A Social Media Fractured Fairy Tale
It’s time for a fractured fairy tale: Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley, courtesy of the New York Times. Once upon a time in a Sand Hill Road conference room, an entrepreneur, a VC and a PR consultant met to discuss the launch of Wordnik, a website about language and word usage. The PR person suggests a press tour of leading tech blogs (TechCrunch, GigaOm, etc.). This suggestion is rejected by the VC as not a good match for a language website. Instead, they decide that they would have influential Silicon Valley entrepreneurs mention Wordnik in social media. As so it came to be. Digg founder, Kevin Rose, twittered that Wordnik was “truly amazing.”
From there, people started madly retweeting, which led to Wordnik becoming a trending topic on Twitter. Then, everyone in the Valley was abuzz about Wordnik. People will look back on these past few months as the “Summer of Wordnik.” And they all lived happily ever after.
Except that in the real world, the launch of Wordnik went virtually unnoticed. As Michael Arrington reported in TechCrunch, Wordnik received a small blip in traffic and then quickly returned to its previous minuscule level. Since this is a fractured fairy tale, the frog doesn’t get turned into a prince. But there are some lessons to be learned.
Hipsters vs. Word Nerds: Before starting a launch plan, the first imperative is to determine “who is the target audience?” Then, look for the best way to reach them. Here the target audience was …. Wordniks. The VC was correct that word nerds really don’t follow mainstream tech blogs. But targeting hipsters using twitter is more about making a fashion statement than a viable launch plan for a language website.
Something Old, Something New: Much of the debate generated by the Times article is about whether social media is replacing PR. This is based on a false premise. The rise of new technologies doesn’t mean that the old technologies are banished to a virtual thrift shop. The new supplements the established. The old technology adapts to fit in with the new. At the time of the original Fractured Fairy Tales, PR people mailed press releases to the local newspapers. Today, the number of communication tools and influencers has increased exponentially. But press releases now incorporate SEO and still remain in the mix.
PR and Social Media, Better Together: Combining PR and social media into an integrated strategy can deliver great results. PR provides an efficient way to quickly gain traction with the targeted influencers and audience. Social media builds connections with these folks. By social media, I mean participating in conversations on Twitter and Facebook, joining the blogosphere by writing and commenting on blogs rather than having Internet celebrities tweet on your behalf. You could argue it would be better to just use social media to gradually grow an audience (especially with a niche product). But these days, VCs and board members want to see immediate results, as evidenced by Wordnik’s VC participating in the PR discussion. Though prior to launching a PR campaign, it is important that the product is ready for the attention (see: PR for Tech Start Ups – Are you ready for your close up?).
The Happy Ending: Completion of a product launch should be the first of many interactions with customers, partners, and influencers. There are many opportunities to build, even on a less than successful launch. After all, it’s more important where you end, than how you start. And this is where this post happily ends.
Written by Rob AdlerLast 3 posts by Radler
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Tags: Blogging, High Tech PR, PR Campaign, PR for Tech Start Ups, social media, social networking, Start ups, tech PR, tradeshow pr, Venture Capital
July 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Big Media has a hard time understanding new methods of communication. This is nothing new, but I wonder is some percentage of this misunderstanding is a function of the fear of loss of jobs and/or influence. It is difficult to deal rationaly with an influence with which one is emotionally involved. PR is a traditional media system, so I assume the influencing factors are similar which would mean the would reach similar and somewhat misguided conclusions. Buggy whips, telegraph keys, etc, are still in use today, just in more specialized situations. Traditional media will outlive all of us.
July 24th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Excellent article. Social Media is one tool that I offer to my clients from my PR/Marketing toolbox. Your article shows we need to think about the end-user/target audience just as we were taught in old fashioned Marketing and PR 101.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Very intriguing article. I think many PR people are thinking the worst that social media is going to take over and replace PR. But I would tend to agree with your idea that the two can be great together. If PR people are worried about social media taking over their jobs, they need to adapt and update themselves and be able to use their current knowledge along with new and emerging technologies.
October 5th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Social Media is undoubtedly a way of the future, so PR professionals should embrace the change and it can be a beneficial tool for them.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Could you recommend any specific resources, books, or other blogs on this topic?