I believe if in the XXth century, the new form of illiteracy did not know how to operate a computer, in the XXIst century, the new form of illiteracy is not knowing how to use new media. So there are two forms of thinking about communication:
The traditional marketing & PR vs. the new media marketing & PR.
I mean that in the most profound, most practical way. It’s not online as a component; back in old times, 10 years ago, when it was just a component of the marketing mix, it was new media structuring the way to communicate. It’s simpler.
For more and more products and brands, you don’t just have to be online; you have to do a social presence in web 2.0. So it’s not the marketer who does the planning and structures the communication anymore; it s the social networks and the communities that design the way the message will be communicated, and the strategist has less power to control that which ends up at the receiver (audience, public), unless, of course, they (start to) understand the way it’s working.
The most even astonishing thing is that new media is not an environment; it’s social dynamics. It’s not static. It’s changing, and the rules cannot be predetermined. So if entrepreneurs have to learn to control systems to administrate their business, what they have to know about promotion in the digital era is to let go of control.
I strongly recommend to any entrepreneur and strategist in the communication field to take a deep look at Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. The classic one was in 1993. There are two discussions around which the film idea revolves. And I use this metaphor as what I consider to be an extreme example of what I mean.
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The Jurassic Park metaphor
John Hammond is a brave entrepreneur who builds a new world on an island to entertain people. He hopes he will be able to control what people haven’t ever controlled: a dinosaur zoo. Instead, he relies on setting up a system that works like clockwork.
Errare humanum est, therefore John is willing to learn from his mistake and eventually make it better (which, as a daring entrepreneur, he does), not understanding that the real lesson is not in the “How?” section but in the “why?” section: all control is an illusion.
And, to illustrate this further, after you’ve watched the official trailer of Jurassic Park, please watch these fan-made trailers.
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Which advertises you the best, this movie? The community-generated ones or the official corporate trailer?
New media illustrates the power of democracy.
In a true democracy, the difference from capitalism is that the leaders don’t control the masses; the masses vote to represent their needs and desires in the upper ground. But, in the social networking era, he who has the higher ground is not the winner but is the most stuck. That’s why corporations’ systems are not their most vital point in communicating through web PR. This has never been achievable, in known history, at such a large scale, due to limitations of technology. But now, technology offers no more rules but a lot of freedom.
He who is most flexible has the most control, they say in NLP. Control is a form of power. What power do you have left, if not control? An answer might be responsible. And I do not mean corporate social responsibility like in that channel for organizational PR. I mean responsibility as a value of each individual communicator of each organization that chooses to communicate through new media.
Marketing and PR become integrated.
Values may seem too abstract or too detached from concrete, but each matter, may it be conscious or less conscious, determines a set of choices and actions. More people making the same choices is a micro-trend. Many people making the same choices is a trend. A trend determines a niche.
In classical communication, everybody knows you must have a marketing approach (to the market) and a PR approach (to the audience). However, it’s difficult to separate the two in new media communication.
To illustrate, in talking about a niche, are you referring to a market or a public (audience)? You will find out it’s easier to find communities (audiences) in web 2.0 if you think about a niche than it is to find a market. And you can measure that through online media buying vs. affiliate marketing. Which will you pick if you don’t have enough money? Will you choose advertising or PR? How will the strategists justify their recommendations to their clients, based on the new dynamics of the markets… ups, audiences… or was it the other way around?
We are used to the market being dynamic and the most vivid players being the suppliers. The “Audiences” framing only inspires “listening”. But new media proves that audiences can be very dynamic, and not only that, but they can also outspeak a supplier. Especially in affiliate marketing, audiences determine markets, opposite the classical advertising approach, where needs determine audiences.
I read an article [ro, php] about a year ago that reflected the delay between new media and PR in Romania. I believe that this gap will increase until the communication consultancy providers segment only to the big players, using classical approaches, or more of them will disappear. That might happen because even if the many clients for niched marketing & PR services (the small businesses) will not drive the communication consulting market, the audiences will. Because consumer behavior has ultimately and irreversibly changed in the new media era. And the only direction it’s going is more flexibility.
In the end, here is some food for your thoughts:
Are you ready enough to take power without control?
Do you consider the communities as audiences or as markets?
Do you think your external communication is static or dynamic?
Do you have enough community and market awareness to communicate with responsibility?
Do you want your business to still exist in the next 5 years?
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