Social media has forced brands to rethink their public relations and marketing strategies to focus on story telling. While consumers want their information quickly, it's as important to make sure that the message your "selling" truly resonates and hits a nerve.
This is what is called social marketing, or what is more commonly known as storytelling.
Brands have to develop creative ways to tell their story, their mission and their value proposition.
In this video, H&R Block is promoting one of their products that helps consumers look at previous year tax returns to see if there is any way to collect additional funds. However, instead of a steady stream of marketing messages, H&R Block told the story of Detroit — a story of economic hardship and cultural diversity, wrapped up in a warm blanket of hope and a prosperous future.
All in Business
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December 2011 was an interesting month for me. I was closing out a pretty good year when I was slapped pretty hard by reality. I won't get into the gory details, but after 18 years of being in the communications business, I was back on the job market right before the holidays.
Needless to say, it was a tough pill to swallow.
However, everything happens for a reason, as the saying goes. And after the past two weeks, I truly believe that the saying is dead on.
Flash forward to today, and I find myself sitting on some very interesting opportunities -- all leading in different directions, yet with a very similar focus.
You see, I've built my career in order for me to be a generalist/specialist. This means, I'm good at a lot of things as it relates to Public Relations, Marketing, Digital Communications, Mobile Marketing and of course, Social Media.
I've worked for big, mid-sized and small agencies. I've worked on the client side. I've developed programs for big, mid-sized and small companies across a variety of industries.
This broad experience means that one day, I can be pitching trend stories to connections I have at the Wall Street Journal and later that hour, managing a client's social listening program in order to provide them with market intelligence via online chatter.
What this boils down to is that I'm good with people. I'm good at managing relationships. I'm good at connecting people with people, people with brands and brands with brands (in the case of B2B communications).
This leads me to my point:
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As I eluded to in an earlier post today, the PR, advertising and marketing business has converged. Each segment is doing social media. Each segment is trying to do parts of other segments, i.e. PR agencies doing traditional marketing work, while advertisers are conducting PR exercises like messaging training.
It's a confusing, yet exciting time to be in this business considering where the job market is in relation to the industry.
Two elements I've enjoyed of my career has been the writing and communication aspects, i.e. telling stories. And, if you think about this industry in terms of the responsibilities, a lot of what we do is rooted in story-telling.
We create campaigns that tell the story of a brand. We create messaging that clearly communicates the value proposition of a company or non-profit. We develop personas that help bring brands to life online.
These are all elements of story telling, but there are more. Here are more:
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I've been in the journalism/PR/digital marketing business for 18 years (in that order). If you've ever worked at an agency, you know that the lines between PR, advertising and marketing has become blurred because of online communications, i.e. social media.
The space is become very crowded. Guru's are a plenty. Books are being written at a feverish pace; books on Google+, Facebook, social media in general, location-based stuff, etc.
It's never ending and to be brutally honest, it's tiring.
Here's what I'd like to see from PR, advertising and marketers in 2012:
If you've ever worked in an agency, you'll get a kick out of this infographic. Even if you haven't, but have worked WITH an agency, this will put things into perspective.
For those of you who know me or work with me, you'll eventually hear that I'm trying to be "paperless." I don't like big stacks of paper on my desk. I don't carry around a notebook. I hate those big PowerPoint presentation that equate to half of the rain forrest in paper.
My main productivity application is Evernote. I use it on my various Macs or PCs; iPhone and iPads (1 and 2). In fact, it's probably the one productivity application I can't live without. There's a reason why the logo is an Elephant. It helps me remember everything.
When I left my previous job to head to One to One Interactive, I had no idea what to expect. It's been about a month now and I'm loving it. I work with some smart, creative and entrepreneurial type folks. People really enjoy what they do and enjoy working with each other.
One thing the agency does that I thought was very cool was supporting the Greater Boston Food Bank. Employees can donate canned goods or money.
Here's the kick: it's competitive.