redherring.jpgLast month, I attended the Red Herring East conference. As expected, it was filled with VCs and investment bankers, but there were two sessions that I found interesting and wanted to share with you.

The first, “Understanding the New Influencers: Promise and Perils of the Blogosphere” was with Paul Gillin. He discussed his book (I do here). What stuck in my mind was a discussion that ensued with an audience member. He made the point that content is not the differentiator for social media — the community is. Gillin countered that content creates and maintains the community. Social media sites (from YouTube to blogs) have to provide valuable content if they want more visitors.

It’s a simple concept that most PR pros will agree with. The challenge, which is something we’ve always faced, is that value is decided by the audience members/website visitors/potential customers. To me, that means that as social media provides more avenues for us to reach individuals, it’s even more important for us to understand our audience and purpose … and map our tone and theme accordingly. And then make sure our content is valuable to those members. And they can find it (or it finds them). Oh, and then keep them happy.

Another session I found interesting was called “Web 3.0 – Changing the Ways We Interact.” It was moderated by Joel Dreyfuss, Red Herring’s editor-in-chief, and featured execs from Userplan (AOL), Schwartz Communications and Yahoo. Carol McGarry of Schwartz made a few interesting points about Web 2.0/3.0 and its impact on PR:

  • The PR industry is witnessing a blurring of the lines, with traditional media going online and bloggers acting like media with staff, offices, etc. (Think of USA Today’s move to be more social, and TechCrunch’s move to deliver news via a blog).
  • One of the greatest impacts these new technologies has had on PR has been on the decision tree. Now, company execs need to be ready to respond immediately to a negative blog mention vs. having junior PR people do it. Also, this new PR world means that messaging needs to be in place in order to enable a real-time response.
  • A great advantage of the blogosphere is that when companies are mentioned — good or bad — they always link to the company website (well, almost always). PR people need to remember that, because if your company is in the news, it’s very likely like the readers will go to the company website, so be sure to deliver your message there first.

A few other interesting points made on the panelists:

  • Social media turns passive consumers into active value creators. Marketers should use those brand advocates across the network to watch your brand and promote the company. Of course, that means you must relinquish control of your message. You should also provide incentives to encourage the discussion, which often is as easy as embracing them as extended family to the company.
  • Affinity networks are going to be huge. Facebook and MySpace are popular now, but as business professionals join the consumer members, the communities will eventually get too large and their value will diminish. Some of the panelists felt that in the not-so-distant future, people will pay money to join affinity networks that provide more filters and targeting (and of course, it makes sense for PR people to do the same). So don’t put all your social media eggs in the Facebook basket.