PR people are always encouraged to come up with The Big Idea. This usually happens at a brainstorming session (how I hate that phrase) where the agency muckity-mucks are eager to show some thinking to the client. Come up with something big and flashy we can bring to the client to justify all this admin time and show we can think outside the box, they think.
When applied to social media, however, this rarely works.
Social media is all about intimacy. It’s about communicating on a one-to-one or one-to-few basis. It’s not about being edgy or showing your cool by throwing in as many tools as possible.
Think about Stormhoek – let’s just send bottles of wine to bloggers and let them talk about it if they are so moved. Nothing fancy or clever or flashy. Just wine.
Yet these days all I hear about are plans to ‘engage online audiences’ with a brain-numbing combination of SMS and mobile video, avatars, nude models strolling down Park Avenue with URLs stamped on their asses and online games costing clients gazillions in fees to their ad agency. And most consumers yawn and move on.
Public relations is about relations. Relations aren’t built on hammering people over the head.
