A little more than a year ago, when I returned home from Counselors Academy conference in New Orleans, I wrote a post called We’re all in showbiz.
Clearly this is something I associate with Counselors because it was the subject of the 52N (five minutes to inspire) presentation I gave at the conference this year. This was an Ignite-style talk – 20 slides in five minutes that advance whether you like it or not. It’s tough because it all comes down to the secret of comedy – that is…wait for it…
Timing.
Are we ready for our close-up?
These days, marketers and communicators are all taking centre stage, whether on websites/blogs, in newsrooms, Facebook updates, Instagram of Vine videos, tweets or other sharable creations. The mic is switched on and as they said in Spinal Tap, the amp is cranked up to 11. Of course this is another way of saying that with social and digital media our voices are amplified 24/7.
The medium is the message (massage?)
That’s one of the most famous quotes by theorist and innovator Marshall McLuhan, who was popularized by Woody Allen in Annie Hall. And If I can channel the boorish professor Alvie/Allen meets in the movie line, I’d like to suggest we interpret ‘the medium is the message’ as needing to learn how to adapt our stories (messages) to the various media we’re using, social and otherwise.
Advertising gets it
Our friends in the ad industry understand this. They always considered themselves an offshoot of showbiz. In many respects PR took the opposite tack and fell into the role of the more serious, less fun, older sibling – the one that often added caution to the wind. And who told advertising all the good reasons not to put on a show.
Case in point: the news release. We’re still clinging to a basically outdated format and one that does not translate to mobile. We’re also continuing to write in corporate speak and default to mainstream media and publicity. In fact, when it gets right down to it, I’d say many, if not all, of PR’s tactics badly need to be reinvented.
So what can we do to adapt?
Here are a few ideas:
Learn to juggle. Literally and figuratively. That is, try something new – produce and edit a video on your smartphone, upload it to YouTube, Vine or Instagram, learn how to encourage people to watch and share it because it means something to them. Build a community.
Join the circus. And I don’t mean returning to the days of PT Barnum-type hucksterism. We need to add elements of the show to our substance. Act like impresarios for our clients and their stories.
Think series, not one-off. I first heard this concept from Lee Odden. And he’s right. We’re stuck in the mindset of one launch, one event, one release… We need to shift creative gears and figure out how to make our stories play out over time to truly build relationships and not just claim that’s what we do.
Video is one of many channels. Yes, video’s the ultimate sharable social object and visual storytelling should be embedded in everything we do. But it’s not the only answer. Think of events as live theatre, consider a photo montage of your news on Pinterest or Instagram, ebooks could have a narrative arc and images…
So that’s it: learn something new, add a dash of sizzle, pitch a series and remember, it ain’t just video.
Now get out there and put on a show!
What do you think?
