If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I tweet quite a bit. (Today I apparently crossed the 8,110 tweet-mark without realizing it). But every now and then, I’ll “go dark,” as they say in the theater.
You’ll hear from me once, maybe twice a day. Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say; sometimes I don’t come across conversations I want to engage in. And sometimes I happen upon conversations that are so negative or ridiculous or (enter your adjective of choice here ______ ) that I just need to turn it off for a bit.
What I’ve realized, though, is that when I go dark, I am making my own little attempt to break out of my Twitter bubble. Because there are other bubbles that need attending to.
Please, don’t get me wrong. I love Twitter, the new connections and relationships it has helped me forge, and the incredible amount I learn through it each day.
But there are a lot of other bubbles that are equally important to me; my “IRL” bubble of people I’ve met and worked with over the years, my IABC bubble, my email bubble… you get the drift.
I’ve found that if I get too comfortable in one bubble, the others can suffer. Not in a drastic, bubble-bursting way, but if I don’t watch over those relationships too, they could atrophy, which would leave me immeasurably worse off, both personally and professionally.
Balancing the PR Bubble
PR, to me, is like a bubble. In fact, it’s made up of a whole lot of bubbles, i.e. tactics, that delicately wobble and bounce off each other. When the bubbles are released gently, they can make a very pretty picture; you achieve success for your client or organization using a variety of tactics in a planned, strategic and integrated way. When they’re not, they burst, and all one’s left with is soapy liquid.
There are a lot of bubbles for us PR professionals to play with these days, not the least of which is Twitter. After all, if Jon Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres and David Gregory are talking about it, it must finally be cool, right?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Twitter Frenzy | ||||
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Twitter is cool, to many of us. But it’s not the only bubble out there.
So in our haste to make sure the Web 2.0 bandwagon doesn’t rattle away without us, let’s not forget that. Let’s not forget what PR is really about. It’s not about using the latest “shiny new toy” just because you can, or because everyone else is. It’s about strategic thinking, measurable objectives and using the best range of tactics that will achieve those objectives for your client or organization.
Take care of your bubbles, both offline and offline, and they’ll take care of you. After all, who wants to be left with a handful of soapy liquid?
What do you think? Do you think tried and tested PR skills are being discounted in light of all the “shiny new toys?” Or have you found a way to blow many bubbles at once? I’d love to hear from you.
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Shonali Burke Consulting, Inc. | Balancing the PR Bubble
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Adam, Casey – thank you!
AMEN sister! Going all-in on anything will shut of a huge number of input channels, which will in turn have you “going dark” in a much more negative way. Like the rest of life, social media has to be approached with balance in mind. SM is a terrific megaphone, but sometimes you have to do close magic – i.e. whisper in the ears of people in the room with you.
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I totally agree. You’ve touched upon one of the key concepts in the new media/PR world, the idea that you are under no obligations to be addicted to anything and need to take a break a bit for your own sanity.
I look at all my bubbles like a venn diagram as well. Things cross over but if you follow the simple life rule of “treat others the way you want to be treated, whether its online or offline” you’ll be golden!
Guy – I love the Venn diagram reference, I think that’s a great way to look at it. That is exactly how integrated communications should function, with a focus on the desired objectives and using a mix of tactics to achieve those objectives. Focusing solely on the tactics without the end goal in sight invariably lets us down. Thank you for your insightful comment.
I’d actually argue that you can take the ‘bubble’ image and apply it to the non-electronic activities in PR (or in my case journalism) as well. You then see how foolhardy getting carried away with one ‘latest shiny thing’ is.
For example, if I said I wasn’t going to talk to any of you guys outside my ‘web bubble’ you’d find that pretty restrictive – and if I said you were part of my ’email bubble’ and refused to look at your blog or press releases you’d think that was absurd (assuming we operated in the same markets and all other elements were equal).
I do like days when I do a lot in my ‘face to face meetings bubble’. But that doesn’t mean I’d exclude my ‘phone interaction bubble’ from my researches.
In fact it’s less like bubbles (sorry Shonali) than a Venn Diagram. There is, and should be, a load of overlap and a mix of media and situations in which a contact becomes appropriate. Twitter and other social media are a new and massively powerful component of the ways in which we can all communicate – but each of these is a component and never the whole.
Hi Shonali,
Part of the beauty of social networking tools is that you have the ability to switch them off whenever you like. With Twitter and Facebook, for example, you only need follow/befriend those that you find interesting and if you’re having a particularly tough or busy day, you can simply log out for a few hours.
I’d like to think that if used properly Twitter is headed for greatness though, regardless of whether everyone can see its true potential or not.
I personally think that it has the capacity to become an invaluable strand of successful public outreach programmes – but not the only one, that’s for certain.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccawheeler
http://twitter.com/BeccaJW
Jon & Frank – thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Here’s to better balance. :)
hey Shonali –
I feel EXACTLY the same. at time’s i just tune out of what’s going on in Twitter. It seems i need a break once in a while. during those times i for sure go off the grid – to the point of not even opening TweetDeck, checking it on my phone or paying attention to my alerts.
It’a all about making the best of it while you are there :) … and there are some folks doing really cool things with Twitter. http://budurl.com/awa5 Nonprofits are tearin’ it up.
http://twitter.com/franswaa
Shonali,
Great post. It sometimes is hard to balance everything especially as we are learning about this “shiny new toy” that is the social marketing side of PR.
There are various clients, project and other disciplines that are equally as important. Thank you for reminding us about important they are.