Over the past decade or so, public relations has been in a rollercoaster relationship with social media. Nervous initially to jump onboard, since then we’ve been up the hype cycle with several peaks of inflated expectations followed by swoops down into the trough of disillusionment.
Are we currently in a valley of despair following all the shenanigans of ‘fake news’ and ‘data scandals’? Or on an upwards slope of hope driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics?
Not being a binary sort of person, it seems to me that a more mindful approach is required to using social media as professional communicators, whether that’s as individuals or when making recommendations for the organisations we work with.
In 2009, PR adviser and writer, Paul Seaman, wrote a post for PR Conversations: Defending public relations against social media hype.
A conversation seemed in order to get an update on Paul’s thoughts and develop my own views of a mindful approach to social media.
Paul Seaman:
My original piece for PRC dissed Jeff Jarvis, Neville Hobson and Clay Shirky’s wild optimism exemplified by the cry ‘here comes everybody’, the expectation that intermediaries and formal structures were redundant and that old media were toast.
Instead, I defended the value of traditional curated media, the value of authoritative voices, formal structures and old-fashioned business verities.
I also pushed back elsewhere against those who got over-excited about social media’s role in the so-called Arab Spring. In essence, mine was a call for caution in reply to those who claimed that social media would bring us closer together, by proving to be an overwhelmingly transformative, positive phenomenon.
I predicted, in numerous articles, that the content on social media would be dominated by trivia, mobs and insults. Since then I have seen social media, particularly Twitter, become an all-consuming pursuit for time-rich professional loud-mouths; and also for what can only be described as disgruntled lumpen types with no social life of their own.
This creates delusional bubble worlds. Ones in which ‘everybody’ thought Britain would vote Remain, Hilary Clinton would smash Trump, Jeremy Corbyn would beat the Tories in recent local elections because mass opinions on Twitter seemingly said so. The unexpected results caused shock and disbelief.
But it told me that Twitter was out of touch. Its influence way overrated.
I have also become very concerned by mobbing. Most recently by the MeToo brigade led by Hollywood feminists. One controversial accusation, one embarrassing tweet or one awkward comment at a conference can bring an individual’s whole professional career and private life crashing down.
That kind of mob-rule, which dispenses with natural justice, scares the hell out of me. As does the likes of Stop Funding Hate which have Twitter-stormed corporations into making grovelling apologies.Today the same types as Jarvis that I questioned in my PRC post long ago have U-turned. So I find myself opposing them again. Not least because I defend hate speech as free speech.
And yet, nevertheless, I am cutting back on my own social media engagement precisely because it is a cesspit that encourages narcissism and virtue signalling.
I too was drawn in dumbly at times. So now I want to become once again more sociable by engaging with real people face to face or through more considered media in which nuance can be conveyed.
Though I admit that I still manage some useful social media accounts for clients. I also do not advocate a mass corporate retreat. But I do think corporates take Twitter and Facebook opinions way too seriously. They too need to rethink things radically.
Heather Yaxley:
My biggest disappointment with social media is how the potential to offer a cost-effective communications platform for small businesses, charities and individuals seems to have been lost.
The opportunity to connect with like-minded others has been suffocated by ever-changing algorithms, the threat of attracting the attention of nasty mobs and trolling, the mindless puffery of brands/’influencers’ and the SEO-gaming tactics of ‘content’ creation and curation. I don’t see AI or increased robotic involvement in social media as changing this.
Where some see machine learning technology as beneficial, I envisage further eroding of the human – and indeed, the social – dimension of digitally-based communications.
My mindful approach to using social media as professional communicators calls for greater reflection on what we are doing.
We need to consider the impact of hitting the accelerator or slamming the brakes on the roller coaster ride of social media.
This means we have to consider what personal, professional and organisational communications are really all about, and whether social media, given their many challenges, are necessarily the best option.
I grew up in a typical British seaside town, Great Yarmouth, and spent most of my teenage evenings at the Pleasure Beach amusement park. I’m reminded of many of the attractions it offered when thinking about the current state of social media.
It seems that where social media started out as a House of Fun it is now more often akin to a Scary Ghost Train ride.
My favourite ride remains the old Scenic Railway wooden roller coaster – the one in Great Yarmouth being the UK’s only remaining example. The thrilling combination of excitement and trepidation comes from slowly ratcheting up the ride’s inclines and safely hurtling down the other side.
In contrast, ultra-modern roller coasters deliver short-lived, high-speed, breathless adrenaline rushes by going ever faster with gravity-defying heights and stomach-churning loop after loop. As with social media, they rely on automation, psychological tricks and ‘the next new thing’ to keep our attention.
The classic wooden roller coaster is controlled by a human operator, the brakeman, whose job is to slow the train down when necessary and bring it to a halt safely. A mindful approach to social media calls for PR practitioners to act as a brakeman, skilled in carefully slowing down and speeding up the ride.
We all need time to catch our breath and to remember that communications are about people, relationships are about people and social media are tools that should be employed to entertain, inform, educate, engage, enrage and ultimately benefit people.
Photo credit: Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach: https://www.pleasure-beach.co.uk/history.
Paul Seaman blogs at: http://paulseaman.eu
