Social Media and Mainstream Media - The New Communication Paradigm

Okay, so maybe social media isn't a "new" communication paradigm. But for me it is. I admit as little as four months ago I was a firm believer of old-school PR. I viewed the media as the sole distribution network for press releases and information. Under the old school, corporations distribute their news releases to the media in hope of gaining coverage.

The rules of corporate communication have changed, though, and I have become a convert of social media. The Internet and social media have changed the way information is distributed, consumed and shared.

Reading the book The New Rules of Marketing & PR has been an eye-opening experience for me. It has, without a doubt, played the largest role in helping me understand that old-school PR is an incomplete communication practice. Yes, the media is still important. Companies still value coverage in the print and broadcast media.

But I want to focus on my earlier statement – “incomplete communication practice.” The mainstream media is no longer the only game in town. Blogs and social media networks offers the opportunity for a virtually infinite level of “buzz” about their respective news. I would go as far to state that blogs and social media networks are equally as important as mainstream media outlets.

In my view, social media is about building influence among a targeted audience. In other words, deliver content that is relevant to the audience's needs and you'll quickly gain a long list of followers. I Tweet daily media industry updates on my Twitter page (http://twitter.com/jsalking) and in just a couple of weeks the number of people who follow my Tweets has grown from five to 25. I'm giving them relevant content they want.

Over the past three months I embarked on a crash course of social media learning. I've listened to webinars, read books and articles on the Web from social media experts. It's clear that old-school PR is, well, old-school. Effective corporate communications today requires a tag team approach using mainstream and social media, and each have a different set of rules, and I'll talk more about those rules in my next post.