Fine Print

There’s a reason that Chris Brogan is in our blogroll and that’s because he knows what the hell he’s talking about when it comes to social media. This article is no exception, and I squirmed slightly when I read this sentence: “When talking with people about these technologies, never take that condescending air. As much as we feel excited to be part of this whole social media ‘thing,’ the people who don’t ‘get it’ have all kinds of skills on board that we may or may not have.”

Personally, I get so hyped up about social media and why companies should be involved in it that sometimes I need to take a step back, and realize the fact that it is still relatively new to PR. It’s easy to be astounded when people don’t “get it” as Brogan mentions, but they “get” other scenarios that I don’t, and need help on. No one is an expert in everything and we can all learn from each other. There’s a lot of skills out there that I “don’t get” so will try and learn from those who do!

So, if it reaches the point that someone does need to be in social media, the inevitable question arises of how much budget there is for that aspect of a communications strategy. Ford’s social media guy, Scott Monty, blogs about that here. He hits the nail on the head when he says it’s not free to do this stuff, it takes time and labour. Even with the plethora of automated tools out there, someone still has to sift through the results before the client gets them in a nice, tidy report.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada