customers flaming a company on Twitter and Facebook potentially get the attention of any of their followers/friends who happen to be reading that post. It’s not great for the company, but unless the content of the post is egregious/embarrassing enough to go viral or get mainstream media attention, the damage is relatively limited. The complainer may add complaints about not getting any attention from the company, but the complaint can potentially do what the company wants it to do – just die.

It’s just one complaint, and people understand that even the best companies can’t satisfy everyone all the time. But when your customers’ Facebook feeds and Twitter timelines contain multiple “everyman” complaints about your company, and no-one seems to be getting any satisfaction, it can affect your brand.

While my friend saw it as a first step, I think a “placeholder” account that only blasts out corporate messages for the sake of being there, without engaging with customers, could be even worse for the brand.

Whether you mean it that way or not, a corporate account represents the company on a platform built for two-way communication.

Customers expect companies to engage in two-way conversations on Facebook and Twitter – that’s what those tools are for. You wouldn’t open a customer service desk and restrict the staff to providing pre-written advertising and corporate messages, because you know your customers would be offended by that. One-on-one communication should be a give-and-take.

Of course, some of the C-suite reluctance to green-light corporate social media accounts is because this isn’t really one-on-one: while it feels like one-on-one to the customer, it happens in front of an audience of (potentially) millions. It's risky.

We’re at a strange crossroads, where tweets and status updates from the corporation are expected to have all the background and credibility of its other corporate communications – but often need to be produced on-the-fly, around the clock, by the hundreds. It’s no small feat for a large company to begin using social media.

Eventually all companies will have to come on board

Social media isn’t a fad. The way we communicate and consume information has fundamentally changed in the last 10 years, and mobile technology is only advancing that evolution further.

Eventually, unless are they are without competition or stakeholders of any kind, even the largest, most risk-averse companies will have to get with the program… as uncomfortable as it may be.

There was a time not that long ago when communicators were working this hard to persuade their clients to build websites, using many of the same arguments we’re using now for social media.


“Online is where our customers are going to be! We need to be there!”


“Online is where our competitors are going to be! We need to be there!”


“Yes it will cost money, but it’ll cost more to leave our competitors and our customers alone there!”

Gradually, they got it.

It’s now standard for a company with a large customer base to have:

• a website offering some kind of customer care (even if it's just a "contact us" email), and
• a call/contact centre of some kind, and
• a communications (PR/Corporate Communications) function.

Within a couple of years, tops, customer-focused companies won’t be able to get away with leaving social media off that list… for all the reasons we argued in favour of a website, above. Of course, there’s a new argument from the C-suite we need to address, now, too:

“Yes, our customers could use our social media sites to publicize their dissatisfaction with our services. But as it is, they're just using their own to do the same thing… and we have no way to respond.”

Ignoring the fact that people are complaining about you doesn’t change the fact that they’re complaining about you - or that others are hearing it. It just leaves your hands tied to address misinformation they may be spreading with their complaints, not to mention dealing with the issues they raise. And worst of all, it sends the message that you’re not interested in helping them.

Companies: if you have customers who are using social media, get on social media and communicate with them... before your competitors do it for you.

Tire-kicking on Google+

Late last week, I succumbed to the temptation and joined Google+, the latest shiny new thing social media has to offer.

A word of warning before I begin: I am a beginner on this platform. I haven't spent more than a few hours on Google+, and so am no expert. If I get anything wrong in this post, please do me and my readers the favour of correcting me in the comments, below - thanks!

Mashable.com has provided an overview of Google+ and what it offers compared to other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter; a more detailed review is posted here. 

My early impressions

I think Google+ has huge potential, if -- and it's a big if -- Google can get people to adopt it. 

Here's what I can already see being huge selling features.

• Easy grouping of friends/followers/people. This is one of the big ones, for me. As an instructor in a college, I have a large number of students who are active in social media, many of whom follow me on Twitter for the benefit of the links I share, and many of whom also send friend requests on Facebook. To keep things fair and ensure no-one thinks any classmates have any "inside track" information others don't, I've declined current student Facebook requests (with an explanation as to why). If they still want to be Facebook friends after they graduate, I'm happy to add them - but not before then.  With Google+, I can easily categorize people according to the kinds of information I intend to share with them. I can create a circle for current students - and once they graduate, can move them out into my custom "Communicators" circle if I want to. WIth drag-and-drop functionality, it couldn't really be easier.
• Easy selectiveness when posting to different groups of friends/followers/people. Related to my last point, if I want to post about something personal or family-related (I'm under no illusion that students who connect with me on social media for the PR-related links also want to know about all the cute things my kid says, cute as they may be), I can choose to only send it to my "Family" and "Friends" circles.  Some of my "Family" and "Friends" also qualify as "Communicators," who'd likely receive most of the links I currently send out on Twitter to PR-related content of interest, so they can be in both circles. At the other end, I have to think it would also make the experience more enjoyable for all my connections, because they're receiving less content from me that doesn't interest them.  Some of my Twitter followers would likely welcome my creation of a "Tennis" circle, saving them from having to read my cheers and rants during Grand Slam tournaments. And I could target administrative messages related to the Creative Communications program to students currently in it. Twitter's hashtag allows people to opt in to such messages today -- but it doesn't have a way for other followers to opt out, without unfollowing altogether (at least, to my knowledge).
• Potential, down the road, to streamline the number of social networks you're on (i.e. saving time). Just think: if everyone was using Google+, you could check and post to one site, and reach all the people you want to reach with the content you feel they would be interested in. This wouldn't just translate into time saved toggling back and forth between platforms -- it could also reduce time spent trying to refer back to something. "Where did I read that? On Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn?"
• Group video chat. I watched my students this past winter tweet back and forth about school projects they were furiously working on, to deadline. I can only imagine a Google+ enabled class would have an even easier time of getting together to discuss ideas, issues, and what constitutes a typo late at night once everyone's left campus. Same goes, of course, for collaborators in the professional world, and anyone wanting to chat with others in different locations. Video chats involving parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles will be easier to manage here than getting everyone on Skype (at least, in my experience). Not having used the new Facebook video chat service yet, I can't speak to whether it's equivalent.
• Integration between social and the rest of the content Google has access to. I haven't used it enough to really experience this yet, but if I'm reading Mashable correctly, Google+ will make it easier for you to find content that interests you, from both within and outside your social networks. If it's done right, this has the potential to make a social network even more useful, as we now won't be bound by the limitations of our networks.

