Over the past several years we have seen the PR field challenged as never before, and change, as tactics that outlived their usefulness were updated or fell by the wayside. I know this because I have lived and blogged about it – recall my PR Death Watch series of posts.
However a funny thing happened on the way to peace, love and social media understanding. Some picked their heads up and realized that: yes, traditional media still matters. And so do press releases (see Revenge of the Press Release).
And what about other conventions that may now seem quaint – like media training, and prepared statements?
In a world where everyone has a microphone, it does not take long before quite a few start to sound like those bores with the cringe-inducing speeches and wedding toasts. I share below a couple examples by way of recent articles that prompted this post, with excerpts in italics:
Wall Street Journal – City Ballet A Twitter over Posts
New York City Ballet is set to become one of the country’s first major performing-arts companies to govern its employees’ posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social-media outlets. And Devin Alberda, a member of the company’s corps de ballet, is part of the reason why.
After news of his boss’s drunk-driving arrest was made public, Mr. Alberda tweeted: “Thank goodness riding the subway while intoxicated isn’t a misdemeanor offense,” adding the hashtag “#dontfireme.” In another tweet, he mocked a character in a production…
New York Times – When the Marketing Reach of Social Media Backfires
…what happens when behavior on social media is deemed antisocial? Two large marketers, Aflac and the Chrysler Group, are struggling to answer that uncomfortable question in the wake of incidents that took place within days of each other. The incidents, involving remarks on Twitter that were judged to be tasteless, inappropriate and insensitive, point out some inherent risks of social media.
It is interesting, because the very formality of public speaking or a press interview would normally put most people on guard; but put them in front of Facebook and Twitter, and they just blurt, oblivious of the consequences.
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and I don’t think anyone wants an overly scripted world in which people need handlers to tweet. I do think some form of social media training is called for, and companies that haven’t done so already need to come up with and enforce reasonable social media policies.
People who tweet or blog on behalf of a company (or even if they are doing so independently, but their name is closely associated) should go through some basic training akin to media training to govern the ins and outs of social media. Some of the rules of the road may seem to be common sense, but there are many gray areas and pitfalls.
