I sit here blogging from my G1 Android phone, allowing me to live blog from my chair. I just finished listening to Shel Holtz and he made a lot of sense here as he spoke to us at Blog Potomac, a yearly unconference, founded by Geoff Livingston, social media rockstar and local boy.
Shel’s talk brought me back to basics: “in PR, we are considered counsellors, not merely strategists: we are responsible for guiding our clients to do not the most comfortable thing nor the safest thing, but the best thing for their brand, their reputation, their message, their communication, and their message.”
OK, that isn’t a real quote but that’s what I heard from Shel at #blogpotomac — and I heard this: don’t follow the shiny tools, follow the conversations; don’t assume that the best place to reach people is online, find out where people are actually having their conversations.
I also heard something so brilliant that I have been saying and I know that Sally Falkow reminds people about this: before tweeting and before blogging and before engaging and before messaging there is planning.
Planning, flow-charting, framing, researching, and testing are very important things to do before even starting a social media — or any PR — campaign.
Shel Holtz said, “beware, you might very well have the most amazing campaign that ran flawlessly and without hitch — going to all the wrong people, all the wrong communities, and be completely misplaced,” also not a real quote but in his spirit.
One other thing thet Shel Holtz said — amen, amen — is that being the most advanced user of social media, social networks, Facebook, Twitter, etc, does not even remotely make you the right person to run a social media campaign.
More life blogging from the Blog Potomac in Falls Church soon! Later.