But here's why I'm not calling the game for Google+ quite yet.

On top of Google's successful execution of this whole thing, it still relies on people to leave where they are and come to this new place -- not an easy sell.

Ask any marketer about the difference in the cost of keeping an existing customer vs. winning a new one, and you'll find out that getting people to leave things they know to try things they don't isn't easy. Add to that the "stickiness" factor inherent in Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn's existing networks, and it's even tougher.

Without the people you want to interact with on Google+, it really won't offer the value for you; it'll just be one more login to add to your social media cycle. 

With more than 750 million users worldwide, Facebook has a pretty good lock on us, at least in the short term. Here's a screen shot I grabbed earlier today from Facebook (you can find these and other stats here) that gives you a sense of the leg up Facebook currently enjoys over the new game in town (which, Mashable is reporting, at least one observer is estimating at almost 10 million users in a couple of weeks, which is nothing to sneeze at either!).

Facebook's recent launch of video chat powered by Skype is, I'm sure, meant to address the new competition, showing Facebook doesn't plan to give Google+ much slack.

But to my mind, Twitter has more to worry about than Facebook. Mathew Ingram writes a good article on gigaom.com looking at Twitter vs. Google+ (I was alerted to this article on Google+ this afternoon by blogger ChrisD) and I have to think Twitter has more to fear than Facebook because of the way we use it.

• While Snooki may be using Twitter, your grandmother is likely on Facebook. 
• I (mostly) use Twitter to share information of interest with people who share interests with me (public relations, tennis, Red River College); I (mostly) use Facebook to connect with family and friends about other stuff.

Why do I raise these points?

Your grandma, and many of my non-office-dwelling family and friends, aren't looking for all the functionality Google+ brings. They want news, and community, and photos, and Scrabble, and Farmville (yeesh). Right now, there's no reason for them to move over there.

Snooki and celebrity tweeters, on the other hand, want whatever platform will give them access to their fans. Office dwellers and digital road warriors want whatever will be most effective and efficient. Twitter's real-time, un-gated news feed has offered that until now -- and given everything else the new kid on the block is offering, I think Twitter may see the biggest migration to Google+.

It's back to experimenting for me. If you have observations to share or any corrections to make, please comment!

 

Gaga over Maria

This week, media (mainstream and new, Winnipeg and international) fell in love with 10-year-old Winnipegger Maria Aragon.



This video was first posted to YouTube on February 16th, and as CBC News reports, went from 3,100 hits to over 2 million within 24 hours, after Lady Gaga herself tweeted how much she loved it.

Shortly after the viral video came mainstream media coverage, from the Winnipeg Free Press to The Huffington Post.

Local radio station Hot 103 brought Maria in studio on Thursday, where she chatted with Lady Gaga herself -- and viewership of that video went wild, too.



This is a great social media story. Perez Hilton reportedy sent Lady Gaga the link to Maria's video on YouTube; Lady Gaga liked it, and tweeted it to her 8 million followers, unleashing a wave of attention little Maria likely never expected.


Maria Aragon is a talented (and adorable) little girl -- and would have been without YouTube, Twitter, and the always hungry 24/7 media beast. But with all those things, she's talented, adorable, and a superstar... even if the latter is only for a local news cycle or two.

As for Lady Gaga...

With that little-girl's-dream fulfilling phone call on Thursday (recorded for posterity and shared online for all to enjoy), Lady Gaga won some hearts. With her invitation for Maria to sing with her on stage in Toronto a few months from now, she won a few more (and will win even more, I'm sure, at that show). And while she was at it, she got people (in this town, anyway) to stop talking about how much the new single sounds like Madonna's Express Yourself for a while.

Not bad, for 140 characters' work!

I'm not at all suggesting Lady Gaga's tweet was a publicity stunt; and even if you're suspicious of her motivations in agreeing to the phone call with Maria, I don't think you can deny that she seemed genuine, and that she absolutely thrilled that little girl.

But with that said, Maria's video does give us an excellent (and heartwarming) example of the impact social media can have in terms of publicity, given the right story.

