Doug Haslam remains one of the more prolific members of the online public relations community (he’s a great guy, too!). He’s been doing more that, too. Starting as a jazz DJ, then cutting tape and pointing fingers (in a non-accusatory, rather more of a “cue-speak now!†manner) at public radio’s best, I embarked on a technology public relations career just in time to ride the Internet bubble. After watching him use his twitter profile in some fascinating ways, we could not help but ask Doug to drop by the Buzz Bin for an interview.
BB: Your twitter feed is better well ranked as your other social media properties. Do you feel like blogging is even necessary?
DH: Someone pointed out a few months back that the Technorati ranking of my Twitter stream was way ahead of that of my blog. That really surprised me, but in retrospect it makes sense. I spend a lot more time cultivating relationships on Twitter, and as a result create a lot of link-backs. My blog is only so active on an isolated basis, in part because my more serious posts tend to appear on the Topaz Partners blog, Tech PR Gems (http://topazpartners.blogspot.com).
Blogging is still necessary, as Twitter is still a limited communications tool. Twitter, for me, is a hub. Because the people I consider my community are on Twitter, anything that doesn’t fit there: longer posts, photos, audio and video, I link to via Twitter to alert the community. That, of course, is just in case anyone is interested. Sometimes they are.
BB: What are your favorite uses of Twitter?
DH: My favorite use of Twitter is as an instant feedback group. I hesitate to say “focus group” because I am familiar with the sweet science of putting together a focus group for market research. With Twitter, I can take the 1,700 or so people in my network (as of this writing), ask them a question, and know it is relevant to enough of them that I always get some useful answers. I use this method to ask questions for clients, and also for business prospects, to dig up a little quick intel on their industry. For example, during a messaging session with a new client, I used Twitter during the meeting to ask impressions about competitors. I fed the answers in real time to the projector screen, and it actually helped us form some of our messages.
Another more fun use is simply to vent. Because Tweets are ephemeral, quick quips come and go, and it’s ok to have hits and misses, so if I’m online and am watching a sporting event or simply feeling snarky, the one-liners just come flying out. These Tweets don’t add to the enlightenment of the crowd, but they’re a lot of fun, and if one person gets a smile out of them, then great.
BB: What are the greatest challenges facing social media?
DH: I think the main challenge hasn’t changed in a while- that is, mainstream acceptance. More and more companies are adopting social media in some form, but it still feels like an “early adopter thing” to an extent. In public relations that is even more evident, as I feel the move towards adopting social media, while it is happening, still feels slow.
BB: How long do you think we have until this is an old hat?
DH: I can’t put a time stamp on it. Probably, when something new comes along that we all jump on, we will realize this social media stuff has been broken in.
BB: How will the recession impact the growing social network medium?
DH: From the standpoint of people writing blogs and creating other media, not much at all. The means to create personal media are very inexpensive. From a corporate side, it depends. Economic struggles will force prioritization, and social media may have to fight for budget alongside traditional marketing. That could get ugly unless companies stockpile evidence that social media ROI is great enough to dislodge the suits from their comfy chairs. I don’t sense that is true yet. If it gets really bad really quickly, companies will retreat to the familiar and experimentation will suffer.
BB: What’s your biggest pet peeve?
DH: Going back to Twitter? People forgetting that individual messages are ephemeral. If you are responding to someone talking about a link, include that link in your response. I try to do that as much as possible, even at the risk of seeming egotistical by repeating my own link if it’s part of a conversation. Make it easy for people to know what you are talking about. Always err on the side of giving more information. On Twitter especially, repetition is not a crime.
BB: And your greatest hope?
DH: My greatest hope is that we do reach that point soon where we strip the “new” from “new media.” As a PR guy, I approach blogs, podcasts and other social media relations as part of the greater world of media. Different media and different individual outlets need to be treated differently, but I am a fan of integrated approaches. The important thing is your communications are finding the right people in the right places. The media you use to do that need to fit the strategy, not the other way around.
Doug is our celebrity Twitterer at Topaz and we’re extremely proud of his work in social media (not to mention amused by his quirky, off-beat sense of humor). I’d only take issue with one of his observations here, the claim that Twitter is “ephemeral.”
As we all know the word ephemeral comes from the Greek word “ephÄ“meros” meaning “lasting a day, daily.” Just kidding – we all didn’t know that, but now we do.
The unephemeral thing about Twitter is that Tweets have a tendency to get picked up by search engines and by Twitter scrapers. Remember that silly old 140-character rambling you managed to drunkedly bang out at 4 a.m. about X or Y? It will live on in immortality for anyone with a search engine to find and read. And have a chuckle. Either with you, or at your expense.