#Public relations

by John Scharges

Account Executive/ Writer

The implications that social media has for marketing, PR, journalism, and even the death of the author, interest me no end (for the sake of this article I will use the term social media to describe Facebook, blogging, and especially Twitter. Also for convenience I will use the acronym SM – which can also conveniently be used to describe sado masochism - cough - metaphor).

The first thing to note is the fact that all of a sudden; because of SM, everyone is a journalist/writer/expert. Everyone has a mouth piece through which to complain, debase, libel, compliment, and spout clumsy quips about traffic in Johannesburg, what Gareth Cliff just said ROFL, the death of #insertoverdosingcelebnamehere, and post pics of their latest cup of cappuccino, or whatever takes the fancy.

I have a lot to say on this subject, but for today I will rein in my feelings towards the other SMs, and focus on Twitter.

Twitter is an incredibly popular online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets". As an example of its integration into today’s society, last year in Silver Springs, in the good old U S of A, updates to a hostage situation were being brought to the attention of the press as it happened, via Twitter, from the actual hostages. Journalists have to work pretty hard these days to be the ones to break the news; in a world where anyone can and does post about the latest volcano eruption or blackberry breakdown as it happens.

This brings me to my other point – Twitter as a soapbox for every little complaint. Previously when one was not satisfied with a service or product, they would perhaps complain by speaking directly to the call centre within a company. Maybe they’d send an email. Maybe they’d even deal directly with managers or whoever they could… in person.

Now however – you can simply tweet your complaint directly at the company. So, I find a worm in my apple then hey presto “hotlipz2 @johnnyappleseedsdeliciousred if i wanted worms I’d be shopping at earthworm jim fishing supplies”.

The difference being, unlike days of yore when online privacy was you just deleting your email sent/inbox, this is no longer between just you and the offending company (and your friends that you complain to). Now, all of Twitterville know about it. And all of a sudden that’s a lot of people who will think twice before buying an apple from johnny appleseed (spreading the flavour since the ark hit land ©) in the future.

Which means that the PR companies that work for said johnny appleseed, are now having to placate a whole new readership (Twitter claims to have up to 175 million registered users). And does it work both ways? Do all the delicious non-worm filled apples that get eaten cause a flourish of tweets along the lines of ahh Eve I forgive you for the whole garden thing if that apple was half as good as the one I just ate? Not likely, people generally prefer to point out fault than issue compliment. And because of that, SM is not in my opinion a viable mouthpiece for a PR company to unload glorious new innovations upon the world. That’s the kind of thing that in my experience gets you less followers.

So what then? It’s a cruel new world, with very little privacy left to us. The options:  @hotlipz2 the worm is now included as part of our new protein apple line.

Fun, but if nothing else SM has shown us a very important fact: eventually, the truth will come out. Which leaves us with the option of brutal honesty; owning the mistake. Which will hopefully endure the customer to us: this is the stance marketers now believe to be the proper route for SM’s, especially twitter. There is one other option that I hope will soon sweep the marketing and PR world with a total sense of “OMG how did I not think of that”:

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