When a newsman sounds like a PR guy

I caught a great interview marketing 2.0 expert Brian Solis did with Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief of CBSNews.com, about how news organizations have to evolve their approach to their business given the rise of social media.

Here it is, from Solis' (R)evolution series which, in Solis' own words, "connects you to the people, trends, and ideas defining the future of business, marketing, and media."



I shared this link with my colleague, journalism instructor Duncan McMonagle, saying "this newsman sounds a lot to me like a PR guy."

Duncan's reaction: "Uh oh!"

Smart strategy is smart strategy, no matter who's doing it.

"Dark side" jokes aside, Farber makes a lot of statements about what news organizations should be doing in the face of growing competition from Web-based media, which my PR students here at Red River College will tell you are basic tenets of good public relations.

For example, he says CBS News works to ensure its content can be found "where people are congregating." This requires research to determine where your audience is, what its preferences are, and how best to reach it.

PR people have been doing this for decades: understanding the principles of persuasion, we know we need to position our messages such that they offer something our audiences will value, and in ways that make it easy for our audiences to access them.

Sounding even more like a PR guy, Farber also says his business is "all about building relationships now, and trying to engage people."

There was a time when "newsmen" created the news, put it out there, and their audiences simply consumed it. They didn't have much choice: as Farber himself points out, there weren't nearly as many sources for news back then.

But as we all know, the same isn't true today: news comes at us from all angles. It isn't all credible, and it isn't all accurate, but it's there, and it's competing for our attention. The challenge for professional news organizations like CBSNews.com is to break through the noise and protect their audiences from their hundreds of online competitors.

Selling the news isn't much different from selling anything else.

Whether you're selling dog food, a political candidate, a non-profit as a good cause, or your news organization, the best way to build support and loyalty is to build relationships.

Our audiences in 2010 live in a world of unending messages -- coming at them from all sides, at all hours, in every format.

How to break through it all?

First of all, put your messages where your audiences are (for example, Farber knows his audiences use Facebook and Twitter, so his organization maintains profiles on both, with more than a million and a half followers). Don't make them hunt around to find you - they won't. They don't have time. And there are millions of other messages out there, ready to distract them if they try.

Secondly, engage with them. "Engage" is quickly becoming one of those throwaway words that lose their meaning in marketing blather - but its fundamental message is key. (It's also the title of Solis' most recent book.) Loyalty is built on give-and-take, two-way relationships. Give your customers the opportunity to get involved in what you're doing rather than simply watching you do it, and they're far more likely to stick with you.

Mainstream media outlets have a big job ahead of them, as our attention spans grow ever shorter and the media landscape fractures further.

In the long run, I'm betting on journalists like CBSNews.com's Dan Farber.

In which I predict the future

This week, we read in the Winnipeg Free Press about a telecom company error that had reportedly caused automatic calls made by the re-election campaign of Winnipeg's incumbent Mayor, Sam Katz, to show up on Call Display as having come from the home of an everyday Winnipegger.

Embarrassing mix-up, sure. (And to the former telco spokesperson in me, particularly interesting, since the reporter never mentions which telecom provider was being blamed, or gives that telecom company the opportunity to comment. Must remember to ask the Journalism instructors about that.) But it happens.

A discussion about the incident with my first-year PR class, though, got me thinking about the future of "robocalls," as folks around here were calling them.

Personally, I've always disliked them.

I haven't received any of the calls in question in this mayoral campaign, but I have received automatically-dialed, pre-recorded calls from federal candidates, credit card companies and long-distance providers, and what I can only guess are scams (telling me I've won a cruise).

As soon as I hear there's a pre-recorded message at the other end, I hang up. And if the caller has been (smart?) enough to tell me who's calling in the first few seconds of the call, I also think about how little I appreciate that caller's decision to interrupt whatever I was doing to listen to his/her message.

Interestingly, pre-recorded messages don't bother me at work -- but then, "mass voicemail" messages sent in the workplace are generally related to work, and are picked up at the receiver's convenience, so don't seem like such an interruption.

In class, we discussed why this might be: students called the pre-recorded message calls "shady" and "cheap" -- and "falsely personal," which I think is the bottom line for me. Despite the ever-widening range of mass media available to us today, the home phone remains (for now, anyway) a device for personal communication.

Who listens to these messages?

Well, political/PR junkies and journalism students, for one. After all, this stuff is all great ammo.

But otherwise, I'd love to see some actual research on who 1) listens to and 2) is persuaded by pre-recorded messages "pushed" at audiences through the phone.

I'd assume the target audience is people who aren't going online and "pulling" messaging from candidates' websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds (such as they may be, in the case of this particular contest), listening to candidates' debates posted on radio station websites, etc.

In the Lockstep crystal ball...

As demographics shift and the majority of voters move into "information pull" mode, I see "robocalls" going the way of the dodo bird as a campaign tool,

That's not to say campaigners won't look to "push" any messaging -- but I'll bet they'll be doing it through means that are less intrusive on voters' time, and in ways that allow more efficient dialogue between candidate and voter: I'll push this information out, but you can read it when it's next convenient for you. And if you have any questions or want to engage, I'll be ready and waiting -- when it's convenient for you.

