October 17, 2011

Tried and True

I attended another session today worth discussing: Rethinking Social Media by Gerald Braud. The premise is that social media is not a substitute for traditional PR tactics, but in crisis communications in particular, can compound some of the communications challenges. "Tried and true beats shiny and new" is his motto.

He did a couple of exercises with interesting results. One was to ask people to tweet "Free prize for first 2 people to shout out "PR Rocks" in our meeting room. No one did. The time-delay aspect of social media has consequences in all aspects of communications, but is particularly relevant in crisis communications messaging. Thea other I won't mention because I might want to use it myself someday.

In discussing the Domino's Pizza You Tube fiasco, he made the point that issues like that should be addressed using the medium in which they are raised and using the same In responding, you should not wait until the issue becomes a media story, or hope the silly video plays out.

Visit his website for more background. He is a New Orleans guy and mentioned Joe Trahan, who presented at our seminar last fall.

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