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What should we be telling our colleagues about the internet?

PR Business has asked me to write a feature about the state of social media – what do you think I should include?

As you may know, I write a weekly column for this magazine, which is cross-posted here on Thursdays (usually).

Basically it is a round up of top internet-related news that may be of interest to PR people – I write it in the hope of educating / inspiring more communications people to find out more about how social media and how online innovation is changing the media and, therefore, what we do for a living.

If you have any ideas or examples of work you are doing with clients and would like featured, or just have a strong view on what you think we should be telling our colleagues in the wider industry about,  I would really interested to hear about it.

Questions that are rattling round my head are: Have we go past telling people the basics about blogs? How do you persuade cautious clients to take their first steps into engaging with social media? How much have things really changed over the last year because of blogs? What are the most common myths about social media out there? Everyone talks about monitoring, but what approaches really work?

Email me (see contact me info) or leave your thoughts in the comments section. Anytime up to the end of this week is great, but the earlier the better :-)

All thoughts most gratefully received…

Tags: , PRBusiness

Antony Mayfield

6 responses to “What should we be telling our colleagues about the internet?”

  1. Craig McGinty Avatar
    Craig McGinty

    I’d tell them that it is not that difficult to become a resource for both existing and potential customers if you give them the tools to create much of it for you:

    http://www.cmnw.co.uk/2006/05/growing_a_commu.html

    But how many businesses are willing to let go? Until that mindset is changed it will prove practically impossible.

  2. Jack Yan Avatar
    Jack Yan

    With regards to branding, blogs are the first stop for those who help an organization plan its way forward. I have been an advocate for brands changing their approaches: they need to be collaborative, and not top–down, with the organization being a “manager of perceptions”, aligning them with the corporate direction. So there is the potential for a massive change in brand management with blogs. But I do not think things have changed a great deal in the past year. Even with a new blog being created each second, this does not lead to a massive tipping point—assuming all blogs are equal. If a revolutionary blog takes place, then that will open the floodgates.

  3. Jack Yan Avatar
    Jack Yan

    Common myths for blogs are much the same as the myths about the internet 10 years ago: that by having a blog, you reach a lot of people. Cobblers: like anything, this takes a lot of effort, but early adopters will be better rewarded than latecomers.

  4. Stephen Waddington Avatar
    Stephen Waddington

    I’ve been thinking about this topic overnight. There was a very good play on Radio 4 yesterday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/afternoonplay_mon) about people on Hepatitis C programmes who blogged to share their treatment programme and help deal with the mental and physical lows. The treatment programme is an awful cocktail of drugs over a prolonged period that has varying degrees of success. Similarly bloggers have formed self-help communities to deal with almost every form of mental and physical illness. It’s a very social use of social media and provides an incredibly strong support network that is readily accessible. It can only be a amtter of time before specialist academics and researchers tap into these communities as a primary research source, if they haven’t already.

  5. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    Thanks for the suggestions, guys – very much appreciated. I’m thinking about doing the feature in ten bite-size “must do/how to” things that are easy to do and that might inspire people, like: set up a Bloglines account and read your daily papers and two blogs on it for a week, search for your client’s name on Technorati and Blogpulse… that sort of thing.

    Stephen – I heard some of that programme too in the car yesterday. Very moving, and you’re right its an enormous resource for listening to what people really think about something.

  6. Blog Run Avatar
    Blog Run

    What do we say to colleagues, how do we promote, and whats the freakin rush?

    Open (finds, minds, conversations): What should we be telling our colleagues about the internet?
    As we move further into blogosphere and the Internet, what are we telling our coworkers about the Internet? Heres a call asking people what we shou…

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