The credit card companies and the fly-by-night long distance providers and the scammy cruise vendors may find it worth the risk to annoy customers who wouldn't have bought in anyway, for the chance at catching those who might.  But politicians seeking election won't, I don't think, have that luxury forever.

Social media have spoiled us a bit, in that we now have pretty much anytime access to pretty much everything. The more audiences come to expect to be able to receive information on their own time, the more anyone wanting their attention will have to adapt.

What Twitter isn't

By now, just about anyone who's likely to be reading a PR blog is aware of what Twitter is, and (in general terms, at least) how it's used.

In a nutshell: it's an online platform that enables the sharing of short thoughts, information and links among people around the world. On Twitter, you "follow" people to receive the messages they send out (called "tweets"), and your "followers" opt in to receive yours.

Twitter can be a hugely effective tool for PR, because it gives us the opportunity to engage with people who share interests; for more on that, please read this post from this blog, last year.

If you're using Twitter as just another way to connect with friends and colleagues, or as a way of gathering information, or as a way of providing information in case someone comes looking for it, this post isn't about you (Twitter is a great way to do all of those things). But if you intend to use Twitter as part of a strategic social media plan aimed at enhancing your relationships with your (or your employer's, or your client's) audiences, you might want to consider the points below.

New-fangled communication tools are still about people

Here's the thing. Online media like Twitter give us the opportunity to reach audiences well beyond the bounds of geography and even mass media markets. But people aren't just sitting around waiting with bated breath for our next pronouncement (well, not for most of us, at least).

Common sense (offline and online) would dictate that:

If we want people to listen to what we have to say, we have to say something worth listening to; that is, provide something our audiences will value.

If we want people to want to listen to us, we have to respect their time.

If we want to build relationships, we have to listen at least as much as we talk.

I've recently un-followed a number of Twitter users I'd been following because their tweets have, quite frankly, annoyed me for having ignored one or all of these basic truths about how people relate to one another. It's not that we shouldn't ever tweet personal thoughts or ideas - we absolutely should. But we have to remember we're interacting with other individual human beings using online media - human beings who have tastes, preferences, and demands on their time, and are going to want to see some benefit from having engaged in the conversation.

The examples I'm providing below come from my own observations of Twitter accounts belonging to people or organizations who could and should be using Twitter to build/enhance really valuable relationships, but are missing the mark.

What Twitter isn't

1. Twitter isn't a soapbox and a megaphone... or a fax machine.

Twitter is about engagement. It's said so often now that it's become cliche -- but it's true. Unless you are someone with Very Important Pronouncements to make (and even then, really), you are not going to get the maximum benefit from a Twitter presence if all you do is talk about yourself.

Good PR, regardless of the shiny new medium, will always be about relationship-building, not just about talking about yourself. So a politician is smart to set up a Twitter account for an election campaign, but should use it to listen to voters and have exchanges and conversations about the issues that matter to them. If the account sends out tweets but doesn't follow anyone, the message is "I am going to say what I have to say, but I'm not interested in listening to you." Not great PR.

2. Twitter isn't the online equivalent of ribbon-cutting events.

I follow a number of politicians whose tweets are largely "Am in beautiful Komarno, Manitoba enjoying delicious perogies!," and "Am in beautiful Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, enjoying delicious lobster rolls!" with the occasional "My opponent is a bad Canadian" message thrown in. Twitter users (that is, "people") are generally intelligent enough not to confuse name-dropping with actual engagement.

3. Twitter isn't a means to spew marketing messages for your clients, disguised as independent thoughts or opinions.

This is one I've noticed among fellow PR folks. I'm not at all saying that PR, advertising and marketing professionals shouldn't use Twitter to share messages about their clients -- but that shouldn't be all they offer, unless that's the understood purpose of the account. If your account is "@MLLdeals" and all your tweets are advertising for MLL products, that's fine. People can choose to follow the account because they want MLL ads.

But if you're in the PR business, you don't want your Twitter feed to become the online equivalent of an ad flyer for your various clients; people will simply choose not to read it. Again, it's always about what your audience wants. MLL's audience wants MLL's deals; but your audience wants insights from and interaction with you.

4.  Twitter isn't a collector of people who have nothing better to do than to read your every thought.

The people who follow you on Twitter have chosen to do so because they think they will learn something, or be entertained, or receive information they want by doing so. They are also likely to want to know about you as a person, not just a "source," so by all means share (appropriate) information about yourself. But don't over-share, either in terms of content (i.e. information that is too personal) or in terms of volume (i.e. too many tweets).

I recently un-followed a community leader who published 17 separate tweets in under 24 hours on the same topic (hyping a product he was really pleased with). I don't know whether he works for the company behind the product or not, but it was just too much. He may tweet things I'd like to hear tomorrow, but I won't read them. I'm fickle, I know... but so may your audiences be. So tweet wisely.

So, how should we use Twitter to build relationships?

The same way we build relationships in real life: listen, and talk, and listen. Respond. Share things of value, and respect others' time.

On Twitter, as it is in so many other facets of life -- and as it will be on the "next big thing" to come along in social media -- good PR comes down to treating people the way they want to be treated.

"The iPad changes everything."

This is my Mum, and that is her iPad.

