Barron’s this week says that “Digital media and subscription TV are likely to see sizable gains in ad spending as a recovery gains…” A graphic shows that adverts on mobile phones and handhelds are estimated to increase by 33% from 2008-2013, Internet ads will rise more than 10% and pay TV ads by more than 7% during the period. Of course, another chart shows a “U-Shaped” curve for that spending increase, flat through next year. They don’t talk about any of the newest ad ideas though, showing that the social media revolution is still at the fringe of business consciousness regarding driving sales behavior.
Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal talked about the use of Twitter in crisis situations, sharing stories from wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk (@corkd), who got hacked by unsavory characters, and Scott Townsend from a Bartlesville, Okla.-based uniform company who tweeted after an ice storm, and a few others. I can see the application for this type of activity clearly — and I know that my Web traffic increases when I Tweet — so sharing news is great, provided you’re followed. I’ve gotten the most benefit from Twitter to simply meet people and see what others say during Twitter meetings, such as #prstudchat and #icchat. Whether this is building sufficient awareness to help me generate business, I have no clue! Heaven knows I spent enough time Twitter-ing today.
Tuesday at Kent State, the class I’m teaching got into the community theory of PR being advanced by Dr. Dean Kruckeberg of University of Northern Iowa. Fascinating discussion ensued as we investigated the implications of the theory, which holds that organizations are part of society and therefore owe society as a member of its community. I’m too new to this academic stuff, but this challenges me — I tend to be a garden variety capitalist, believing that a company’s only logical responsibility is to its owners, its purpose to make money lawfully. I need to think about this a while…
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Interesting post…I am similarly wary of over-emphasizing what an organization “owes”, apart from providing needed &/or desired products/services, jobs, investment, all of which counts as a social good and productive contribution to the community. Indeed, nothing else comes close. What else, morally, does an organization owe?
Thanks for commenting, Jim. Dr. K’s perspective is that PR practitioners should act as facilitators of communities — supporting and engaging them because it’s the right thing to do. Sort of a corporate social responsibility perspective brought to PR activity in general. The use of social media in that space seems logical, though as with any activity we should be prepared to detail why it helps the organization reach its business goals. This is the issue: if we believe that PR should advance this type of engagement for reputational purposes, what should we stop doing?
Sean, I don’t believe you!
‘…a company’s only logical responsibility is to its owners.’ That implies an organisation exists in the here and now and tomorrow doesn’t exist. I should think we all know that organisations exist with the permission of their stakeholders – customers, communities in which they exist, government etc.
If an organisation isn’t responsible to this diversity of stakeholders – and this includes anticipating and adressing these needs (i.e. evolving the organisation) – then at some point or another – it might be next year, it could be ten years down the track – then that organisation is going to cease achieving its business objectives and, potentially, cease to exist full stop.
Additionally, as businesses run the world not governments (despite the latter thinking they are playing catch up due to the GFC opportunity they have been given) then they must recognise their vitally important role in shaping society and the environment and look outside their immediate profit/shareholder-driven remit. Not to do so is fundamentally immoral.
Craig — My point is that in the hierarchy of needs, the owner needs to make money, otherwise, there is no business to do anything at all. I will say that a failure to consider the needs of the stakeholders — beginning with employees, followed by customers — is a recipe for failure.
In fact, the lack of ethical grounding in business — ordinary “do right” kind of stuff — is of grave concern. That said, there is nothing wrong with making money, though these days here in the states at least, the impulse to demonize capitalism is deeply disturbing – we are getting into taking people’s property and legally won wealth in the name of fairness, dictated by government. Not a good thing at all.
Here’s a thoughtful but depressing read…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090921/cm_csm/yrollert
Thanks for commenting!