How the internet has changed the way people find out about concerts/gigs

I love music and it's even better when it is live.  Concerts/gigs are how bands make their money as the download culture has decreased album sales.  The way I have found out about gigs has changed, even in the past year. 

Previously, it would have been through 'word of mouth' from school or university friends. It was like a social event more than anything with a bonus of seeing your favourite bands. As I finished university (2006), social network sites like Facebook and Bebo were just starting to become popular. In the three years following, social networks have arguably become a part of people's daily routine. Therefore, it follows logically that bands would use these social network sites as a means to advertise freely about themselves. The beauty of this is that you, the user, can choose which bands you want to be kept inform about. It also helps independent labels and unsigned artists to distribute their music, which was impossible before these networks were established without expense.

I found this document for bands who want to advertise on Facebook. This explains how bands can use Facebook as a platform for advertising up and coming events and sharing their music with their audiences. They also give the "fans" links to their official websites, twitter pages, clips from concerts and dates for album releases. It also gives the chance for fans to commentate, which makes it quite a symmetrical way of dealing with your audiences.

Back in the day, I used Ticketmaster. I still get newsletters via email, showing me what bands are playing locally. This was how I found out about the Eagles of Death Metal concert in Belfast. You can also buy your tickets from the website. You get so much information on the web, that you don't get on a poster at the bus stop.

Big names like Pink or Take That do still use TV commercials/large posters to advertise albums or concerts. This is probably because they attract a lot of people from all walks of life. It is an asymmetrical way of communicating. A lot of young children enjoy their music, but they won't be able to know about concerts through the internet.

As Twitter is a relatively new way of bands communicating with their audiences, I haven't used it yet for finding out about up and coming tours. However, unsigned bands ask me to follow them. This is a great way to find out about new bands. Muse, who are an exceptionally brilliant band (in my opinion), are on the ball when it comes to sharing their news online. I get updates nearly every week about their new album and how they are getting on, on their current tour.

However, I still believe that there is a room for the conventional advertising as people like to see images on billboards etc. Adam Webb from the Guardian discussed the rise in online use by record companies. Conventional advertising is on it's way out, but it is still being used and is still successful. The facebook pages are brilliant if you have access to internet all the time, but still there are people out there who do not have access to the internet permanently.

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Social Media as a new Communication Tool for PR

PR is the practise of managing the communication between an organisation and its publics according to Wikipedia. It is about contributing to the effectiveness of organizations by improving organizational relationships and facilitating public conversations and debate. So we would agree that PR and communication have a very strong bond.

So now I question, why should PR take social media seriously?

When discussing about PR communication techniques, the majority assume you are talking about media relations and how you will get a journalist to write about your organization, product or idea, whereas others will say it vastly includes events or lobbying. So do people, including yourself believe what you read mostly over word of mouth or debates with people talking about something you’ve heard?

A blog post called 'Why PR should take Social Media Seriously' points out exactly why Social Media is effective and a communication technique that should be taken seriously. I agree with all three terms, as

1. It is more believable and trustworthy than what the media write
2. It is fast, efficient and now can be accessed through your Smartphone, and
3. It has leverage

Twitter especially has been the most successful in the case of PR, as it is used as micro blogging which can share information and create debates instantly and also listen and respond to what people are saying. Although a blog provides more information, Twitter is easier to fit into our increasingly busy lives. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if Facebook was also used in order to increase customer satisfaction, which is considered as good PR. I strongly believe that social media is the present and the future of strong PR communications.

The choices are endless, take a pick at what suits you best to achieve the most out of PR communication!

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A Rather Optimistic Thought About Our Future Careers!

Navigating in PRWeek’s website, I got surprised to see an opinion article with the title Use Your Graduates. This article, published on the 11th of November 2009, expresses the view that fresh PR graduates can do really well in the sector and be of great help to experienced practitioners.

According to according to Laura Oliphant, since "they’ve grown up in a digital word", PR graduates can deal easily with social and digital media. Most students, especially from overseas, make great use of social networks such as facebook, hi-5, twitter, myspace to keep in touch with families and friends, exchange ideas - not to mention the fact that they are very familiar with video sharing websites like youtube. During their studies they learn how to read intelligently blogs and articles, practise critical thinking and develop clear opinion on a wide variety of subjects. These competencies combined with the expertise of those having worked for years in PR, would really pitch publics and help organisations to change.

I believe that education offers individuals very broad knowledge in a chosen subject, which is vital when things come into practice. Sometimes, however, work experience is considered to be something more than necessary because some positions do need experienced people rather than know-alls. However, I think that in fields such as Communications and PR, both knowledge and expertise are needed. For instance, how could anyone identify the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation without knowing what is a SWOT analysis? How could anyone practice PR without knowing what is it about? How a PR campaign could success without establishing smart objectives? and from the other hand, one who have never worked for an organisation won’t have trouble to understand how things work in businesses? To my mind, in PR knowledge is associated with practice and practice is associated with knowledge.