Photo credit: Dad's iPhone

Mum will be delighted, I'm sure, to have me tell you she just celebrated a big birthday. And for her birthday, Dad got her an iPad.

Now, Dad has always been an early adopter when it comes to technology. Mum: not so much. She has never used a PC, doesn't have a cell phone, and took a while to warm up to automatic teller machines, if I remember correctly. Like many of her generation, Mum has steered clear of computers: not finding them intuitive, she always found it simpler (and friendlier!) to just talk to people if she had something to say.

Over the years, though, Mum has admitted to feeling a bit left out at times, when we kids and Dad would share items of interest by email and on Twitter. Every once in a while we'd talk about getting her an email account, but she wasn't too jazzed about using Dad's computer.

"The iPad changes everything."

A speaker discussing social media said this at the CPRS conference early last month. We've already heard that women aged 45-55 are the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook, and the speaker was absolutely right: the iPad will only add to that.

Little did I know that only weeks later, I'd see how devices like the iPad will bring new constituencies online in my own family.

Mum has had her iPad two weeks, and already emails regularly, reads all her kids' blogs, checks out YouTube videos, is on Facebook, and uses an app to play Scrabble with my sister and me. Its uncomplicated interface makes it all easy, and takes away the intimidation factor for someone who's never used a computer.

This isn't a sales pitch for the iPad

I don't even have one... yet! But it is worth thinking about from a PR perspective.

As devices like the iPad make online communication more accessible, ever-widening audiences will be looking to communicate with the companies, organizations, and governments that serve them on the Web.

The smart ones will be there, ready and waiting to engage.

"You don't need social media."

Don't be this guy.

Image from Fellowship of the Minds

I'm in Regina at the national conference of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS), an event which I attend every few years, and which always leaves me with a renewed passion for our profession. This year it's even more exciting for me, as I pick up information and resources that'll be helpful to my students, as well.

In addition to all that good stuff, today I picked up a little knowledge that surprised me a bit, but which actually means good things for my students. And what was it?

That there are still PR pros ignoring (or is it denying?) the influence of social media.

I attended a session this afternoon given by Joe Thornley and Martin Waxman, two of the three hosts of the PR podcasts on Inside PR. Their presentation, "Social Media Trends to Watch," gave an overview of the impact social media are having on the way we communicate and on the practice of PR, and was pretty well-attended.

From quick show-of-hands polls Thornley and Waxman did during the session, it appeared that a significant portion of the crowd was not yet active in social media other than LinkedIn, which it seemed a majority had used.

Just so there's no misunderstanding...

I don't think everyone should be using social media (yet). Social media are only effective in reaching audiences which use social media (or are influenced by those who do). If you know your audiences don't use social media, it would be irresponsible to be investing significant client resources in them.

The folks who came to this session without much experience with social media were doing exactly what they should be doing. They came to find out what the big deal is about, and to learn how these tools can be used, which will help them be better counsel to their clients than they would be if they were unaware of the potential social media offer.

But then... overheard in the elevator...

In the elevator back up to our rooms after the session, a number of the people who'd attended started talking about social media. "Oh my God, that stuff just went right over my head," said one. "I don't think we really need to know about all that," said another. And a third: "Oh, you don't."

You don't?

They then reassured each other that it's just very niche groups using social media, and that if they aren't targeting those groups, they don't need to worry about it.

Don't believe it.

Unless you plan to retire next week, don't believe that you can ignore social media if you want to be competitive in the job market, and if you want to be able to provide solid strategic advice to your clients.

While not every audience uses social media, and only audiences using social media will be receptive to PR efforts that employ them, a good PR counsellor needs to know about them and how they work in order to provide sound advice.

That advice may well be to direct resources to other efforts – traditional media relations, special events, community relations, whatever – but unless you understand what's out there and how it may touch your client's audiences, there'll be a blind spot in the counsel you provide.

Making yourself aware of and conversant only in the issues and tools you know to be of interest to your audiences at this moment in time is like wearing a suit that only has a front. If your audience stays in that perfect spot right in front of you, you're fine. But if anyone moves, you'll be... exposed.

And one thing all PR pros should know is that someone always moves.

Ignore social media – or any significant communication tool – at your peril

Now may not be the right time for your client to be undertaking social media efforts. But maybe your client's business will change; or maybe your client's audience will change; or, maybe, you may just want to go work for someone else someday. Someone, that is, whose audiences are talking about – and wanting to interact with – your client online.

In any of those cases, my colleagues from the elevator will be out of luck – and a practitioner who's more open to embracing change in communications, like a recent Red River College CreComm grad, for instance, will be waiting to step in.

Ann Curry: How to recover from a public gaffe

I caught a Yahoo! News story today about NBC news' Ann Curry having given a commencement speech at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts last Saturday, in which she created a bit of a PR problem for herself.



Oops.

As a respected journalist, Ann Curry's reputation takes a bigger hit over this kind of error than someone else's might; she's expected to do her research, and to get the facts right. That's why we listen to her.

But with that said, we all make mistakes; and the more public our profile, the higher the likelihood they'll come with public embarrassment. So, if you (or your client) is a public figure, what's the best strategy? Do you make excuses? Do you pretend it never happened?

In the social media age, neither of those is going to work.

