Peter Shankman: "social media today is a wonderful catch phrase"

Yesterday I attended a sold-out luncheon hosted by our local chapter of the PRSA here in Rochester that was held at the RIT Inn and Conference Center. We all had the privilege to hear social media evangelist, Peter Shankman, give the keynote address, “It’s not Web 2.0. It’s not Web 3.0. It’s simply life”, at the association’s regional conference.

I had never heard Peter speak before and I was highly engaged and entertained by his lively, hour-long discussion which lived up to the title. He didn’t use any slides or video. He didn’t even use the mike, which was horrible quality. Instead he just spoke to us as if we were all sitting around a table together.

Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc a boutique Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. He is perhaps best known for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO) which in under a year has become the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline.

I could write an entire article that just includes the many great “one-liners” Peter shared with us. For example, he started off by telling us that social media is just a wonderful catch phrase and that he, along with Al Gore, invented it. However, instead I'm going to concentrate on the key points that I think he wanted us to walk away with…his 4 basic rules of common sense.

Transparency – Today we all need to be more open. In the long run it will save us. Teach your team and your clients that they can’t get away with it any longer.

Relevancy – Make it relevant to your audience. Ask them what information they want and how they want to receive it.

Brevity – Keep your messages short. The average person’s attention span is now 2.7 seconds. That’s about as long as it takes to read a text message or tweet. Back in the 80’s it was 3 minutes, the time it took to watch a music video! Learn how to write.

Networking – Make use of today’s social media tools and put yourself out there. Get on Facebook and connect with your network. Check to see who has a birthday today and send them a greeting. I took Peter's advice and sent two this morning and now will be meeting for coffee with one person I’ve been meaning to reconnect with.

Peter closed with telling us that social media is really all about having someone else do your PR for you, whether it’s good or bad. So if you want positive buzz, you need to gain your customers’ trust, focus on customer service and give off good karma. If you do these things it should pay you back.

Thanks Peter for simplifying it all for us and for visiting Rochester!

Comments

[Peter Shankman]

Aw, thank you, Donna! The real privilege was for me to be invited to speak to you all! I had a blast - And hope to do it again! :)

All the best,

-Peter Shankman