PR Event: Social Media - The Death of Print?

"Social media won't kill traditional media, but it's definitely strangling it" - Drew Benvie.

Taylor Bennett and Unicorn Jobs invited a group of us along to an event which discussed social media and how it relates to the mainstream media, called 'Social Media - The Death of Print?'.

The erratic and rather weather conditions obviously took a few casualties as the event wasn't as busy as the Facebook event page suggested, but it was a good event with a panel and audience that spoke with enthusiasm around the issues of social media and PR.

On the panel were:

• Drew Benvie - Director of Hotwire PR, blogger at Drew B's take on tech PR
  
• Mick Fealty - Blogger at Slugger O’Toole and the Brassneck blog at the Daily Telegraph.
• Simon Nixon - Journalist at BreakingViews.com

It was good to meet some of my online contacts in the real world, including Steve Waddington, Ged Carroll, Drew Benvie, Jaz Cummins, Sarah Stimson, and Alex Pearmain and Alain Desmier of the PR and Comms Network. I missed Justin Hayward, but I'm sure that there'll be more opportunities to meet.

Ged Carroll, who obviously kept much better notes than me, has a run down of the event which you can read on his blog, and Sarah Stimson also mentions the event over at her blog. Below are some of the key points that I took away from the event:

• When pitching to bloggers, know who they are and talk to them as though they were someone you knew. If you read their blog for long enough, you’ll know what they want.

• Since he started blogging, Mick has never read so many newspapers in hard print.

• Disaggregation is the key term. It involves the displacement of the editorial process: social media is turning disruption, the editorial process where traditional media filters news into one channel, into engagement.

• In the next 10 years, newspapers will find a way to grab value (revenue) from the niche markets in social media.

• “Lies get half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on” – Tony Benn. Blogging is a chance for the truth to get its boots on and knock lies on the head before they get anywhere.

• The real value in public relations is in audience insight: social networks are an ideal tool to gain this insight.

• Bloggers are their own brand. Corporate brands are slowing, personal brands are growing.

• Find the yellow canary – the blogger who’ll warn you when something big is going to happen.

• Markets are conversations.

Looking back, these points perhaps aren't as poignant when placed out of context, so I recommend also reading Ged's post. But the debate was very useful to those who attended and I look forward to attending similar events.