PR 2.0 Taboo Words
What words do you think of when you see a blog post titled, “PR 2.0 Taboo Words?” Are there really any taboo words? Well, there are a few words that immediately pop into my mind because I think they apply more to traditional communications. I’m not sure if they have a home in the new PR landscape, at least not the same way that they did before social media.
Here are a few words that keep coming up in conversations and are debated among PR peers:
- Messages: I remember being in Brisbane, Australia for the PRIA National Conference 2009, when I explained in my presentation that the word “messages” is a mass communication term. When we talk about “messages” we imply a broadcast communication model and how many brands push out information about their organizations. Immediately I was questioned: why should we stop talking about messages? A large part of public relations is developing key messages? My response: I didn’t think we would completely stop developing overall key messages for our organizations. I discussed my response in an earlier blog post, stating we should stop with the canned messages that show up in news releases and other types of communication. If we listen first and start to customize our stories, not just craft messages, then we will have better conversations with people and build stronger relationships.
- Audience: This is another interesting word that’s difficult to stop using when you are in the field of communications. I was brought up using the word
“audience.” However, today in the social media communications, the word “audience” implies a mass communications model and that we look at people in terms of the demographics rather than psychographics. In web communities, demographics still exist. For example, examining how the various age groups participate in social networks, but people don’t congregate because of their age, income, sex, geography, religion, etc. Rather people band together because they are like-minded and have similar interests and passions. Psychograpic values play a large part in how people behave and interact with one another. We’re observing emotions, interests, and lifestyles. In web communities, people who have different likes, dislikes and opinions and understanding psychograpics, and the behavior in social networks, helps us to learn the right way to engage with a group of people.
In Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, Brian and I discuss the “forbidden” words. Here’s a brief excerpt about audiences:
“Audiences, as you typically knew them, were lumped into general categories. However, with choices so vast, PR in the Long Tail has the ability to reach individuals and influence their behavior— whether it’s an opinion, a referral, or a purchase. In addition, the audiences of the past did not typically have access to the power of the press. Now people in Web communities are listening and learning, yet at any given time, they are ready to influence their peers by publishing their own interpretation, insight, opinions, and meaningful information. And finally, the audiences of the past might have craved messages. However, the people formerly known as the audience now control the information they want to consume—when, how, and with whom they want to speak, sans the media broadcast mechanism.”
- Pitch: When I started in PR, about 75% of my job was media relations and pitching journalists. I took great pride in scouring newspapers and trade publications, understanding a client’s business and market and coming up with interesting, newsworthy angles to pitch to the media. Along comes social media and the word “pitch” has almost a negative connotation. When we pitch, it’s usually a story that we find and want to tell. It’s not necessarily based on listening to conversations of the people that we want to reach. I used to do my homework on journalists and the stories they had written in the past, but I never had the opportunity to go into a web community to really learn what people were thinking and to hear what they needed from a brand. This is an incredible opportunity to offer meaningful communication directly to the people as well as sharing it with other stakeholders, including the media. So, it’s not that we won’t pitch again, but we will talk less about pitching in the social sphere and simply focus on sharing communication and great resources. We don’t need to pitch if we listen closely.
- Control: Here’s a word that comes up quite a bit in boardroom conversations. Yes, that’s right, “we were going to control the communication” and only distribute the information that we wanted the public to hear. This certainly has changed and definitely doesn’t work in social sphere. Actually, brands never really had control over the conversations. Just because they sent out messages didn’t mean that consumers (1) accepted the information and (2) didn’t talk about the brand based on their own experiences, good, bad or indifferent. Brands have always been talked about, however, social media perpetuates the conversations and shares them virally on a much larger scale. What do I tell brands that want to control conversation? We need to look at conversations differently and focus less on the word “control” and concentrate more on better monitoring of communication and formulating appropriate responses to help people, solve their problems and build better relationships. Control is one of those words that will not work in social communities.
What do you think of the PR 2.0 taboo words? Do these words have a place in social communities? What words would you add to this list?
March 19, 2010 @ 9:53 pm
Taboo words? In social media? You know I don’t think there are many taboo words in social media. It is so free-forming and flowing that anything really goes within context. That said, I’m not too fond of the words pitch, control, and audience regarding our profession. Never have been even in PR 1.0 long before social media came around. I think social media is empowering us to redefine our profession and return to what public and relations mean.
March 20, 2010 @ 6:05 am
Deirdre, very interesting post.
I wrestle with ‘audience’ as a term a ‘helluva’ lot because I till think an audiences or audiences, the true sense of the word, have always been participatory groups ie Spike Lee at a Knicks game is as much apart of the product on show as the game itself. And so are the 20,000 other people in that stadium. However, you make a good point that the term does have some very traditional thinking attached to it – I think we probably grappke with the uise of this word more than our clients do…but then again, they only need to consider the audiences of one brand as opposed to people like you or I who think about the make up of the people we are trying to reach on behalf of 20 brands or so. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Adam
March 20, 2010 @ 6:08 am
P.S I hate posting comments via BlackBerry…typo city!!
