The “Death of PR” and the Social Media Echo Chamber
Todd Defren is an insightful social media and communications commentator and professional, as one can certainly ascertain by reading his blog PR-Squared. He recently wrote an intriguing piece predicting that the next 50 years of public relations work will no longer focus on media relations, instead shifting to a role as “facilitator” between customer service and social media.
Rather than comment on the content of Defren’s post, I would like to use it as an example of a particular challenge regarding social media today. In discussions with colleagues around the country, the vibe we see is that so much of social media commentary is taking place in the social media echo chamber. In other words, social media types simply talking about social media with others who are deeply interested in the topic.
I am certainly not the first person to discuss this topic. Jonathan Trenn wrote an interesting blog addressing the point last year, not only critiquing the “clubby” atmosphere of social media experts, but questioning whether that group can gain access to clients guided by large ad and PR agencies. My good friend Bill Sledzik at Kent State recently deleted his blogroll based on the assumption that having one set the stage for an “us vs. them” mentality where the “cool kids” are listed and other excluded. Sledzik explains, “In fact, I read only about one-third of the writers on my blogroll. There isn’t time for more. But their presence on my personal ‘A’ list implies endorsement.”
One sees evidence of the social media echo chamber in Defren’s post, which weighs in at a paltry 129 words and contains no contextual information to back up his assertion (though the graphic is interesting and that alone probably says something about the issue I am raising). This morning, the “Tweet count” on the article stands at 118, with 8 “Other Comments.”
Basically, Defren is approaching a tweet-a-word. Not surprising, given the limitations of Twitter, most of these merely repost a link to the article. Who knows how many people these tweets reached. Defren’s 129-word post could have reached 1,290 or 129 million readers.
The challenge with this is that social media commentators are talking among themselves, with readership dinged around the Twitterverse like a pinball game — thus the social media echo chamber rolls on. As I mentioned earlier, I think Defren is an insightful guy, so I don’t want to peg him as evil or something, rather an example of how the echo chamber works. In other posts, he has provided deeper thinking and context necessary for a broader, informed discussion.
Why point any of this out? The answer is twofold:
1. From the perspective of an educator, students and young professionals are looking to social media “gurus” like Defren to gain a deeper understanding of social media and as a role model for how they should conduct themselves as budding social media experts. As such, they learn that mimicking such posts — more or less devoid of higher order thinking — is okay because they will get tweets and comments, essentially playing up the narcissistic aspect of social media at the expense of knowledge.
2. Defren’s post reads to me like a soundbite. Unfortunately, social media has the potential to elevate the soundbite to even greater heights — think about it, Twitter is creating a whole generation of young people who don’t want to think in chunks larger than 140 characters. Since most soundbites bank on gut reaction or emotion, not asking the listener to use critical thinking skills, I do not see this as a positive. If social media really is changing communications, then perhaps social media experts should provide the depth that clients need in understanding why the change is happening and their place in it.
Forwarding or Tweeting 129-word soundbites is not going to enhance the social media discussion. I wonder how many Defren readers, like me, were left wishing that he would have provided a deeper discussion of his intriguing idea about the next 50 years of PR?
(Photo credit: wiselywoven/Flickr/Some rights reserved)
June 4th, 2009 at 11:17
Bob,
I’ve largely given up with the social media roundabout - especially since the Twitter bumpers simply bounce around at best, as you indicate, thoughts that would be more interesting to develop and discuss in some depth.
I’m not sure about your point about young practitioners/students looking for role models “for how they should conduct themselves as budding social media experts”. I feel this is a slowly deflating bubble based on the fact that the digital immigrants currently don’t understand social media. It cannot be long before those who are growing up totally immersed in the genre look at so called “gurus” with bemusement.
So will we really need “social media experts” in a couple of years? I think our young practitioners certainly need the skills in their toolbox, but surely knowing about social media and seeking to be an expert in it won’t be enough.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:19
Bob, this it most thought-provoking. I have begun to have serious doubts about what social media is doing to the PR profession and to the general level of communication ability among all of us. Thanks for a well-thought-out and educational post. (How many characters is this comment?)
June 4th, 2009 at 13:19
I can definitely see the issue of the non-thinking, purely following, 140 character people. I too think that it is a problem, but I do not think that these sites are the problem. Twitter has given me more opportunities and it has opened more doors in the past six months than the past five years of ground work, “corporate sharing,” and good old begging. People not speaking properly, writing properly, or reading properly is a social matter. And this is nothing new, these were issues that Confucius addressed thousands of years ago.
