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Who"s davidlian?

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davidlian is an ultra-geeky chinese dude that works for a technology PR agency. He loves fiddling with techno-toys, plays Warhammer 40K, and shoots pictures wherever he goes. Here, he rants about PR, Technology and anything else. Don't expect balance and un-biased, he ain't no journalist. Anything said on this blog are solely davidlian's personal views. Don't confuse them with company mantra, client's views or views of any organisation he may be part of.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

"Social media is just another channel"

Okay guys, tell me, how many times have you heard PR consultants tell you this? Or seen this statement in a slide? Deep down inside - somewhere - I cringe everytime I hear a PR consultant waving off social media saying: "Social media is just another channel."

Social media is the channel - right. The message is still what matters - right. But wait a minute - don't you think it lends a bit of credence to say that the way you deliver your message (or even your message itself!) changes when your channel changes?

Just a couple of random thoughts I had when I was sulking in the corner and thinking a bit more on the subject:

Does a change in "channel" represent a societal change?
Someone needs to help me back this up with historical data, but we've often credited the Reformation to the invention of the printing press. Also, not too few civil revolutions. The written form of languages have evolved thanks to the printed press (Simplified Chinese anyone?) You also don't have to be too much of a sociologist or historian to observe major changes in the values and acceptable norms in our society over these couple of years.

So, if society is changing, shouldn't messages change also to resonate more / be more relevant to the audience? The channel is just indicative of a wider societal change. If anything, internet culture is a good indicator of how society is changing / modernising.

Just another stray thought here: it's really difficult to say if technology is impacting the way society evolves or if society is evolving independent of technology, but is being made much more apparent thanks to technology. It is, however, clear that both are closely-linked; as-if con-joined at the hip.

I'll just close off this post with three key things I think communicators need to note about their audience:

Your audience wants things straight.Cut the willy-nilly small talk and get right to the point. Positioning should happen in five words or don't bother. Too many tagged-on adjectives and superlatives spoil the broth. Sadly, this is easy to observe and say, but very hard to practice.

Your audience wants more than you can give. I think since the advent of the internet, companies have started getting more questions than they care to answer. There's never a product announcement from a major tech company that doesn't attract open questions / discussion on the internet. Which GPS chipset do you use? What are your margins? Do you plan to support this product the next 5 years? It's the age of the specialist-highly-detailed question. Do you have an answer?

Your audience wants to talk back, so listen! This was one of the first lessons I learned about using today's "channel". Feedback is an incredibly component. More so, oftentimes, than "messaging". The fact you listen is an incredible message in itself. Today's audience pay attention to those who listen first. Useful thought, no?

19 comments:

KY said...

"just another channel", in a very simplified way, that is sorta true, but the distinction must be made that social media is a multi-way instead of the jalan selaha style in traditional media

davidlian said...

@KY: You meant jalan sehala right?

Carolyn Chan said...

Social media is another channel like direct mails, tv, radio etc.

To me, a channel is a platform used to either deliver and or receive a message. It can be one way or interactive.

Then I would look at the most effective channel to deliver my message. My message could take the form of text alone, images alone, sound alone or all of the above.

I don't see why social media is not a channel.

We had this discussion before, everyone seems to think twitter is social media and social media is twitter. *facepalm* right? Then again, it's also not limited to Facebook, Plurk, Digg, YouTube etc.

Social media existed way before that buzz word came along. Chris Pirillo had a good example. He said even dogs are into social media. When they are taken to the park to mingle with other dogs, the park is their social media. Closer to home, a game of mahjong is social media. That is because it is another channel of communication.

davidlian said...

@CarolynChan: I didn't say social media isn't a channel. It is. But to simplify it to say it's just another channel that's comparable to print and TV is overlooking the bigger issues.

What I'm against is consultants telling clients that it's "just" another channel and we'll approach it just like how we've approached all channels in the past- message first.

Little do they know that some messages you can push to print media and succeed, but fail miserably at social media.

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