It eloquently and succinctly describes the new paradigm that Web 2.0 and social media represent to the PR and advertising/marketing industries.

So many organisations simply don’t get it – they will though – they’ll have to. If you work for a big corporate, you may find your next VP of Marketing is a ’spotty youth under 20 who lives & breathes social media…’ (!).

To put it crudely – the old PR way, where you seek to control the conversation & message is out – you cannot control anything. All you can do is influence it. I recently was telling a good friend of mine who’s spent her entire working life in PR/marketing and is fast approaching 60 yrs old (and moved in quite high places) about Web 2.0 and social media marketing. Her response was interesting: “We’ll just not go to social media marketing then, if we can’t control the message”.

I told her simply – “You have no choice – whether you join in or not, people will talk about the company, its products, services, and what it seems to truly stand for. If you aren’t there to influence the message, your competitors might be, and do you want them influencing the message about you, in your absence?”

She knows this is the future, but as she said, it’s hard to turn the clock back on nearly 4 decades of fighting to be in control…

We live in interesting times!

Judge for yourself, read the blog entry I mentioned, here.

Cheers

Martin

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