Friday, June 20, 2008

Even Crotchedy Old Media Critics Get Social Media Now

Check out the mea culpa from Media reporter Jon Friedman at MarketWatch here.
Time magazine was spot-on, dead-bang correct when it named "You" as its Person of the Year for 2006. I knocked the inspired choice, and I was way off base. Read that column.

Time Warner's Time magazine was clearly ahead of its time.

There's no doubt by now that these 21st century user-driven innovations -- Facebook, Friendster, Google's YouTube, News Corp.'s MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp (oh, yes) and others -- are taking over the way people communicate with one another. (News Corp. is the parent company of MarketWatch, publisher of this column.)

Back then, I viewed the "You" cover -- designed to connect the dots between YouTube and the other social-networking Internet sites -- as a mere publicity stunt on Time's part. What was I thinking? A major magazine engaging in a publicity stunt? Perish the thought.
Clearly, we're at the point where even the late adopters are on board. I've had multiple meetings over the last few months with some of the largest companies on earth about how to socially network internal and external communications, sales support, lead nurturing, and other marketing type activities. Even a year ago, the subject of social media would have come up and been immediately dismissed. Now, it's an integral part of any PR/marketing plan.

You and your audience remain the same. The old channels of communications have disappeared. Now they are replaced with new disaggregated media. You have to grow and strengthen your own communications networks using all the new tools to distribute the best engaging, educating and entertaining content you can develop.