Public Relations and Facebook

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about Facebook and its potential role and impact on PR.

Those same conversations have been occuring in the halls and conference rooms of SHIFT. I blogged about it recently, too.

In my earlier post I talked about the prospect of “Pitching in Public” and how that’s to be embraced. But in talking to die-hard Facebookers here at the agency, I sensed a wariness to the idea that surprised me.

It’s true that “kids today” are accustomed to living their lives online, and largely in-public, via MySpace and Facebook. But, they’re largely under the assumption that only a small circle of friends can (or would) access their profiles. When I suggested that the professional/personal aspects of social networking were beginning to collide, they became visibly uneasy.

• They wanted assurances that it would be okay with me if a reporter saw their Facebook profile, even if that profile contained some “dubious” material.
• And yes, within reason I am a-okay with that prospect. We can’t suggest that our Facebook users leverage their existing presence on the site for professional reasons, without bowing to the fact that their primary use for Facebook was – and will remain – personal.
• They wanted to know if it would be okay if their media contacts on Facebook only had “Limited Profile” access (i.e., would limiting access suggest that they were “dissing” the media)?
• I think it is appropriate that they only allow limited profile access to their media contacts.
• They wanted to know if they should set up a “professional” Facebook profile that was separate from their “personal” account.
• I frowned on this but acknowledged that this might be a way to circumvent any, umm, “weirdness.”

The net of these conversations? Once our Facebookers on staff understood that we’re not trying to exploit their passion or their existing networks, a lot of the wariness faded away, and they got pretty excited. So, we’re currently building-out a “SHIFT Communications Network” for employee use, and, a “SHIFTers” group that anyone can join.

We just set this up – in fact, readers of this blog may learn about it before all of our employees do! Eventually we’ll invite any media contacts who are on Facebook (and with whom we have a pre-existing relationship!) to join the SHIFTers group, if they care to use this channel to reach out to our agency all-at-once.

For example, a reporter who joined the SHIFTers Group could post, “I’m on deadline for a story about XYZ – you guys got any XYZ experts over there?” either via a post on the SHIFTers Group wall or via an email to the entire group.

It’s all about experimentation at this point, my fellow PR pros. Slow, steady, respectful experimentation.

More on these efforts will be posted in the not-too-distant future…

Continue reading here: “This Blog Post is Not About Skittles”

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