Only Time Will Tell

What I have hitherto learned about the perception of new media and especially social networking platforms on the internet is that no one in fact seems to know at the present, if these are useful as public relations tools or not and if time and effort should be invested on the part of public relations.
If you look at the various comments that have appeared on my blog so far, the general meaning concerning new media as public relations tools is unanimous. Whether people feel like it is worth investing in new media and trying to get the most out of it, or they think that new media is just a fad and people will get bored of it quite soon.

In my opinion, the PR industry should be well aware of the new media and should try to keep up to date with the technology. Of course, all the ongoing hype around social networking platforms on the internet could soon be over and media like this could quickly disappear from the World Wide Web. Nevertheless, imagine if new media turns into the primary communications tool in the near future and the public relations industry wouldn’t be prepared. That would mean a catastrophe for the entire industry. Therefore, I think that PR practitioners should be conscious that this thought of mine is within the realms of possibility and therefore have to be as well prepared for the future as possible.

Social Media and Potential Uses for Business

Paul Baker, the blogger at EducationPR, discussed new developments in social media and potential uses for business on the radio show “On-Air With In Business”. If you are interested in listening to this show, you can download it here for free (it’s approximately 40 minutes long).
Especially if you are interested in blogging or generally in social media, that is an enjoyable show. Nevertheless, the information is rather basic, so if you know much about blogging or new media in general it provides not too much new information.

Politicians make use of Second Life

I recently read an article about Hillary Clinton starting a virtual presidential campaign headquarter in Second Life. She is not the only politician who attempts to reach audiences by the use of new technology.

In my opinion, this is a especially clever way to reach audiences who are difficult to get hold of in the real world. The demographics in Second Life differ from those in the real world; the population is to a great extent younger in the virtual world.
I wonder if younger people are more likely to respond to political messages in Second Life than they would do in the real world.

Excursus to the roots of “Second Life” – “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson

Approximately three years ago, I read a book called “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson. The book was written 15 years ago, but one specific part of the novel has never been as current as now. I will not go into details concerning the plot of the story, I barely want to concentrate on the fact that Stephenson writes about the so-called “Metaverse”.

Astoundingly, Stephenson’s portrayal of this “Metaverse”, which is an advancement of the internet, is amazingly similar to the virtual world “Second Life”. “Metaverse”-users can enter the world via their own computers or facilities similar to telephone booths by using some sort of spectacles. The users appear in this virtual world in form of avatars, which they can design by themselves.

The book itself was highly influential on our internet, as we know it. For example the term “avatar”, which refers to an interactive representation of a human in a virtual reality environment, was popularised by Neal Stephenson's novel. Further, according to its creators, “Uru”, a computer game, which allows avatar customization so that the player can be himself, was inspired by “Snow Crash”.

A rather large part of the story takes place in the “Metaverse” and the reader gets the impression that the life in this virtual world is much more important to some figures in the book than their life in the real world. Therefore, I am asking myself, if this relates to or in near future is going to relate to “Second Life”-users, individuals as well as in this case public relations professionals.

"Arctic Monkeys" use MySpace as a PR tool

I have found an interesting article on a PR Blog about the band “Arctic Monkeys”, who successfully used MySpace to promote themselves and a new album.

Click here to read the full article.

This example perfectly shows how to enhance the loyalty of a bands audience by using internet communities.

Narrow target audiences through social networks

John Grant discusses social networks in his book “The New Marketing Manifesto” and describes various possibilities social networks offer. According to Grant, the power of virtual communities lays within the fact that people group because of shared interest and not by accidental location. According to “The Guardian”, the key factor for success in any internet web site or virtual community is the space for like-minded people to meet and chat. The Guardian newspaper’s New Media Group conducted a research that shows that while people may initially be drawn to a site by fancy production values, strong branding and promotion, they go back to meet people and participate in their chosen interests.

By joining special interest groups, people feel part of an idea and therefore become very loyal with it. Gathering these like-minded people means creating narrow target audiences, which are easy to address for public relations matters.

Too much of a good thing.

I tried to resist the numerous invitations I got every month from friends and colleagues who tried to invite me to various social networking sites on the internet. They finally succeeded in persuading me that it is a good thing to have an account here and there. And so, I started to become a social networker about one month ago.

I created accounts in six or seven different network sites and was fascinated how quickly I found new friends by joining special interest groups. I was fascinated by the networks and spent hours with discussing this and that.

However, it all got out of control. To contribute to every social network I joined I should spent approximately 4 hours a day on the internet to keep up to date with what has been said about the topics I am interested in. By the time, I was not able to see the wood for the trees.

My very personal experience with the vast amount of groups led me to the thought, how difficult it is for an organisation to choose the right place to practice social networking in order to strengthen the relationship with its customers. One could argue that a message has to appear in several newspapers and TV channels, etc. to reach most members of a target audience. Nevertheless, placing messages in the print media for example is not as time-consuming as placing messages in social network communities.

Messages have to be constantly updated and consumers attended to in order to keep them loyal. It requires a lot of time to keep social networking accounts up to date. That leads me to the question, if social networking is worth all the trouble.