As far as making excuses goes, they rarely get you any sympathy. It's entirely possible she had a researcher put notes together for her -- or even employed someone else to write the speech. But when you're invited to give a speech, the audience expects that you're providing your own insights in your own words. Laying the blame somewhere else won't cut it: the buck stops with you.

And as for pretending it never happened, you could, but you'd be the only one doing so. A quick Google News search on "Ann Curry Wheaton" this afternoon returned 435 news stories.

So, what do you do?

Own it.

When you make a mistake, admit it, apologize, take the hit you earned, and move on: just like Ann Curry did. As the Yahoo! article reported,

"For her part, Curry penned an open letter to the Wheaton community expressing that she was "mortified" by her mistake. She wrote, in part:

So it is with a heavy heart that I ask you to forgive me for mistakenly naming graduates of the other Wheaton College in my address.

I now know I should have named National Medal of Science winner Dr. Mary Ellen Avery, former New Jersey Governor and former EPA Director Christie Todd Whitman, literary agent Esther Newberg, Oscar-nominated actress Catherine Keener and Ken Babby, the youngest senior officer in the history of the Washington Post, among others. Thank goodness I got Leslie Stahl right.

I am mortified by my mistake, and can only hope the purity of my motive, to find a way to connect with the graduates and to encourage them to a life of service, will allow you to forgive me."

Then, she used her Twitter account to proactively own up to her mistake (her tweet links to the news video above).



I don't know whether she addressed it on The Today Show this week (I couldn't find any video online), but I wouldn't be surprised if she did. (If you can answer this question, please do so in the comments!)

Now, to add embarrassment to embarrassment, a commenter on Gawker.com noted that Curry had misspelled Lesley Stahl's name in her apology... but still.

Curry's apology letter (sent on Monday) is humble and sincere and makes me, at least, feel badly for her. In this situation, I think that's the best she could have hoped for.

We all make mistakes; the rest of us should just be thankful ours don't become fodder for 435 news articles.

How do you choose a social media consultant?

The Beast.

In my office at Red River College, we have one of those amazing do-everything-but-make-coffee photocopiers, which also act as scanners and fax machines.

These days, I'd wager the fax is just "might as well throw it in" functionality, since the machine already has a printer, a scanner, and broadband access for emailing the documents we scan. The fax is rarely used; the only action it usually gets is the occasional transmission of a hand-signed contract, and a smattering of junk faxes (for the young'uns, that's what we called "spam" in the olden days).

Though we get far fewer faxed sales pitches now than business faxes used to, I'm always amazed to see there's anyone still marketing anything by fax; today's technology allows us to create communications that are so much more compelling and persuasive, and can be so much better-targeted, without spending much (if any) more money.

I saw one such generic sales pitch fax this week. It looked like an unfolded print brochure, and was addressed by the sender's fax machine to my predecessor here in the PR program at Red River College, who retired a couple of years ago.

The sender?

A consultant offering a $1000 one-day course in Strategic Communications.

The first rule of strategic communications is that you build your program around what your target audiences want, what they like, what they respond to; that's what's most likely to motivate their buy-in. While I could be wrong, in 2010 I think you'd be hard-pressed to find the audience that wants, likes, and responds to generic black-and-white unsolicited faxes.

If that audience does exist, it's not hanging out at the receiving end of my office's fax machine.

This particular consultant has been offering short workshops and seminars on topics like strategic communications and media relations in major Canadian cities for years. His course outlines appear to reflect our changing times: nowadays, his "Strategic Communications" course includes "Using Social Media and other online technologies to spread your message."

I agree wholeheartedly that any good course in strategic communications in 2010 should examine social media and how they can be used to help organizations build and nurture relationships with their audiences. But I'd question whether a businessperson marketing strategic communications courses in 2010 by fax is the right person to teach it to you.

How could a consultant use social media to sell PR workshops?

Success using social media is rooted in engaging in conversation, providing something of value, and building community -- not the hard sell. To be successful using social media for PR purposes, you have to make people want to listen to you, so they'll hear what you have to say.

• For starters, a PR counselor could use Twitter to share his/her insights on PR issues and provide links to content of interest to PR people... building a following that could become a target audience for his/her courses.
• (S)he could use a Facebook group to build a community among people who've attended his/her courses in the past, to keep the in-class conversation going... providing a platform for discussion about PR topics and a networking opportunity for past clients, as well as another vehicle for reaching new ones.
• (S)he might participate in PR discussions on LinkedIn, adding valuable perspectives that could lead other participants to view his/her profile and learn about his/her courses.
• (S)he could write a blog providing his/her perspectives on PR issues in the news (using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and his/her website to publicize it), creating a valuable resource to both past clients (whose online referrals could help with marketing) and new audiences (s)he may not even be aware of.

While it's a start, having a website and placeholder accounts on social media sites does not make someone an expert in social media.

Do your research

Before you turn over any money to a consultant offering to teach you how to use social media, do a bit of investigating. Luckily for us, experience with social media is relatively easy to research: quick looks at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a Google search are all you'll likely need. Even if your consultant has participated actively in social media on behalf of clients (i.e., not under his/her own name), chances are slim (s)he isn't also using social media to market his/her own business, too. That's where (s)he will have learned the ropes.

