David Bradfield has read my (admittedly small) mention in PR Week US, and asks:

“I figured it would be a lively and insightful dialogue, but skepticism seems to have outweighed opportunity (again). Is this really the case?”

Yes, Virginia. This is the case. Not just in Canada, however. The world has separated into three tribes of social media users:

  • Evangelists, who are confident of their diagnosis and certain their prescription will succeed. Evangelists can be divided into two camps: those with a budget, and those without a budget. I should restate that … two camps: those with a client’s budget, and those without their own budget.

“We know you’ve got the money! We just have to spend it bonehead!”

That’s the voice of the evangelist consultant. $5000, $50,000, $500,000 - you have the budget, they have a range of tactics that will address your ailment. Note that I said tactic. By definition, a consultant will not be around long enough to measure whether a social media campaign has a lasting influence on a company’s relationship with its clients or stakeholders.

What about those without their own budget? Those are the true believers. They’re the ones that get a sour taste in their mouth when they say “word of mouth” or “buzz” too frequently. That’s because their original influencers were family and friends. These evangelists build shoestring campaigns of amazing complexity using the incredibly flexible 2.0 apps available to all comers. And they measure influence and impact several times a day - in the customer’s shopping cart and at their bank branch.

  • Hobbyists. They’re the ones that play with social media in their spare time. Niche experts or generalists, hobbyists have spent a lot of time examining how social media will affect their job, their industry and their world. I used the future tense because some of them have been doing this hobby research for three, four or five years. And they still haven’t applied their knowledge to anything other than a hobby blog or family podcast.

Unfortunately, there’s always a reason: not enough time. not enough authority. not enough money. not enough confidence.

I don’t mean to be harsh, but

“drop your purse, honey! It’s GO TIME!“

  • And, finally, opportunists. Once again, there are two camps of opportunists. There’s the executive that has heard their friends talk about some aspect of social media, or has noticed what their kids are doing at home, or realizes that their shiny new integrated marcomm campaign won’t take home any year-end awards without some hint of a social media component. These are what evangelists with a client’s budget call “walk-ins.”

The other camp is more practical. They are not obsessed with social media as a life changing development in how humans communicate. Practical opportunists recognize the advantages promised by social media - in the right campaign, with the right positioning, and with concrete links to company strategy.

The advances being made with social media are a mix of work by all three tribes. I’ve already suggested that crossover can happen among tribes. Many practical opportunists take a risk on a social media at the prompting of hobbyists hiding in plain sight in corporate comms or marketing shops.

What is holding up innovation and experimentation in public relations in Canada? The capacity to take innovative thought, personal inspiration and a clear understanding of corporate priorities and strategies - and identify which social media tools make good business sense.

Not a fun experiment, but good business sense.

In all fairness, I’ll leave the last word to a stand-in for the evangelist:

“…VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge…” (Original editorial from the New York Sun, hosted by the Newseum)

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