As I’m typing this on my iPhone, I can’t help but think about how even blogging is changing from a dedicated sit-down with a computer to a more mobile, as-it’s-happening kind of experience. The WordPress app (oh, you had to know there was an app for that) even asked me if I wanted to enable geotagging for my blog, so you could hunt me down to a specific location and chat, debate, or stalk. I declined the offer, but even so, I feel that blogging itself is no longer “your mother’s blog”, so to speak.
Another major shift in social media is that of press releases. As audiences become more adept at sifting through, if not locating, information, a culture of more straightforward and honest news releases is emerging. No longer content with corporate-jargon-filled releases, people want to feel as though a corporation values and respects the intelligence of consumers and media. That said, I found this in an article about SRMs:
“Why Regular Press Releases Fail in Social Media
Here are the 3 main reasons why a press release would normally have zero chance of success in social media:
1. They have the wrong singular focus, which is on the company issuing the release.
2. They are full of marketing-speak that inherently engenders mistrust in the eyes of the social media audience.
3. They don’t have a specific audience in mind, and are written broadly and presented blandly.
Now, it’s perfectly fine to want to promote your company, because after all, we all have to make a living. But the social-web audience doesn’t like blatant sales and marketing speak.”
So, with the cultural shift in which the distance between corporation and consumer seems to be narrowing, the relationship must be handled differently than it would have been in 1984. A company of 2010 needs to take an approach that sees the consumer as more of an equal that understands the innerworkings of business more than people have in the past.
