The social media revolution has given rise to quite a number of 'rules'. They come in the form of phrases like "the Long Tail" and maxims like "Content is King"; and they attempt to change the paradigms of marketing and communications as we know it.
But are these sayings completely trustworthy?
I wrote in a recent post that "maxims have the power to form paradigms that eventually shape our thinking and consequently (in our case), strategy."
But while these maxims are fantastic in helping us understand social media, we deceive ourselves when we take them at face value and fail to consider the truths behind counter perspectives.
Think of the proverbial Blind Men and an Elephant story, in which the true physical characteristic of the elephant (truth) is misrepresented by the interpretations of several blind men left to feel with their hands, the different parts of the animal.
True wisdom in PR 2.0 then, is not simply taking every buzzword and saying, and crafting strategies and tactics around them; but rather, in understanding the essence of these 'new rules' and turning them on their heads to get to the real truth. It's all about eliminating the "either-or" fallacy that logical psychology warns of.
If we systematically question every social media maxim that we know, and examine them carefully, we will gain a tremendous amount of insights. Kudos to Chip Griffin who, in his post on "Throwing Out the Social Media Rulebook", has given us a head-start. John Cass' commentary following Chip's post is well worth the read too.
Enjoy.
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