Moving with Social Media?

I spent the last two weeks moving out of San Pedro and closer to ‘the big city’. All of the work I did in moving made me wonder 1) how I could have done it without Craiglist, Google and friends and 2) how it might have been easier if I’d connected with other people moving the same weekend.

Granted, Craigslist is fantastic for letting people who are also moving find you and the things you may have that they may want, but what about van sharing or things they haven’t thought about wanting, yet, but will want soon?

I got rid of several items on the good ol’ Craigslist that couldn’t come with me (like a loveseat which was pure torture to divest myself of; I seriously couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know what I’d do with it!)

I also had a fun situation with the van that I’d planned to rent from Ryder truck but which I couldn’t have because someone else hadn’t yet returned it! I envision a social network for movers (or maybe just a Twitter group?) where people moving the same weekend could split the rental of a moving truck. There were at least 2 other apartments in my complex moving out; why shouldn’t I have known they were moving ahead of time and we could have shared resources?

There are so many untapped areas we can take the power of organization through social media – so APOC, let’s get to work!

(BTW, no pic this time; for some reason loading a pic is crashing Firefox tonight…)

Treats for your Brain

I’m looking forward to starting a class next week; “Social Media Marketing.”  I’m taking a class because I find that I really need the stimulation of a controlled setting to be the most creative.  I work well within boundaries.

Do you know how you’re creativity works?  It’s a great thing to know about yourself.  If you’re not sure, try lots of different approaches to creativity.  Explore when you feel the most open and comfortable being zany.  Zaniness is often a pre-cursor to hitting on a great idea.

One thing I’m pondering today, in an effort to keep my brain fresh, is thinking about how we could make the fun Hallowe’en atmosphere in my office into an opportunity for our company.  Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Imagining we had a company blog, we could make ourselves more human by posting the creative costumes we each wore (like JWT allowed AdSpy to do from their Hallowe’en party)
2. Producing videos for client products in costume and putting it on YouTube
3. Visiting our clients and reverse trick-or-treating (giving them candy while we’re dressed up)

That’s all I’ve got at the moment, but there are so many more things that could happen based on what type of company you’re at!

Dangerous Ideas

A guest post on PRNewser from Friday by Peter Himler (Flatiron Communications, The Flack blogger) shared the question asked at this year’s Council of PR Firms “Critical Issues Forum”: “What is the most dangerous idea in PR today?”

I think it’s a good question and one that shouldn’t only be addressed by the principal’s at major firms.  (Really!  I mean are the principal’s the first people to see trends?  Probably not.  I’m just sayin’…)

Reading the post, I see that many argued that social media was the most dangerous idea.  To me, however, mentioning social media brings to mind questions of “What can social media do for me?” instead of “How can we tie this all together?”

I think the most dangerous idea in PR right now is integration.  Tie your PR to your advertising, make the POP displays relevant, engage people!  Too much of PR is focused on the uni-directional communication.  Social media is fine, but it’s just another channel if you don’t integrate, listen and activate.

It’s dangerous because

1) It makes us more effective with our audience; they can actually recall a single message (crazy!)

2) It might mean that PR people can’t JUST be PR people.  We may have to *gasp* work with marketing!

Thoughts?  Am I missing the boat on the next truly “dangerous” idea?