Posts Tagged ‘Predictions’
Should we be predicting the future, or joining the conversation?
December 18th, 2009
It’s that time of year when we’re all looking forward to a Christmas break, and busily trying to finish off our actions to get away on time. It’s also the ‘predictions’ and ‘round-ups’ time of the year, when the great and good of, well everything, look back at the year and offer their pearls of wisdom on what the next 12 months has in store.
Before you click away, and think ‘oh no, not another one’, fear not, I will not be offering you either, well not intentionally, as I tend to sit in the growing camp of people that are very board of these already. Afterall, what do the majority of predictions actually achieve? Other than occasionally making people look very silly, as Danny Sullivan pointed out in his post on Search Engine Land this week; Is SEO Dead? 1997 Prediction, Meet 2009 Reality quoting a great prediction from 1997, which you can read on the post, but the highlight for me was this closing:
‘So in closing, I submit that search engines are dying. In fact, I would say they are dead already and just don’t know it yet - gone the way of the reciprocal link exchange and the “you have a cool page” award as an effective promotional tool. A victim of their own success.’
For those that don’t know, Google launched the following year, enough said…
So other than an easy piece of content to write with mince pie in hand, or something that your audience/clients expect as a regular feature, what purpose do predictions serve? Does anyone actually use them, do they shape the future?
In most cases I don’t think they do, but to some extent - perhaps, so let me give it a go: 2009 wasn’t a great year - but we survived, and actually did better than most - (well done, of course you did) and 2010 will be better, ‘and’ it’ll be the year of…(enter appropriate prediction: social media, mobile, Twitter monetisation, the end of obvious predictions) good, glad we’ve got that out of the way. I’m sure to look back on that in December 2010 and be content with my accuracy and insightfulness.
The other reason many people write predictions, and in fact offer these rather outlandish headlines (see above) is because they tend to attract reaction, debate and drive traffic, which is always a winner for those looking to bolster their readers/subscribers/visitors, etc, and it works, at the cost of reputation and maybe trust.
Was that too harsh? Possibly, and I really do not wish to tar everyone with the same brush, so allow me to clarify by highlighting those predictions that do prove useful and relevant. I’m not going to offer links or examples, just a profile of the people that will write useful predictions.
So who are these people? Well undoubtedly they’ll be the same influencers, call them what you will, that you look for on your tweets, the same RSS feeds you are subscribed to, and the people you would go to an event to meet.
It’s the same people that share useful and either new, or perhaps insightful, information throughout the year, and it’s the same people that you should be listening to and conversing with all year around, and yes it’s the same people that have gained your trust and built a reputation. They are also the same people that you want to emulate and perhaps be more like next year.
These people are those that have taken the time to listen, get involved in the conversation, and build reputation. These people predict, revise and discuss the future all year round, look at case studies of success and failure, and offer a balanced opinion of the issues in their relevant sector, industry, or area of expertise.
These are the people that we can call social communicators, those that ‘get it’ (if that is still a relevant term) those that have experimented, learnt from failings and can offer the benefit of their experience.
So no, not all predictions are space-filling, traffic-seeking, uninspiring deletion magnets, some are interesting, useful, educational and relevant. It’s just that these useful predictions are not a one-off, the great content is there all year round.
Perhaps, that would be the ideal prediction for 2010, that we all become more social in our communications and our approach, and just join in. In fact i think it’s a great resolution, and one that I will be trying to stick to.
December 23rd, 2008
So here we are again, the end of the year, well end of the working year for us at Liberate Media at least. Traditionally this is the time for looking back at last year’s predictions and making new predictions for the year ahead.
However, I don’t feel that next year will be a year quite like any other, so I’m going to avoid making a set of predictions as such and look at what we know.
First of all, don’t worry, this isn’t a post of doom and gloom, but allow me to set the scene before we delve deeper: Financial crisis, GDP at lowest level since 1990, recession, nearly everyone is feeling the squeeze in some way or other, in fact let’s be honest, most people just want 2009 to be over before it has already begun.
So, where does that leave us in the PR industry? Well for starters the game has changed. By game I mean whatever strategy, business plan or focus you had, will ultimately need to change to consider this new environment. No prediction there, just common sense.
Secondly, there will be casualties, agencies will make redundancies or disappear just as we have seen businesses go across the board. Clients will at least cast a close eye over PR spend and probably make reductions, and in some cases stop all together.
However, it’s not all bad, there are opportunities. Over the last month, at Liberate Media, we’ve had a large amount of new business enquires. This isn’t me shouting about how clever we are, this is simply a fact. Of those new enquires, most have been linked to social media or online methodologies in some respect. In affect, what was true prior to the crisis is true now, brands are investing in social media and progressive PR, but they are looking at it from a different perspective and in some cases this spend isn’t coming from a PR or marketing budget, it’s coming from a digital budget. There is no doubt that clients are more cautious, but the opportunity is there.
So, is this leading up to a big sales pitch for Liberate, no it’s not supposed to be. The point i’m making is simple, the PR industry was going through an evolution already, it started years before this economic crisis, but now the affects of this evolution are much more obvious.
As i said in my recent post: PR isn’t online or offline it’s through the line, the fundamentals of good PR are as true now as they have ever been: open and honest communications either online or offline is a simple rule to live by, where as spinning a story and talking ‘at’ audiences is a sure way to fail. The fact that an open and measureable communications model is the accepted approach online, puts the emphasis on online as the new model, but in reality the same is true offline.
So, although we will see a slow down across the board i think those that have embraced the change that PR has needed for so long, will continue to see opportunity. It’s a harsh way to look at it, but perhaps for the PR industry at least, this new environment will help to accelerate our much needed evolution.
If you’re after more predictions, allow me to point you in the direction of Stephen Waddington, who has done an excellent predictions post that I heartily agree with.
Merry Christmas!