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Public Relations and Twitter – It’s not about you!
This is an open letter to all my PR counterparts – okay not all, but certainly most of them.
Simply put, it isn’t about you. PR folks RT’ing client news and client’s articles mixed with a number of self-indulgent ‘going to write a press release now’ or ‘leaving work, it’s been a long day’ tweets are not helpful to you, your clients or your followers.
Public Relations is embracing Twitter and rightfully so, it is a very powerful tool. But while the industry has jumped in with both feet, I’d like to take a moment and discuss the role of Twitter in PR.
Disclaimer: Six months ago I didn’t even think PR folks needed to use Twitter, so take the following comments with a grain of salt. Six months from now, I may have a different opinion entirely, but this is how I feel today. Time will tell if I’m right. Also, I’m a tech PR guy, so the following is about tech PR folks. Your mileage may vary. Read more…
Seven Stages of Twitter
In the past 3 months I’ve gone from saying, ‘yeah Twitter is fine for kids and consumer brands’ to my recent holly $#!+ moment when I realized what I was missing and what I needed to learn to catch up. Here are my Seven Stages of Twitter.
Stage One: Ignorance and Disbelief – This stage lasted somewhere between 6 month and 5 years depending on who you want to believe. I’ll leave it to the historians (or Google) to decide just when the social networking phenomenon started, but without a doubt it wasn’t today.
Stage Two: Denial - This was my, ‘yeah twitter is fine for kids, but not for me’ stage.
Stage Three: Anger (and Embarrassment) - Also known as my holly $#!+ moment when I logged on just to check it out. Why didn’t someone tell me about this!
Stage Four: (Fear and) Bargaining - Oh no, I promise if my boss doesn’t find out how behind I am, I swear I’ll twitter, blog, read about social networking…oh, please, I’ll do anything. Read more…
To Tweet or Not to Tweet
I know I’m not alone in trying to figure out if Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc. are going to be part of my personal and professional life moving forward.
- in the 40+ age category and are trying to convince everyone that they are not being left behind or
- trying to appear cutting edge to save their jobs or impress clients
- have ADD and are paying attention because it is the newest toy
- honestly believe in the technology can help their clients Read more…
If You Can’t Tweet Something Nice…
Just a quick Web 2.0 rant today. I’ll stop these rants when people start to respect the power of the post.
We all know that Web 2.0 and social networking sites are changing the way many of us communicate (both personally and professionally), but this new constant communication comes with some new pitfalls. And, you only need to look at front page news to see countless examples.
Just this week a girl was arrested for posting photos of herself online. Okay she was nude and 14 years old, but they were pictures of herself. Lesson: Think before you hit post.
Another news piece from this week that can be filed under the heading of Sisyphean tasks. A group in England tried to fight the Google street view functionality from showing public streets. They may win in the short term, but there is no doubt that live public street views being available online can’t be stopped. Lesson: We will all get our 15 minutes of fame – like it or not. Read more…
