Rest in Peace, PR

            Sam Whitmore of Media Survey moderated a panel called “Is Social Media Killing PR?” The panel addressed the role of social media in the evolving public relations environment. Critics of social media contest that they dilute the message, eliminate the need for third-party intervention, and make it too difficult for audiences to hear the message. Though these facts hold weight, they overlook the most important nature of the business. Public relations exists to bolster and maintain relationships with the public.

            Does offering consumers a mechanism to directly communicate with the organization really lessen the need for good PR? Absolutely not!  On the contrary, it makes PR more important. Consumers now and have always had strong opinions that, while traditionally were expressed through spending habits, boycotts, and carrot mobbing, are now expressed via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. PR should embrace its new role as monitor and first responder. The consequences of ignoring their influence can be devastating to an organization. On the other hand, brands that harness their power will surely reap the benefit.

MMORPGS IRL!!!ol

            In case that title doesn’t have enough letters, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog! MMORPGs stands for mass multi-player online role playing games. Games, like World of Warcraft, unite millions of users in online environments to conquer quests, complete missions, or just socialize with one another. Users, justifiably, blame WoW for stealing hours of their lives, but the online gaming giant has received negative attention for dropouts, divorces, and even deaths. What about something as seemingly innocent as a video game warrants such harsh accusations?

            As of July 2007, World of Warcraft had more than nine million active subscribers. According to researcher Nick Yee, the typical subscriber is a 28 year old male who logs about 22 hours of game time per week. Subscribers play the game to gain a certain feeling of accomplishment, to socialize with others, to explore virtual worlds, or to compete against opponents. Researcher Richard Battle groups users into four categories: achievers, socializers, explorers, and killers. A Ghent University study in Belgium, conducted by Dr. Simone Kuhn, found that active video gamers have larger ventral striatum, the part of the brain that triggers when people feel pleasure. This part of the brain is also where some believe causes addiction.

            When engaged by individuals who are prone to addiction, MMORPGs can have chilling affects. Ryan van Cleave of South Carolina once played the game for 60 hours straight. Cleave’s habit of binge gaming continued for more than three years. It eventually cost him his marriage, his relationship with his parents and his two young daughters, and his dream job with Clemson University in South Carolina. 

            So who is to blame? Should we hate the player or hate the game?

Charles in Charge?

            Who’s in charge here? Seriously? Who calls all the shots? Who decides what videos go viral and which ones go unnoticed? Social media are unbiased, are they not? Certainly they are free from the hegemonic confines of big brother, are they not? No agenda setting or framing influences contaminate the free flow of ideas over YouTube and Twitter. It can’t be. All the content there is user generated, right?

            As the video demonstrates, there exists a multitude of YouTubers who have become overnight sensations. Many of these starlets deserve attention. What is not to love about a break dancing baby? Others, on the other hand, seem to get attention for no reason other than how pathetic they are. A man fails to land a back flip and somehow becomes popular. How peculiar!

            Videos are not the only things that seem to catch on throughout the interwebs without advanced warning. Consider, for example, the sudden out pour of Facebook statuses last October that read “I like it on the ___.” The blank, which ladies filled in with whatever tickled their fancies, turned out to be their purses and where they like to leave them. The whole fiasco got male users all worked up, but in the end, turned out to be a clever campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer during breast cancer awareness month. A similar occurrence happened the year before, where women listed the color of their bras as their statuses. Both campaigns were extremely successful, but they seemed to happen naturally, without any premeditated action.

            This brings me to my original point. How do things spontaneously go viral? Not every status trend or video upload has a deeper significance, yet they spread anyway. Is that just the nature of the beast, or is someone out there pulling all the strings?

           

Help Me YouTube

            My faucet has been leaking for a couple weeks now. My landlord sent a plumber over to take a look. He replaced some parts and the problem disappeared… for a while. Two weeks later the leak is back and is driving me crazy, drip by drip by drip. There is only one rational thing to do in this situation: YouTube how to fix a faucet.

            South Park may lead you to believe otherwise, but YouTube is much more than an engine to waste time and kill brain cells. The video hosting site serves as a useful teaching aid and is a great resource for those who do-it-themselves. YouTube steadily replaces user manuals and help hotlines as the primary source for customer support. Experts host short how-to videos that are far more convenient and useful than anything printed in a manual. Viewers get active demonstrations that save them time, money, and frustration. Everybody wins!

            What do organizations stand to gain from use of YouTube?

