Social Mediators 9: Promoting a book with social media
Posted by Joseph Thornley on July 13th, 2010
Recently, Terry Fallis found both of his novels – the Leacock Award winning The Best Laid Plans and the soon to be published The High Road – in the top five of the iTunes Literature podcasts. In this week’s episode of Social Mediators, Dave Fleet and I talk with Terry about how he and his publisher, McClelland & Stewart, are using social media to find and cultivate a fan base for Terry’s novels.
Also up for discussion this week: Social media adoption still isn’t universal among communicators.
Do you think social media is just a niche expertise or should it be a core skill set for all professional communicators?
July 13th, 2010 » 6:57 am
This week’s Social Mediators: Terry Fallis hits #1 on iTunes + social media adoption by communications pros. http://bit.ly/9yhIxQ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 13th, 2010 » 7:17 am
RT @thornley: This week’s Social Mediators: Terry Fallis hits #1 on iTunes + social media adoption by communicators. http://bit.ly/9yhIxQ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 13th, 2010 » 7:20 am
RT @TerryFallis this week’s Social Mediators: Terry Fallis hits #1 on iTunes + social media adoption by communicators. http://bit.ly/9yhIxQ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
July 13th, 2010 » 9:58 am
The discussion topic looks great. I think that understanding social media should be a core skill set for all professional communicators, but whether or not that view is acknowledged sometimes depends on the organization a person works for.
I work for the federal government where communication groups are divided into specialized subsets of either PR or marketing or communications or editorial/translation services. There is no real organizational incentive for a media relations/PR professional who’s been in the same position for several years to understand social media. The work description for media relations professionals in the government is often focused on communicating to traditional media outlets, as well as being a spokesperson on television or on the radio. There is no mention in any of job descriptions of communicating using social media.
I’ve also met several communications professionals outside the federal government who have decided not to invest the time in learning about social media because their particular organization is reluctant to adopt social media as a standard communications practice. When the organization does decide to ‘explore’ social media, they hire specialized consultants to write reports and provide recommendations, as well as run social media campaigns.
I think that in 10 years social media communications will be a core skill set for all communicators – it’s inevitable given the evolution of online channels and how accessible social media will become as the technology and the Web evolves. Hopefully, more organizations will also rethink how they interact with their stakeholders, which will lead to redefining the role of the professional communicator within the organization.