March 20, 2010 @ 10:32 am
Hi Ann Marie…very well said! I’m all for returning to the true value and meaning of PR! Thanks for sharing your insights.
March 20, 2010 @ 10:39 am
Hi Adam, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think you are right that we tend to grapple more over the term than our clients. We are definitely targeting and listening more to identify the people we want to reach for many different brands, which makes the word audience appear so broad or mass communications. It should be interesting to see what other Taboo Words pop up a long the way! Thanks 🙂
March 20, 2010 @ 11:26 am
Words are just that, and meaning is in the eye/ear/mind of the beholder. Let’s hope your concepts begin to permeate PR communities — wherever they may be situated — who may hear, but not yet heed the ideas you espouse.
Meantime, since you asked, some suggestions for the list:
Demographics: Much akin to your notation on “audience,” and perhaps just another way of saying the same thing. But hey, it’s a popular term, so shall we nix it?
Return on Investment: A holy grail(or perhaps third rail) for PR in general and these days even more so when it comes to social media. We should, of course, always be measuring impact, influence, and return on what we do. But these things are not always quantifiable in hard dollars and cents. Some have suggested using the term Return on Influence. Maybe that’s better. Whatever — staunch dedication to bean counting as a way of determining whether or not PR/marketing is working fails to take all aspects into account.
Social media: Yes, you read that right. It may be too soon to call this one out, but eventually, it may turn out that all media has a social aspect. Thus we will no longer need to tack the word “social” on and we can just say “media.” Far-fetched? Perhaps, but things do seem to be moving in this direction.
March 20, 2010 @ 12:04 pm
Deni, thank you so much for sharing your ideas and adding to my list. I definitely think that we need to evaluate the use of the term ROI. We’re so used to talking about ROI to show the outcome of what we do, but in the case of social media, sometimes there is not a direct correlation to the bottom line, but rather you go through influence, participation, engagement and involvement which leads to stronger relationships that can translate into ROI. I often use terms including ROE, ROP and the other ROI (for Return on Involvement). I also find it very interesting what you said about social media and how at some point all media will have a social aspect. Look at the local newspapers that are surviving by creating really strong social networks to give local communities even more in-depth news and information (and a forum to discuss and exchange ideas). It will be interesting to see how media evolves so that everything is social!
March 21, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
As a non-PR, non-marketing person (I’m a technologist), I also think both “message” and “audience” should be taboo, but for perhaps different reasons than you mentioned. Both words imply that people in the “audience” are supposed to listen passively to the “message” and obey it. The implication of both is that “we talk, and you listen”, whereas the idea behind social media is that “you talk and we (the corporation) listens and obeys”. The true touchstone of an effective social media strategy is whether the company actually undertakes changes in their products, business practices or policies in response to what consumers express.
March 21, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Hi Joe, you make an excellent point! And, your explanation, as a technologist, is one of the best I’ve heard. We should never assume that people are just going to passively listen and obey what we say, especially in web communities. This would be very dangerous to any brand. Rather, if brands learn to research (listen) more and then apply the information they’ve learned to provide helpful resources, meaningful content or even help in the form of better customer service, then suddenly consumers feel like they are being recognized, appreciated and heard. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the taboo words.
March 22, 2010 @ 3:58 pm
I’d love to see “market” and all of its various uses take a long walk off a short pier.
As a verb, to “market” something carries the same rotten taste as “pitch” (the only real difference being the “audience” one is “targeting”).
As a noun, “market” describes an environment that no longer exists where everything is homogenous and can be conquered by a one-size approach that simply involves fiddling with four dials until the right mix is achieved.
March 22, 2010 @ 8:54 pm
Hi Derek! You make a great point about the word “market.” I definitely think it describes that homogenous environment with a one-size fits all approach. We just can’t look at Web communities as markets and we definitely can’t “market” to web communities. I guess the word has to go! I’ve speaking much more about the reaching the public and target publics, which seem to resonate with peers and my clients.
March 26, 2010 @ 2:51 am
Deirdre, thanks for this thought provoking post. I agree with Deni. Words do not hold meaning. People hold meaning. So, it’s not the words that need to be tossed, it’s the meanings that people hold about these words that need to change.
I don’t think words such as audience and market are going to go away. PR pros will have to deal with these words and the others if they are going to hold conversations with marketing pros. However, it’s the PR pro’s challenge to change the meaning of these words with colleagues in marketing and the board room. Audience, for example, will always be with us, especially in the media. But the meaning of audience, the characteristics of the audience, as you have stated, is different now. I actually think audience is a word that is in transition now. The meaning is changing as people understand the new media environment. Even a small step by a television program to say at the end of the show to follow the program on Twitter and Facebook is evidence of how the term, audience, is transitioning to a different meaning.
Now, if only the idea/meaning of “control” could change as easily as “audience”…
March 26, 2010 @ 6:41 am
Hi Rick! You and Deni make an excellent point. It’s not the words it’s the people who use them. And, I agree that if PR people want to work more with marketing folks then we still have to speak in terms of audiences, messages and markets. It’s definitely a word in transition and it should be interesting to see how small steps lead to more targeted thinking. As for the word control…let’s just hope the thinking changes soon! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!