Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

I’ve talked about it long enough, but I’ve finally taken the plunge and launched my own podcast series - Ten Minutes Older. As you can guess from the title, each podcast lasts approximately ten minutes in length. I’ll publish a new one every two to three weeks and the series will discuss Public Relations, Marketing, emerging trends and the evolution of the modern consumer. Plans for the odd vidcast are in the works also.

I’m currently getting to grips with the sound of my own voice, so here’s a link to the mp3 of the first installment (hopefully I don’t sound too bad!) My podcast series web address is http://pkellypr.libsyn.com/ but I’ll cross post here regularly. A link to subscribe to podcasts is on the site for those that are interested.

I’ll post a rough script for each podcast if you’d prefer to read instead of listening. My first podcast is just a quick introduction and tries to set the scene a little bit to explain what all the fuss around social media is about:

Blogs, podcasts, YouTube, all words that were pretty much unknown two years ago. Yet today here I am, making a podcast and discussing these topics with you. It is symptomatic of the mass democratisation of the web. The modern consumer has the tools and the ability to publish content in various guises with a couple of clicks. This is starting to have huge implications on organisations across the globe and it’s also got companies very excited about how to connect with consumers.

Just in case you need a last minute reminder about the scale of what we’re talking about and to discount any notions that this is all just a fad, here’s a couple of milestones that might just change your mind. Google purchased YouTube, a free video-sharing website, for $1.65 billion. MySpace claims to have 106 million registered users and a sign-up rate of 230,000 per day. Online advertising grew by 41% last year. Advertisers are already spending more online than on radio, outdoor-poster sites and in business magazines. At the same time, TV advertising revenues shrank 4.7% last year, radio by 5.2% and press classified by 7.8%.

Blogs are just one of many new online tools that have begun to highlight the impact of the Internet on communication. In the past the rate at which a message spread depended on the number of people talking about it. Now millions of people can be exposed to the same message in an instance and naturally it spreads faster. More importantly, that message can be targeted directly at a particular audience and communicated more efficiently as the audience is more likely to pick up on it.

So is this a new phenomenon? In my opinion, no. Humans have an unquenchable desire to communicate and share their experiences. All throughout our history, we’ve shared stories around a campfire, painted stories on cave walls and written ballads to immortalise moments of our history. Today we record our thoughts and opinions on blogs, send text messages to our family and friends, and connect with others on social networking sites like Bebo or MySpace.

We have always tried to express ourselves. Don’t believe me? Just take a look in the mirror. The clothes you’re wearing, even your haircut, they say something about you. They are an extension of your personality and how you want to be perceived.

The reason why the Internet is having such a major impact is that it is fuelling this underlying behaviour. Web 2.0 is a huge buzzword at the minute which encapsulates many things. For me, it represents the fundamental shift in how we communicate online. Web 2.0 tools allow people to connect with many others at one time and has enabled groups with similar interests to come together online. In the past, word-of-mouth communication consisted of one-to-one-to-many communication in that one person would tell somebody something and they in turn would spread that message to numerous other people. Web 2.0 amplifies that effect in that when somebody comments about something, that message can instantly be communicated to a widespread audience (numerically and geographically), thereby taking a one-to-many-to-many form of communication.

Organisations are moving past the stage of thinking about whether online consumer opinions matter or not. The modern consumer can pay to read a review of a new product in a newspaper or he can access hundreds of reviews about the same product on the Internet for free. People are more likely to believe a number of similar opinions rather than the opinion of just one person unless they are a trusted source. For example, new movies are released in the cinema every week. People can read a review in a newspaper or they could access hundreds of reviews and get more information about a particular film online. The general opinion of a number of people is more credible than that of a single source.

What we’re witnessing today is only the tip of an iceberg. The first generation of digital natives has only just emerged. Today’s teens don’t know a world without the Internet, mobile phones or video games. The word google is synonymous with research, copyright is a foreign concept as they log onto sites like PeekVid to watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters and they’ve brought multitasking to another level, instant messaging friends while they do their homework, watch clips on YouTube, upload songs to their iPods and text their friends. Like a generation of Steven Spielbergs, they can create and publish content at will, often without thinking about the implications. This will have profound effects on society as a generation who live by the YouTube motto ‘Broadcast Yourself’ gradually becomes incorporated within it.

A word of warning however. We are quick to label digital natives as the My Space generation. The stupidest thing we can do is label a group that has always sought to be different. People do not act the same. Starting a blog or creating a MySpace page for your company isn’t suddenly going to connect you with this audience. If you want to connect with them, you need to create something that they will talk about or an event that will bring them together. Blogs are simply a medium. There is a perception that this new batch of consumers will take the time to make ads for companies or help them develop the next iPod, wishful thinking really and thoughts I’ll expand on in future podcasts.

Please join me again in two weeks for an overview of the online landscape in Ireland.

Technorati Tags: Piaras Kelly, Podcast, PR, Public Relations, Social Media, Ten Minutes Older