ION Digital

Will social media specialists go the way of the blacksmith? Yes, if you believe Steve Rubel, the well known Edeleman blogger. He believes the social media manager will be extinct in a few years. Where will they go? Absorbed into the corporate marketing and PR machines, says Steve.

Steve is one of my favorite bloggers and always seems to be on top of the latest trends.  But this is one I’m hoping he misses.

Steve’s argument is that PR professionals at most companies will soon be well equipped to manage social media activities as well as a lone-wolf specialist. These skills aren’t rocket science and can be easily picked up by a savvy inhouse communications manager. Most companies don’t have the “luxury” of these specialists when instead they can sweep it up into existing PR or marketing organizations.

I think this would be a huge mistake.

Social media requires different skills and mindset than PR–in fact, it’s the antithesis of PR. Ever hear of a PR manager who really believes in letting go of the messaging or allowing employees free reign to engage in wide-open conversations?  PR is about message control and spin. Don’t try to disguise it as anything else. Public relations and “transparency” are like oil and water.

There’s no reason we can’t continue to have separate positions for social media marketing managers or strategists, and that public relations organizations can’t be involved of course. As social media strategist and Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang points out, we already have specialized marketing managers in large corporations sorted by industries, mediums, and channels (ex: web marketing, search marketing, event marketing).

Here’s what really bothers me.
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The NY Times posted a list of blogging tips  from veteran bloggers, some well known (Mark Cuban), some not (”So You Want to be a Blogging Star). Some of these are a little overly simplistic–example, Cuban says to “blog about your passions. Don’t blog about what you think your audience wants. Post because you have something you are dying to write about.”

Well, this is ok but you might wind up writing for an audience of one if your interest is too narrow (example: the study of Victorian door knobs). You’d be better off doing a little research on similar topics and sites and developing a topic you’re interested in that also has a reasonable following.
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… and not realizing it?

Now’s a good time to think about your skills and how well you’re positioned for the Brave New World barreling down on us.

Here’s a good place to start.

Robert Scoble started a list of obsolete skills a few weeks ago here and that later led to a giant and growing wiki .

Scoble’s list was pretty straight forward:

1. Dialing a rotary phone.
2. Putting a needle on a vinyl record.
3. Changing tracks on an eight-track tape.
4. Shorthand.
5. Using a slide rule. (more…)

Steve Rubel raises a good question, as to whether online communities can ever “stick” for any length of time. Most don’t last for long. He goes down a long laundry list–The Well, Tripod, GeoCities, Friendster and so on. Remember CompuServe? All had communities at one time. All came and went. Now it’s even more competitive and complex, and the stakes are higher. What does this mean for the likes of a FaceBook or MySpace, let alone a smaller fry like Yelp?

He points out that only a handful of sites endure over a dozen years. Those sites all have “moats” that protect them, he says. “These barriers to entry include peer-to-peer commerce (more…)

Following are three good books on social media marketing and PR, and one on presentations;

* The New Rules of Marketing and PR

* Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Marketing Gurus

* Radically Transparent

* Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery

The New Rules of Marketing and PR (David Meerman Scott)

I liked this book. Well organized and thought out, it outlines a new approach to marketing and PR, using Web 2.0 tools. The old days of mass marketing and PR has been replaced. (more…)