Dan Greenfield, VP at Earthlink and blogger at Bernaisource, asked a handful of PR bloggers for their take on "The Most Important Developments of 2006." Among those participating are John Wagner, Kami Huyse, Mike Manuel the Media Guerilla, H-P’s Eric Kintz and of course, Dan himself.
While I am happy to participate, TIME’s announcement that Y-O-U are the most important development of the year seems to make this exercise moot! Then again, I suppose that asking a user’s opinion is kind of the point.
As a first step, Dan assembled a list of notable developments from 2006. The participants in this "collaborative post" were not required to use these elements, but, let’s face it, it is a handy list! So, here’s my take on the Top Developments of 2006…
Social Media News Releases - Yea, I know, you’d expect this from me but if you can excuse my evangelical wonkiness for just one minute, please, consider what we are talking about:
We are going to re-format a 100-year old document for an emerging era in which consumers wield unprecedented control. By re-architecting the news release, we will place the power to disseminate data and effect reputation directly into the hands of the consumer. By providing all of the relevant, legitimate multimedia assets of the brand — to anyone who wants them, to do with them whatever they please — we are making a huge bet that consumers can be trusted to re-model our clients’ image. (TIME would approve.)
The Social Media News Release is not the only way in which this will happen, but, due to the news release’s traditional role as the Official Voice of the Corporation, it is a handy, iconic representative of the Big Changes now taking place.
Wal-Mart/Edelman Flogs - The importance of transparency and ethics made crystal-clear… in part by showing how hard it is to hide nowadays, and by demonstrating the abuse that can come as part of the disastrous revelations.
GM’s Rebuttal to Thomas Friedman - It’s a conversation, now. This is a big part of what the TIME editors are espousing. The media is not the be-all, end-all, anymore. If the corporation disagrees with the columnist, in the Social Media era they now have a forum to discuss it — and (ironically) gain further credibility with consumers (who will in turn debate the issues) as a result of humanizing themselves.
In the old Command-and-Control world in which PR was bred, all of these developments would have been considered heretical.
But each is a shining example of how PR needs to think about its long-term relevance in an uncertain future.
Tags: dan+greenfield, eric+kintz, kami+huyse, john+wagner, constantin+basturea, converseon, earthlink, shift+communications, 2006, social+media, social+media+news+release, edelman, thomas+friedman, general+motors, wal-mart, flogs, blogs, PRTrends2006, web2.0trends2006
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Great post! I agree that social media is changing the tides in a major way. Cheers for your help in moving things along.