1.     Media-rich product demonstrations

2.     Reduced overhead costs related to product guide production

3.     Expertise and though leadership

4.     Marketing and advertising opportunities

5.     Instant consumer feedback and two-way communication

6.     Improved customer service

There is definitely a shift in paradigm when it comes to customer support. YouTube may eradicate the need for home visits from the plumber or impromptu trips to the mechanic to fix car trouble. To avoid going extinct like old school print manuals, corporations should hop on board the video hosting bandwagon. All they need is an iPhone 4S that shoots HD videos in 1080p to assist their customers and to help save the whales.

Sporcle: Social Media or Major Time Waster?

            Sporcle is a trivia website that was launched in July 2007 by Matt Ramme. The quiz site fulfills Ramme’s desire to learn trivia and occupies a niche like no other of its kind. Sporcle’s mission reads, “We actively and methodically seek out new and innovative ways to prevent our users from getting any work done whatsoever.” Mission accomplished. I’ve been working on this blog post for like three hours now! Apart from being a huge distraction, does Sporcle qualify as a social networking site?

            Social media scholar Nicole Ellison establishes three requisites for social networks. Social networks allow users to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. Other widely accepted definitions of social media stipulate that they allow for user-generated content and two-way interaction. How does Sporcle measure up?

            Sporcle allows users to create personal profiles. Profiles include handles, profile pictures, about me sections, and user stats. These profiles also allow users to create user-generated games, leave comments, bookmark games, and establish connections with other users. This profile setup satisfies all of Ellison’s requirements, as well as the additional aforementioned prerequisites. It assists in finding friends, and provides a mechanism for users to post quizzes on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Though it’s not the typical platform, it does meet the definition, so consider it in the category… for now.

Oh My Lady Gaga

            No one connects with fans quite like Lady Gaga. The songstress, with her eccentric style, unpredictable personality, and amazing talent, always gives her little monsters something to talk about. Gaga is the self-proclaimed queen of Twitter and has 14 million plus followers to back it up.  Corporations and individuals alike can learn a great deal from her most recent Twitter antics.

            On October 16, Lady Gaga issued a challenge to her fans via Twitter. She promised to release the cover of her new single, Marry the Night, in advance of Interscope Records intended release date if her followers made “MARRY THE NIGHT SINGLE COVER” the number-one trending topic on Twitter. A few hours later, Gaga followed through with her promise and revealed the album art via Twitter. Social media blogger Mack Collier identified the three main things that Lady Gaga did right in terms of her use of the micro-blogging platform.

1.     Lady Gaga gave her fans ownership. She empowered her fans to take an active role in promoting her forthcoming single by making it a top trending topic on Twitter.

2.     She communicated what they needed to do. Gaga appealed to her fan’s desires to get exclusive access and made them work to get it, instead of just handing it over.

3.     She communicated to her fans that what they want is above what her label wants. She made it clear to her fans that she prioritizes them over her label’s wishers.

I would go so far as to add a fourth dimension to what she did right. Gaga followed through with her promise in a timely matter and using the same platform that she issued the challenge in the first place. This made her more accessible and removed the boundaries that other mediums would have created. Organizations and individuals stand to learn a lot from Gag’s social media practices.

Occupy Facebook

            A recent survey by harmon.ie found that employees blow over $10,375 of productivity through social media each year. 60% of these distractions stem from social networking sites, texting, and instant messaging. Respondents admit that they put off work to check Facebook or to respond to a text every 15 minutes. The irony according to harmon.ie co-founder Yaacov Cohen is that these tools were created to save time and improve efficiency, but they have proven to do just the opposite.

My experience with students in Club Richter tells me that young people run into the same problem with social media distractions. The ratio of those who actually study to those who, instead, update their statuses every fifteen minutes about how they should probably log off and get to work is one-to-one. The worst part is that those slackers take up all the good seats! I almost had the mind one day to tell one of them off, but I quickly changed my mind once I noticed what was on the screen.

The guy had a page open called “Super Secret Study Group!” Apparently, he organized a group to help his classmates prepare for an upcoming midterm. The group had study guides, links to relevant articles, and even a discussion about possible questions. He also had a live conversation open where the group members fired off questions and some occasional side chatter. This near altercation led me to take a closer look at what everyone was really up to.

It seems students use social media more as a way to organize, mobilize, and communicate with each other. A friend of mine used chat to get a hold of his girlfriend so that she could forward him a presentation that he left at home. Another group cycled through a few Occupy pages to help get ideas for the group he wanted to organize here on campus. Some other kid perused his Twitter feed to look for articles to write about for his homework.

This begs the question: should corporations be more aggressive with their social media use policies, or does the benefit outweigh the possible distraction?