Posted by Doug Lacombe

In the May 2008 “Social Media Speed Dating” event put on by CPRS Vancouver, attendees went from table to table visiting a moderator who made brief comments on the state of social media and engaged the groups in conversation. I was lucky enough to be one of those moderators. My comments centered around four basic themes (to be expanded upon in subsequent posts):

1. Traditional media is under intense pressure by macro-environmental forces including social media
2. Public Relations professionals (and other communicators) need to get used to the idea that attending only to traditional media as the intermediary to reach their intended audiences is ill-advised and increasingly incomplete
3. Social media is an umbrella term for a wide variety of collaborative web-based software tools that encourage sharing and conversation
4. It is an act of self-preservation to teach yourself about social media now before it becomes mainstream, dip your toes in NOW!

I’ll elaborate on each of the above points in the next few posts.