Change the PR channel, ‘Google Me’ is about to start

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

People often talk about social media being just a channel for content, as opposed to it being the content itself. Which is true, but that perhaps doesn’t tell the full story.

The common idea is that social media should be used just like any other PR or marketing channel. I would disagree with this notion as each channel must be dealt with differently. As this blog post by Tim Sanders so rightly refers to, you should never move away from the brand strategy when incorporating social media into your marcomms efforts.

Tim uses a quote from Chris Kerubi, Chairman of Coca-Cola Nairobi, which states ‘Technology is the tail, not the dog.” Very true.

In the same vein, I recently came to the conclusion that there are way too many peripheral social media platforms that bring no value to my personal life. Flickr, for instance. I have an account, but I’ve never used it for my own photos. Why not? I use Facebook sporadically, or (shock horror), I get photos developed or show them to friends and family direct from the camera itself. I’ve used it for clients/conference photos and it’s been useful for storing and pointing people to them, but it holds no extra value that Facebook doesn’t already fulfill.

And that’s the problem. For great products to continue to be great, there must be competition. But the competition need to have comparative offerings to really keep the incumbent on its toes.

Google is heavily rumoured to be working on a direct competitor to Facebook, which would really bring an interesting edge to the social network space. Forget Google Buzz, Google Wave and the other semi-challengers. ‘Google Me’, as it’s rumoured to be called, will be based on Facebook, but presumably answering the issues many have been having recently with the behemoth of the social media world. So, basically the same trick Google has pulled with other projects, like search, email and browsers.

What should PR people be watching out for? Don’t over consult clients on the social media process; instead, try and use social media to improve what they are already doing. And watch out for Google Me. It could be huge.