While the fundamentals of strategic communication haven't changed, the communication environment has; you want a consultant who can help you leverage social media to their greatest potential in this new environment.

Understanding them starts with using them. So if your online search doesn't show your social media expert to be an active participant, I'd suggest you keep looking.

Generation gap?

My three-year-old looks for her

"Elmo's Monster Maker" app.

If you want to feel old and soon-to-be-obsolete, watch a three-year-old use an iPhone or navigate YouTube.

Kids are sponges for information. We don't have to show them how to fasten a button or choose the right puzzle piece. And that's by necessity: because just about everything in their world is new, they are masters of "figure it out." They observe, reason, and replicate behaviours, learning by trial and error what works. That, combined with their total lack of concern about potential embarrassment or failure, among other things, makes them far more efficient learners of languages than adults.

It also makes them perfect little candidates for social media.

A couple of weeks ago, Fisher-Price launched three new iPhone apps targeted at two-year-olds, prompting Mashable to ask, "How many 2-year-olds do you know with an iPhone? Fisher Price seems to think there’s a fair few out there..." Kidding aside, Mashable's Amy-Mae Elliott recognizes the market for these apps is really parents who may want something to occupy a busy toddler for a few minutes in a grocery store line. And while the prospect of a toddler with her own iPhone sounds nuts, the fact is, today's toddlers are so surrounded by technology that they adapt to it naturally.

ABC-123-0011000111010

Today's kids live in a digital world: there's no arguing it. They help their grandmothers with the TV remote; they understand touch-screen, finger-pinch technology (or, at least, how to use it). They "get" website navigation and how to use a mouse; for a great example of online content aimed at toddlers, check out Sesame Street's website. They instinctively know that swiping the screen of a handheld device will advance the pictures. That touching an icon in a menu will open a game. That if you click on the triangle inside the circle, you'll get video; and if you click on the little square at the bottom right, the video will fill the whole screen.

They live in a world where special YouTube channels and blogs built just for them are a quick destination for entertaining, safe content... even if you're not old enough to spell out a URL on a keyboard.

So, what does this have to do with PR?

Today, maybe not that much, unless our clients are in the youth or education markets.

But as babies like my daughter grow into tweens (God help me, a mere decade from now!), teens and young adults, their habits, tastes, and expectations will increasingly form critical mass -- and will drive how we communicate.

So. If you're hesitating to "go 2.0" and join the online conversation, now's the time to get going. Because if you think online communication is growing rapidly today, just wait till these kids are old enough to become consumers. There'll be no turning back.

CPRS Manitoba 2010 Social Media Conference

On Wednesday, March 24th, CPRS Manitoba will be hosting a half-day conference at Winnipeg's Hotel Fort Garry on "integrating social media into public relations and communications strategies."

The program promises a great line-up of speakers who'll share their own experience and perspectives, with panels on how social media is changing local news and how to leverage your social networks.

Speakers will include:

• Keith Bilous, ICUC Moderation Services
• Bruce Owen, Winnipeg Free Press
• Glenn Tinley, Studio Publications
• Curtis Brown, Endless Spin Cycle and Probe Research
• Jason Hasselmann, New Media Now
• Corey Quintaine, Kildonan Place Shopping Centre
• Shel Zolkewich, Shiny Packages
• Rebecca McCormack, Cake Clothing
• Colin Whitney, Mars Hill Group

The conference will run from 7:30 a.m. to noon, and will be followed by the third annual CPRS Manitoba Communicator of the Year luncheon. This year's recipient, Clare MacKay of The Forks North Portage Partnership, will share her experience as the communicator behind The Forks' revitalized brand as an exciting destination for visitors and locals alike.

Click here for the event brochure. For more information or to register, check out the CPRS Manitoba website.

Red River College students making snoows

This week, graduating students in the program in which I teach, Red River College's Creative Communications, are presenting their year-long independent projects to a packed house in south Winnipeg's Park Theatre.

These presentations are an annual tradition in Creative Communications; but this year, there's a new twist: they're being live-tweeted by a quintet of first-year students using the hashtag #ipp10.

I wrote a guest post for the snoo.ws blog about this, and many of the ways our program has evolved to reflect the changing communications industry, this week.

If today's excellent presentations were any indication, there's a lot more in store for us Thursday and Friday. If you're in Winnipeg and have some time to be impressed, come down to the Park Theatre -- and if not, follow the event live on Twitter!

Facebook is making us the gatekeepers

In PR, we have traditionally referred to the mainstream media as "gatekeepers;" since they controlled the most credible mass media, they decided which information was communicated to mass audiences, and in what way.

Now, Brand Republic is reporting this week, Facebook may be turning the tables.

Research by Hitwise suggests that Facebook has become the fourth-largest distributor of online news content, behind Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

That means that, increasingly, we are deciding what news to read online based on what our friends recommend. Our friends -- and we, to our own followers -- are becoming the gatekeepers who determine which news outlets get the audience.

Given the competition mainstream media are facing from online sources, they need readers/listeners/viewers now more than ever; and, if Hitwise's findings suggest a trend that will keep growing, social media users will play a major role in determining which ones survive.

Feeling empowered?

Audi: volunteering for a black eye

A story running the rounds on Twitter last night drew my attention:

The link led me to a blog by Danny Brown, which outlined the PR nightmare Audi may be about to enter with its Super Bowl ad campaign.

