In the most recent issue of PRSA’s Tactics, Jim Nail of TNS Cymfony made a simple but interesting point in a piece looking at the future for social media in 2009. The simple point that jumped out at me: companies pursuring a social media strategy will be looking at a 3-pronged route — invite, listen and respond. We often find it difficult to educate and convince companies about social media, so the simple approach when explaining opportunities makes sense to me — and here’s my take on how PR folks can put this to use:

- invite (use social media to create communities — by launching a corporate blog, a podcast, a facebook page, a YouTube channel, a Twitter following or a photo page)

- listen (use social media to hear what audiences want, what journalists are thinking, what competitors are saying, and where the marketplace is trending — by monitoring blogs, microblogs, etc.)

- respond (use social media to raise your visibility on issues important to you — by launching a blogger/microblog communications effort)

Again, nothing earth-shattering here — in fact, it’s not to far off the way Topaz has talked about social media for years. But it’s an important reminder to us all that by keeping it simple, perhaps we’ll have more success bringing others on board the social media bandwagon.

Share on Facebook

Technorati Tags: PR, Social Media

Share/Save