PR in the Middle

Being social media savvy is now second nature to PR and is something that personally fascinates me.  Similarly, our journo cousins have embraced this new medium – as enthusiastically as us – many setting up their own blogs, groups and micro-sites.  

What’s less clear is how journalism uses social media to source articles and research stories. In this age of instant digital information, is the press release still the best way to grab a journos’ attention or should we dazzle them with blogs, forums and vodcasts? Even more worryingly, is PR still important to modern journalism?

A recent survey by Cision and the University of Sunderland, aimed to find out.

For all PRs holding your breath, fear not!  The survey showed journalists still view traditional sources like press releases and direct contact with PRs as paramount. 

Although journalists’ use of social media and search engines over the past three years has increased, traditional channels are not being negated but are used in conjunction with social media. 

In fact, only a small minority of respondents reported using traditional channels either more or less than they did three years ago.

The survey revealed networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook were the single most important social technology for journalism by approximately 30 per cent of UK respondents, with Twitter not far behind.

More surprisingly, Wikipedia was the most used online tool for journalists –with over 60% using the site to check and source stories at least once a week, compared to 22% for blogs, or 34% for news wire services.

However, story ideas, concepts and angles were still drummed up via traditional sources, such as direct PR contact and via corporate sites.

Overall it seems journos are not at all behind the times when it comes to social media – they have welcomed it with both hands. Thankfully it seems that PR is firmly in this three way embrace and PR is still in the middle.

Embracing social media – different paces abound

We have all embraced social media in a big way – particularly in PR where it is such a natural fit for us – it’s pretty much second nature after all, we are so used to having dialogues with journalists, sharing stories and having on-going conversations with all types of people.

So it’s easy to forget, perhaps, that social media is still evolving at a rapid rate and that businesses aren’t all embracing it at the same pace.

Just in the past few days, I’ve heard of two global brands who are way behind the curve. One has flatly refused to have anything to do with social media and the other, is ‘way behind’ in their social media conversations according to an inhouse marketeer.   For those kind of brands struggling to persuade directors to embrace social media  – here’s a useful post from an interesting US online publication, ‘the social media examiner’, ‘9 ways to sell social media to your boss’.

And then of course, there’s the other problem that businesses are online but don’t know what the guidelines are.  The rules are still evolving and changing, again at a pretty rapid rate.  Twitter is still largely unregulated and businesses are still learning and experimenting with it.  Here’s some latest guidelines that have come out of oatmeal.com.  They are not necessarily right, in fact I would question many on the list, but it’s interesting to see guidelines attempted to be set.

And then of course, there’s the fact that Facebook is only just starting to be used as a valuable marketing tool  for businesses. The largest social media tool on the planet provides a huge opportunity to businesses – the social media examiner has lots of ideas on how to maximise your Facebook profile to generate interest among customers and prospects as well as some great recent campaigns that have really worked for brands.

So as we all move at different paces, and standards and guidelines continue to evolve as time passes, once the revolution is over, it’ll be great to see what transpires.

Wikipedia due for a face lift but is its beauty more than skin deep?

So, Wikipedia is getting a makeover. The idea is that easier editing will encourage more users to contribute and change articles, and, let’s face it, the old Wikipedia as we know it does look a bit antiquated. But then that’s also what’s nice about it, a trusted encyclopedia a bit like that dusty leather-bound version on your bookshelf that answers just about any question.

While Wikipedia has often been praised as one of the very first true Web 2.0 applications, it looks like the rest of the web has continued to evolve at break-neck speed while Wikipedia has been left behind. However, I doubt it’s anything to do with usability and more to do with the fact that it’s actually pretty good as it is. We’ll see if the new look makes any real difference.

Wiki Fraud Leads Media on Merry Waltz

Interesting article says alot about influence of Wikipedia .  An Irish university student did an experiment into how widely a fake fact seeded into a Wikipedia entry would travel.  Seeing that composer Maurice Jarre had died , he made a fictitious career entry and added a false quote in Jarre’s Wikipedia article. Expecting the fake facts to be repeated on blogs, he actually saw his fake entry and quote appear almost verbatim in the obituaries published by major newspapers including the Guardian. 

Obviously the incident reveals that the media like the rest of us rely on Wikipedia as an information source almost instinctively.  Errors have littered newspaper copy long before Wikipedia appeared. The solution doesn’t lie in avoiding Wikipedia but remembering the value of corroboration. The problem is that does the media have the luxury to check every fact anymore? Or do we and they really care?