It appears that every brand, professional, researcher, and scholar are exploring how new emerging technologies are being used and integrated into our daily lives. Whether it is for professional reasons or even personal, we are seeing the growing importance of new media into our various duties and how it has translated into a powerful communication tool and medium for everyone to take note.
With this being said, with the rising popularity and growth of social media, this means more jobs, research opportunities, consultants, and agencies / professionals specializing in this area. With all of these great opportunities here, there are of course challenges. The pressure of staying ahead of the game, beating people to the punch with coming up with innovative and creative viral videos and campaigns, and trying to distinguish themselves from others are just some of the trends we are seeing now. In other words, researching and practicing in social media is very energetic and exciting, but it is also extremely competitive both in research and practice.
When you think about it – PR professionals and researchers are being judged on how much they know about social media, how they can strategically apply it into their own work and personal reputation, and be creative in bringing in innovative tools and assignments for their students. I have spoken to friends in both areas of PR – the agency side as well as researchers – and everyone says that it is either 1) hard to keep up with the advances of the technology; 2) managing the pressure of creating strategic insight for these platforms immediately and 3) always learning a new tool and then something else comes along that everyone is getting on board with.
So, how do you stay competitive in the social media community?
- Look at who else is in your industry practicing and working in social media: You can learn something from anyone, including your competitors, when it comes to social media. But at the same time – look at what platforms and technologies they are not using and think about how you could use them in 1) practice 2) research and 3) teaching venues.
- Educate yourself everyday on something new: Work hard, win easy – look at additional resources that may be helpful (ex. presentations, reports, blogs, white papers, etc) that will give you additional insights and possibly be used to inspire you to come up with creative and strategic ideas for both practice and research.
- Branch outside of your community to form new relationships and connections: It is good to have strong communities on social media, but what about exploring other opportunities and avenues as well? What about reaching out to different disciplines? You never know what opportunities this may have for you.
- Be strategic in your thinking and positioning in social media: Conduct a SWOT analysis for yourself and compare this with what others (or your competitors) are doing with social media. Are there any similarities? What are some gaps that are missing that you can take advantage of?
- Think outside social media: There are many emerging platforms out therethat are also relevant to social media and each of these could be explored in the classroom and in research. As Robert French (Auburn University) mentioned in a conversation on Twitter when it comes to determining what tools to use – it all comes down to experimentation.
- People can steal your ideas, but not your brain: Write down a list of ideas you would like to write or research in over a course of time. If you can be creative with your research and writing, you have overcome the biggest hurdle when it comes to PR research and practice.
- Keep calm and tweet/blog/update/share/pin on!: The best way to stay competitive and relevant in social media is to ve active in social media consistently. Share infographics you think others may find useful or share articles that are relevant to what your area of expertise, and be confident that you can keep up with the technology.
Hope you all are having a great day! 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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