Social Media and the Red-State Blue-State PR Nation
By Jerry Johnson, EVP GM
Brodeur

I have a theory that Strumpette readers are a reflection of social media schizophrenia inside the PR nation.

That belief is based on a grossly unscientific survey of people who I know read Strumpette along with my own twenty years experience in the communications business which includes a healthy exposure and experience in an ever-changing new media landscape.

My theory is this: a lot of Strumpette readers fall into one of two extremes. Let's call them Red States and Blue States.

On one side – I consider them the Blue State crowd – are the Strumpette readers who are social media “for-realies”.

[“For-realies” is a term often used in Washington DC to describe those individuals who actually believe the cause they espouse. The outside-the-beltway crowd may consider this an endangered species but it is actually more common that you think. Example: people who believe abortion is murder and therefore whoever aides and / or abets it should be killed, maimed or somehow locked up and put away.]

The Blue Staters are the digital zealots who see blogs, citizen journalists, social networks, and “speaking truth to power” sites (presumably like Strumpette) as the – I have to twinge when I write this – true paradigm shift for the new millennium. (How is that for combining hackneyed and overused phraseology in one sentence? But you’re used to that, right? … you’re in public relations!).

They read Strumpette (and other blogs) because it represents the new irreverent “naked conversation” that can only occur in the blogosphere. Blogs, consumer-generated content and social networks are the avatars of an emergent “power to the people” dynamic that will overturn a stale and stagnant one-way, establishment-led trade and business media. Social media is a liberator. It’s the revolution that Marx only dreamed of. It will bring democracy, enlightenment, and empowerment to society along with the elimination of tooth decay. Eventually it will take out your garbage.

Or something like that.

Based on my unscientific assessments, the digital zealots are likely to be younger. They often have multiple relationships with places that have no physical form like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster. They prefer YouTube, manage a slew of IM and email addresses and, because their voice is sooooo important and they want to be part of the revolution – they have a blog, maybe three.

Then there are the folks who come from the Red States. This is the group of Strumpette readers who are the bemused curmudgeon nay-sayers.

They are the grizzled, “I’ve seen it before and it is all bullshit” communications skeptics. They look at all the social media hoo-ha, scratch their heads and dismiss the entire mess as nothing more than noise. They’ve seen this before. They can cite dozens of “paradigm shifts” that didn’t really shift anything save the prying (and wasting) a lot of money from gullible clients who invested in more than questionable “state of the art” communications efforts that brought them precious little in return.

They read Strumpette – their one acknowledgement that there’s a kernel of wisdom amidst any foolery – because they enjoy a good read, particularly one that is artful in ripping through the pomp, circumstance and constant bullshit that is public relations (they know because they are in the middle of it). In their view Strumpette proves nothing about the validity or importance of social media. Rather it shows the opposite. One, that good writing and reporting – especially when it has an edge – will always attract a crowd, regardless of medium. And two, compared to this and a handful of other decent blogs, 99.9% of everything else floating around in the blogosphere rises no higher than fetid turds in a toilet bowl that best be flushed away.

Perhaps not that strong but you know what I mean.

Nay-sayers are older. They don’t “do it” but like to watch (social media, that is …). They’re more apt to be clean shaven or wear lip gloss and appear at meetings wearing a collared shirt or blouse. And they actually prefer having a conversation that involves being physically with another person – even better if it is over a long lunch or happy hour.

That’s the good side. Here’s the downside.

First, the Blue State “for realies.”

Based on my unscientific survey I believe there’s a good percentage of self described “for-realies” who in fact have embraced socialmediapalooza not because they actually believe in it, but rather because they were in bad need of a new schtik. To quote Gypsy Rose Lee, “ya gotta have a gimmick” and in the public relations business gimmicky has historically gone a very long way.

For these Blue State “for realies” social media is their counterpart to a stripper’s heels, veils, and feather boa. Social media has a high “oohh” and “ahhh” quotient and you don’t have to be too smart cause it is new and nobody really knows much about it. Put simply: if you’re not very talented, have limited communications skills, and don’t want to invest the time, discipline and effort to gut it out amongst skilled communications veterans – then surround yourself with the social media blanket, learn the “transparency, authenticity, Web 2.0 lingo”, make friends with Typepad and WordPress, throw up a blog-a-minute, devote way too much time to having a gazillion friends on MySpace and claim that’s the new, new way of doing business.

Now, the Red State curmudgeons.

I won’t use the word luddite. OK, I just did but its not that they are anti-technology. It is just that they are scared shitless. They’ve spent their entire career working the traditional PR media, grassroots letter-writing thing and along comes social media and now some punk kid is doing more interesting and better communications work than they are. They still have kids to put through college, a mortgage and a spouse who is nagging them about why they don’t have a summer home in the Hamptons and they wake up one morning and their clients aren’t buying the old stuff. And it is because the old stuff just isn’t clicking like it used to. Now clients are asking for stuff like RSS feeds, SMS, CMG. When someone asks a curmudgeon about Twitter feeds the curmudgeon thinks it is some kind of joke. Then they go and figure out what Twitter feeds really are and still don’t get it.

The social media frenzy and all its technological trapping is their worst nightmare. So they dismiss it, call it a fad, say it’s a cheap trick and mumble something about “stick with what you know has worked” and hope that they can eke out 10 more years and cash out before the whole bloody thing comes crashing down around them.

Are you a Red Stater? Blue Stater? Is this you? Me?

Of course not.

Because you, like me, are the folks from Lake Wobegon. We know we’re above average. We’re neither red, nor blue. We’re the independents … just trying to figure it all out, do some good work, and have a little fun. We’re fascinated – yes, even excited – by the opportunity that social media represents because there is nothing more fun than doing cutting-edge stuff.

We see the emergence of social media as a whole new world that opens up a Superdome sized annex to our little playground. Something very fundamental IS happening. A new channel of communication is taking shape. But we also are wary of the hype, the bluster, the silly claims that are more about getting into someone’s wallet than building a brand or selling product.

Because we know that in this business, you’re only as good as your last campaign.

Jerry Johnson heads strategic planning at Brodeur. You can reach him at jjohnson@brodeur.com or read more of his musings at www.jerrysjuicebar.com.