Audi is reportedly using its Super Bowl airtime to advertise its "A3 TDI diesel, which gets 42 mpg highway," and is priming the pump for the ad with a series of YouTube videos like this one, introducing the "Green Police."

In his blog, Danny Brown cautions about a potential PR backlash against Audi:

"The campaign is based around a new creation called the Green Police, who will spearhead a social media program to build interest in Audi’s ad at this year’s football showcase. The Green Police enforce ways to protect the environment, and encourage people to a better understanding of environmental issues. There’s currently a series of YouTube mock education videos as part of the program, as well as a Green Police Twitter account.

The problem is, there’s already been a Green Police enforcement organization, but not one that you’d want to be associated with. This Green Police was part of the Nazi persecution and execution of millions of Jews in the Holocaust of the Second World War.

The implications of Audi’s choice of name for their campaign could be huge, especially since Audi is a German company. The first question is obvious – didn’t anyone at Audi’s PR or advertising arm/agency do any research?"

Since that blog post was first published yesterday, it has received more than 100 comments and has been tweeted more than 275 times (including a re-tweet by me, with the introductory note "Really?"). A debate has grown up around whether this actually constitutes a major issue, as Brown suggests, or whether it's not really a big deal.

The arguments I've read against this being a big deal include:

• The Nazi "Green Police" were commonly called that because they wore green uniforms; it wasn't their actual name
• Many people are unaware of a link between the name "Green Police" and the Holocaust
• A number of environmental groups internationally call themselves "Green Police," including, according to answers.com, a task force comprised of law enforcement groups "assembled to crack down on emissions in large US metropolitan cities"
• The enforcement officers of Israel's own Ministry of Environmental Protection, according to one commenter on Brown's blog, are called "Green Police".

So, is this a big deal or not?

Even if you don't personally think so, from a PR strategy perspective, it doesn't matter. As soon as someone takes reasonable exception to anything an organization does (and especially if that someone has an audience), you've got a potential issue on your hands.

Can you always predict what will offend people? Of course not.

Can you reasonably predict that a campaign with resonances of the Holocaust will offend people? I think so.

But you can't avoid obstacles you don't know about.

Before getting too far down the road with creative, research whether there are any historical or cultural connotations to a proposed campaign/company/product name that might create issues. A quick Google search would have turned up the Nazi reference, and I have to believe no member of Audi's PR/marketing team would have considered that and decided to go ahead with it anyway.

Audi's "Green Police" message was supposed to be about environmental stewardship (and, ultimately, the A3 TDI diesel); now, at least in some corners, the public discussion it has inspired is about the company's either disregard for or ignorance of the dark history attached to its new campaign's name.

Think mainstream media is dead?

Think again.

Yesterday morning, many Winnipeggers (myself included) started the day with a bit of a challenge: how to get ready for work/school/whatever with low (and in some cases, no) water pressure. According to this morning’s Winnipeg Free Press, at around 7:30 a.m. a power outage affected three of the city’s water pumping stations, which caused the problem.

In my house, our first instinct was to check our own pipes (no problems). Second: check the street to see whether there’d been a water main break (no apparent problems). Third: call 311 (busy signal: uh oh, this must be a big problem – it’s not just us if 311 is overloaded). Wait it out, and rinse off.

But others had different ideas.

Call CJOB!

As I drove in to work listening to local radio station CJOB, I heard morning show host Richard Cloutier (who’d been at work long before the water problem) say that at the station, they’d noticed a momentary problem with the power, then their email system went dead, then the phones lit up with calls from listeners with shampoo in their hair – I’m sure both wanting to know what was going on, and wanting to complain about it.

Don’t discount mainstream media

These days, social media is the darling of PR conferences, webinars and professional development meetings; it’s our shiny new toy. There are people in our industry quickly re-branding themselves as social media experts, ringing the death knell for mainstream media, and recommending all-social media communication strategies to their clients.

For some clients, whose audiences exist uniquely in the online and social media space, that might make sense. But for the rest (who, I’d suggest, constitute the majority out there), it’s important not to ignore the power mainstream media continue to have to communicate with our audiences.

Don’t get me wrong: I am a social media evangelist, and I firmly believe that its tools give us unprecedented access to certain segments of our audiences – both for sharing information, and for building relationships. From my perspective, social media opens the door for PR to do what it has always strived to do: to establish and nurture two-way relationships with its audiences (at varying levels, of course).

But social media isn’t the be-all and end-all for strategic mass communication – at least, not yet. Many of our audiences are not using Twitter, and aren’t influenced by those who do. Many (it seems, more and more every day) distrust Facebook. Many don’t read blogs, or spend much time online at all. Many others do participate in social media, but aren’t able to determine whom to trust – and turn to mainstream media to make sense of it all.

These audiences rely on mainstream media, among other more traditional communication channels (e.g. calling customer help lines), to inform themselves about the issues that interest them. And as long as they do, good strategic PR will continue to take advantage of those means of reaching them.

As more amazing and revolutionary technologies come along, smart PR people will engage with them, will investigate them, will understand their strengths and weaknesses, and will figure out how to employ them to help clients reach their communication objectives.

But the really smart PR people will always remember to go where their audiences are.