Peter Shankman Gives Social Media Insights at the PRSA Western District Conference

If you listened to the podcast yesterday featuring a discussion with Peter Shankman about how social media can make your screw-ups much more visible, this brief excerpt will be a reiteration of that same topic plus a bit more visual of the hyperkinetic energy that Shankman seems to have (and should be bottled so that we all can have that available)

Peter Shankman (photo from a different conference)
However to fill in some of the blanks on this video and the conference, Shankman was speaking to the PRSA Western District Conference about “social media” and its’ various presentations to a packed room of public relations and corporate communication specialists. This was a high-powered crowd and this talk was watched by everyone including the sponsors of the conference.
Key points that Peter made — amidst the funny jokes and interesting insights into his own life– is that social media is a tool that allows you to reach out to far more journalists and people than you ever could have before. Regardless if it’s facebook, myspace (his commentary on this domain was interesting), twitter or linkedin.com, there is that reality is that while you can reach out to hordes of people, you can just as easily screw up in a very profoundly visible way and how to possibly deal with the fall-out from the mess you have created.
The changes in journalism and the media is about the rise of the citizen journalist (and one who has serious credibility) and the use of a camera phone and by extension– videophone.
He had 4 key points that are tools that can be used to fix a gaffe or build more bridges and relationships both personally and professionally.
1) Transparency:
When you do something right, make sure you repeat it, because it works.
Conversely, if you try something and it doesn’t work, either change it or drop that particular idea.
When you screw up, admit it (and do it quickly), then move on. If you try to hide it or ignore it, you are really going to get nailed because on the web there is much less tolerance for stupidity.
When it comes to branding, transparency is absolutely crucial particularly at the corporate level. For a business, if you aren’t transparent, you pretty much need to rethink your strategy about how you do business.
2) Relevance
Make it relevant to current times, issues or people– and make sure someone that it impacts– clients, brands, people in general –knows about it. Because if any of those categories of people know about it, the event allows them to do some of the PR work for you and they can sing your praises better and faster than anyone else can. Is what you tweet/ Twitter/Facebook going to help or be useful to anyone? A key point in this is engaging in conversation. Stop talking and start listening. Ask questions.
3) Brevity
While 140 characters from Twitter isn’t exactly what he’s talking about– though journalism via twitter is certainly occurring — brevity means keeping to the point and making it good content. Think good writing. You don’t have to “dress up” good content. You simply lay the facts out in an interesting or captivating manner and it will be read.
4) LISTEN and Top of Mind Presence
It’s about relevance and also knowing the value of the network and the person. With facebook you have to understand the relevance of who the significant people are in your life– be it IRL or online both on a personal and professional. He mentioned 2 devices: Poken ( $20 or so before shipping from overseas) and Mingle Stick and Mingle360
Shankman makes the point that people engage with only about 3% of the people on their facebook accounts (mea culpa to a degree there.. and on twitter too). It’s about reaching out to people to “engage” them in some sort of conversation–whether it’s a simple “happy birthday” or just a “hi, haven’t talked to you in a while”. And yes, he really does do that! Peter recently did it with me and that’s how the podcast came about and via that podcast, I wound up at the Hyatt Regency in Newport Beach seeing him speak in person.
While there isn’t a lot of video time on this embed thanks to the limited space on my camera phone, it is a snippet, a taste, a fragment of what is in the podcast but on a wider scale.

So if you didn’t listen to the podcast yesterday, go back and do so. You might learn how to use social media in your professional and personal life. I know that I reach out to a large realm of people across the country through those mediums because it’s fast and easy– and it makes everyone feel good to be connected.
The most important caveat or point here is to make sure that you don’t put anything on your facebook or twitter that you wouldn’t want your boss ( current or potential) or significant other to see. It’s that simple — your life is an open (face) book.
Stevie Wilson