One day in Corporate PR an expert in social media asked who likes blogs and most of my classmates said yes, apart from some classmate and me. I have always felt that blogs, and social media in general, are overwhelming and crowded with so much information. I thought that a was never going to love this “social media” phenomenon but without realising that I was really a big fun of some social media sites such as Youtube, Wikipedia and Facebook.
While studying Journalism we analysed the social media phenomenon and we learned how to search, write and create blogs, podcasts and web pages. Anybody can create and write a blog or a podcast and anybody can upload a video in Youtube. That is the magic! However there is so much information that it is really difficult to select the ones that you are interested.
From the point of view of a PR practitioner I think it is important to find where your target audience goes so you can build a two-way dialogue, get to know their opinions of your client or organisation. Organisation and companies need to have a proactive approach. Though, it is essential PR or marketing practitioner know that the social media has it own rules and that it belongs to the people. People feel this media is theirs and that it is an alternative to official information coming from governments and organisations.
The following Youtube video is about PR and Social media and the changes in the PR practice due to this phenomenon.
We have to be honest where are we coming from and I think official sources have the right to defend their point of view with arguments and respect. We need to be able to share information, create interesting dialogues and find interesting and odd facts from places around the world. It is now that two-way symmetric communication truly exists.