On top of that, our education system is garbage (for lack of a better word), our true leaders are opaqued by celebrities, celebrity wannabes, and politicians. These problems need to be addressed and changed through our communities, and until that does not happen, I think that this new laziness will keep declining our civilization.
A possibility that comes to mind is that perhaps the PR community is beginning to see that sites like Twitter could possibly eliminate their jobs because relationships could really become “personal” between consumers and companies. (Just my opinion.) On the other hand, this country’s business sector will not drastically change overnight and true business people will never replace person-to-person interaction over “Tweets.” (There is something about human interaction that close deals).
Overall, I think that the PR community should stop, learn, and execute their jobs in these new mediums. I see more and more high-end professionals connecting with people and sharing their thoughts and ideas via these sites. I think that it is brilliant, and if used properly, could revolutionize the PR world because it does make it easier and honest–if used properly.
*The question should be, who will create the “right” way of using these sites.
http://www.twitter.com/ama2009miami
June 4th, 2009 at 14:40
The social media echo chamber is one where I spend the majority of my time since I work at an agency that specializes in digital PR and marketing. I’ve learned the chamber has its pros and cons, and as you pointed out, one of the biggest issues is the effect it has on the public relations profession, especially in terms of education.
I learned, first hand, how important it is to use blogs and Twitter as only ONE part of my professional development. These posts are often great at raising issues, but then I try to further investigate them by clicking through all the links in the post and reading related newspaper articles, published studies, and books. I enjoy that I can read over 100 blogs in a matter of minutes, bookmark the ones that highlight interesting industry trends or issues, and thoroughly research these topics later when I have the time.
And, I’m with you and Bill Sledzik on the “club” nature of social media, though. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve almost completely stopped blogging because I started writing to appeal to these audiences rather than for educational purposes. Just last night, I joined in a Tweet chat on the topic of PR 2.0 and the only people who responded to me were other new professionals. The “famous” PR Twitter users never responded to me, even when I directly asked them a question.
June 4th, 2009 at 15:39
Bob, good post.
Without wanting to come over as a social media refusenik - which I am certainly not. None the less, there is a remarkable tendency towards over-hyping the whole field. Making the “mainstream” media irrelevent to communicators, not in my life time. In the UK we’ve just had our whole political scene turned upside down by 3 weeks of exclusives by one “dead tree” publication. Increasingly fragmented audiences, no doubt. The end of journalism, put that obituary back in the drawer.
There are also, for many years yet, going to be important audiences who simply won’t be found on social media. Low-income older people would be a good example here.
Cheers
Scott
framingthedot.wordpress.com
June 4th, 2009 at 16:01
I have certainly poked at the echo chamber, but this group exists online AND offline. The post you link to above is not indicative of all Todd’s posts. He discusses a lot of what he practices and lessons learned rather than the vague and broad statement many “experts” dish out. Not everyone will have an academic approach to a blog post….some posts are just conversation starters. By slamming an “us versus them” approach, you are doing the very same thing in this post.
June 4th, 2009 at 17:41
I appreciate all the great comments! Fantastic.
@Lauren: I thought I pretty explicitly said that this wasn’t an anti-Defren post. He is a bright, articulate commentator. Rather, I was pointing a finger at the 118+ Tweeters that basically just forwarded his post around without adding significant commentary of any sort. Obviously, most can’t in the short forum, but otherwise merely forwarding doesn’t really help in this knowledge acquisition stage of social media communications. I just went back and read the post. He doesn’t really pose it as a conversation starter. It’s a statement.
@Meg: You’re the student teaching the teacher now. I really appreciate your insight, which is derived from your post in the middle of the social media maelstrom. Like I’ve written often in the past about Facebook, I think when people are using it as it was meant to be used, i.e. connecting one-on-one, it is the best scenario. I’m still skeptical that social media is the game-changing channel so many others seem to think it is.
June 8th, 2009 at 18:37
The feedback here shows there is room for well-written articles. I’ve got one word for Twitter: cachophony. Like any social media tool, you’ve got to spend a lot of time wading through the noise.
June 9th, 2009 at 17:29
I’ve run into lots of non-journalist communications types posturing the chicken-and-egg question when it comes to social media’s potential in the business realm.
For pure social media sites like Facebook and MySpace, value (or potential) from a business standpoint only arises once a social community is formed. When it works it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve gotten ahold of many sources on deadline via Facebook.
A site like LinkedIn, however, loses it business value because it was built strictly for business. People go in to LinkedIn with the business mindset. Whereas on Facebook, you and I are friends first. Friends do each other favors.
@Scott Davidson: The recent explosion in Facebook users is because of older folks. I’ll post the link on your blog if I can find the story.