I agree with the analysis, especially with the fact that there should be more in-depth knowledge sharing instead of echo-chambering regarding shallow “insights” regarding different channels.
For instance, you can easily find 30 people stating that Facebook has made som significant change, and this will be retweeted and commented widely, but who puts this in a professional context?
I think this in part is a semantic problem; being an expert in social media equals being an expert in quickly curating new features and functions of the social web. But new features doesn’t reveal that much about dynamics, and often nothing on practical implications from different perspectives.
I’m not saying that the features and functions specialists are irrelevant; their echo-chambering is quite allright in my book.
The trouble is, that their frequenzy and community strenghts are allowing them to be very visible due to pure link logic.
There is also another technical aspect which is difficult to deal with, and that is that frequent bloggers get influence and therefore becomes necessary to put into your reader. This gives them an active audience, whereas smaller, less influential blogs can write something extremely insightful, but nothing happens until someone more influential picks it up.
For me personally, I try to keep up to date by commenting and blogging such matters where a PR perspective (not a social media perspective) is needed.
But I’m of course ducking from one aspect of the discussion, and that is the one of conflict. It’s true I avoid conflict in some ways. I rather spread love than anything else, and I try to keep myself in check whenever I get angry by something.
This is a personal choice based upon the fact that I want my blog to be a hub for inspiration rather than polemic. Not that I’m against polemic, but there are other places more suitable for that.
Plus, spreading praise is much more fun.
And personally, I think that if you don’t embrace the fact that sharing is caring on the web, even amongst fierce competitors, than how can you be an expert in social media?
For the record, in case anyone was wondering how I percieve myself:
I’m no social media expert. I’m a PR expert who has a private love affair with the social web. No more, no less.
Hur många är med på att hädanefter referera till mig som “PR Rockstar”? Hand upp. Kom igen nu, var inte så tråkiga. Jag lovar att vara mindre pretto och mer rock and roll framöver.
A lot of unsubstantiated talk about Flipboard, plus these examples where the sales rumour regarding the Old Spice campaign perhaps the most well-know.
My analysis: The echo-chamber-effect is a fact. You need spin-control also when dealing with the social web.
“This new type of PR presents the opportunity to combine journalistic prowess with marketing savvy in new ways.”
Puffar för Lisahs bidrag.
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