This document discusses applications and arguments regarding social media and professional communicators. Key points include: - Social media represents an important new communication channel that professionals can no longer afford to ignore. However, too much hype is marketing driven and a critical perspective is needed. - Most journalists use social media to research stories but view information from social media as less reliable than traditional sources. - Social media is increasingly being used in public relations for conversational marketing, reaching influencers, and empowering customers. - Small and medium enterprises are also adopting social media for purposes like improving brand awareness, increasing traffic and leads, and generating repeat sales.

1. Social media and the professional
communicator
Applications and
Arguments
http://mediapunk.net/2010/06/nicholas-carrs-argument/

2. Applications and Arguments
Applications Arguments
• Media & communication • We all need some critical
professionals can not afford perspectives on social
to be outside the social media
media space • Too much of social media
hype is marketing-driven
• Social media is grabbing
attention and eyeballs • For too long the digital
utopians have led the
• Social media represents an charge
important set of new • Now it’s time for a backlash
communication channels • The ‘digital sublime’ has
• Digital Natives are in this become the digital
space (our students) ‘mundane’

3. Journalists think social media
is important
However, with 84% most
journalists use information
Pew Center data and Cision Research 2010 delivered via social media
rather cautious as they think it
is less reliable than information
delivered via traditional media.
http://us.cision.com/news_room/press_releases/2010/2010-1-20_gwu_survey.asp

4. 2008 data on journalists use of social media
Nearly 75% follow at least one blog regularly, compared with about 70% a year ago.
More than 75% of journalists say they use social media to research
stories, compared with about 67% last year.
Nearly 38% of journalists now say they visit a social media site at least once a week
as part of their reporting, compared with only 28% last year.
More than 53% of journalists now say they visit a social media site such as FaceBook
or YouTube at least once a month, up from about 44% last year.
Nearly 19% of journalists receive five or more RSS feeds of news
services, blogs, podcasts or videocasts every week, compared with only 16% a year
ago.
About 44% receive at least one regular RSS feed.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/journalists-use-new-media-more-than-pr-pros-think-6900/

5. Social media in PR practice
“There are so many uses —
• Business to Business
conversational marketing, reaching • Brand loyalty
influencers — that PR is able to
participate in conversations and • Authenticity
answer questions, be a support
system for clients and companies, as • Client connections
well as empowering customers and
power users to be a de facto
resource for your company, a
champion for your products.”
Christina Warren – mashable.com
http://mashable.com/2010/03/16/public-relations-social-media-results/
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/190207

6. Social media marketing for SMEs
75% have a company page on a social Nearly 20% of Marketing Dollars
networking site Will Go to Social Marketing in 5
Years
69% post status updates or articles of interest
on social media sites
Improving brand awareness
57% build a network through a site such as 2. Increase site traffic
LinkedIn 3. Increasing lead generation
4. Improve Customer Service
54% monitor feedback about the business 5. Generate new sales
6. Generate repeat sales
39% maintain a blog
26% tweet about areas of expertise
16% use Twitter as a service channel
http://gorumors.com/crunchies/social-media-online-marketing/

7. Cognitive Surplus
For the first time in history, the amount of television
being watched by a younger generation is decreasing
rather than increasing annually. Why? Because time is
being poured instead into interactive media, and above
all into online activities.
Harnessing this cognitive surplus leads to the generation
of new content and therefore new real social relations
More than one trillion hours can be harnessed in this way
But: does it lead to better lives and more real interaction
"we live, for the first time
in history, in a world Shirky celebrates the cult of the amateur and the wisdom
where being part of a of the crowd
globally interconnected
group is the normal case Shirky does not mind that the clickstream monetized
for most citizens". without the amateurs being rewarded financially
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/27/cognitive-surplus-clay-shirky-book-review

8. ‘In the quiet spaces opened up by the
prolonged, undistracted reading of a
book, people made their own
associations, drew their own inferences and
analogies, fostered their own ideas. They
thought deeply as they read deeply.’
‘Like our forebears during the later years of the
Middle Ages, we find ourselves today between
two technological worlds,’ writes Carr. ‘After
550 years, the printing press and its products
are being pushed from the center of our
intellectual life to its edges.’
Mathia Dempsey
http://www.fancygoods.com.au/matthia/2010/07/09/learning-to-balance-nicholas-carrs-the-shallows-atlantic/

9. The Shallows
• navigation & evaluation of
‘ ‘Try reading a book while
doing a crossword puzzle; links distracts the brain
that’s the intellectual
environment of the internet.’
from interpretation
• ‘pancake people’ (wide &
thin)
• reliance on external
memory
• we need data collection
and reflection

10. You are not a gadget
Jaron Lanier directs most of his ire toward the
"anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks, and
lightweight mashups" that flit through our browsers and
Twitter feeds. But he's also critical of bigger Internet
landmarks, such as Wikipedia, the open-source software
Linux, and the "hive mind" in general.
Michael Agger, http://www.slate.com/id/2239466/
The only thing I criticize is the confusion of people with
machines. This happens as a side effect of certain
designs that depend on all of the above- designs like
Web 2.0/Creative Commons/etc. And even in those
cases, I have tried to make clear that I am not saying you
Jaron Lanier http://www.jaronlanier.com/gadgetcurrency.html
shouldn't ever use any of the tools I criticize.

11. So what?
Social learning Curriculum
• Digital native learning • Can we ‘teach’ this stuff?
habits are different • What are the critical
today's students think and process
content areas?
information fundamentally differently • What are the learning
from their predecessors. These
differences go far further and deeper
outcomes we’re after?
than most educators suspect or realize. • What is the role of the
Mark Prensky academic guide?
http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/Prensky%20-
%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-
%20Part1.htm
• How do we need to change
or respond?

12. "I Googled It"
During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, "What is this
website?" The student answered, "Oh, I don't know. The first thing that came
up.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/so-called_digital_natives_not_media_savvy_new_study_shows.php
Social learning refers to the acquisition of social competence that happens
exclusively or primarily in a social group.
Social learning depends on group dynamics.
Social learning promotes the development of individual emotional and practical
competence as well as the perception of oneself and the acceptance of others
with their individual competencies and limitations.