I was amazed when this article came to my eyes because it shows that we PR students, even new to the discipline, we could really be useful to the PR industry, provided that we try really hard and benefit from all the things we learn everyday and use them appropriately when we’ll start working.

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Orson Wells and the media

As a consequence of the worldwide economic crisis, some companies have decided to start inventing some false news to catch the attention of the communication media. In this way, they achieve notoriety and free spaces in the contents of the media, without any need to invest in advertising.

            The last big scandal related with this fact took place the 26th of October, when it was discovered that the telecommunications Swedish company Tele2 had prepare a faked meteorite strike in a farm of Latvia. As a consequence, the government of Latvia ordered to cordon the area with security and scientific forces. Because of this fact, the Swedish company will have to compensate to the Latvian government, and they even could lead to criminal charges. In addition, the interior minister said, “the Interior Ministry doesn’t want to do business with a firm that promotes itself at our expense”, as Financial Times newspaper says.

            On the other hand, Tele2 announced that the intention of the campaign was to attract Worldwide media, as they intended to distract attention from the country’s economic crisis and give people something “creative and exciting” to talk about.

            What should strike more is that these types of fake events are becoming more and more popular in the last months. For instance, we have another examples as the story of the balloon boy in the United States. It supposed the dedication of the media of all over the World, which looked at the situation with terror until when some days after the announcement the poor child appeared safe and sound in his own house. Finally, the mother of the boy, who just wanted the attention of the media, uncovered the hoax.

Another example took place in Spain in September, when another telecommunications company called Terra tried to capture the media with some manipulated videos about fishermen that stare absolutely scared the presence of several UFO. Terra declared then that they just wanted to pay tribute to “The War of the Worlds” of Orson Wells.

How should we interpret all these "news" in the media? Probably it is a mix of several factors: the need of interesting news which could attract more audience, a lack of dedication to verify the sources of the news and investment in investigative journalism, companies with no qualms of longing for the attention of media or the easy and fast way to spread rumours and frauds via Internet. The lesson of Orson Wells still lives in the 21st century.

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Graffiti Sprayed Positive

Finally Glasgow City Council has realised the power of public relations and how essential it is to establish a relationship with their community.

In a bid to stop graffiti in Glasgow they have decided to fight fire with fire and bring in Sam Bates, an extremely skilled graffiti artist. This P.R strategy has at long last created an understanding between graffiti artists or ‘vandals’ and the local community. To Glasgow City Council it is a win-win situation.

I am completely flabbergasted as to why this approach has not been used before. I was discussing it with my delightful mother who chirped “that’s the suggestion you made when you were eight.” What can I say, I am a child genius. Either that or the fact it was so obvious an eight year old could come up with the ever so simple idea.

My point. By bringing in Sam Bates, Glasgow looks nicer and Glasgow City Council is saving millions of pounds each year in clean-up costs they would normally have to spend cleaning up the, let’s be honest, rather awful ‘menchies’ that non-skilled graffiti artists would spray on walls.

The council saves money; Sam Bates is a Scottish artist showing his work; the Glasgow community have stunning Commonwealth Game scenes to look at; and fellow graffiti artists appreciate the work and don’t doodle all over it. I believe this is what we call Symmetrical Communication. It rarely happens. And yet here is Glasgow, the slightly jagged edged city, making all those who occupy her, happy. They just made a city-full of relationships! Let us hope to maintain them.

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The first steps in PR´s world are the most difficult

When I finished my first degree in Advertisement and Public Relations, I did my work experience in a communication agency. I remember when I did the interview, and when they asked me about what I wanted to do in the job, I asked: "relations with the media and news releases". I think that I will remember this day and this summer all my life.

My first day was fantastic, I could believe that I was going to write news releases and talk with the media, but this feeling started to go down when I saw the reality of the PR´s world: news releases that nobody publishes, bad modals when you call the media, I had an agenda without contacts,…

After three months, my boss spoke with me because I thought that I had been wasting my time in the agency and he told me: "What do you learn in these months?", I asked: "That if you work for a big client everything is easier for you in the media, because everyone wants to publish something of you, but if you are a little client you need to win a battle everyday for a little space in the media". Anything else, he told me; "the most important for a PR practitioner is to have an agenda with a lot of contacts because sometimes I called to the media and they didn’t publish me anything, but one of my workmate called to one of his friends, and the news was in the media". After that conversation my boss told me: "You have learnt the most important thing: working in PR is not easy and less if you don’t know anyone in this field. For become a good PR´s practitioner you need to work a lot of years in this field, because the most important thing is to have good friends in your agenda".

When I finished my second degree in Journalism I did my work experience in a newspaper, because I wanted to see the other side of the profession, the work in the media. My two months in the newspaper were very helpful because it helped me to understand the last words of my boss. Sometimes when we received two news release with more or less the same importance, but we only had space for one, we always published the news release of the editor’s friend.

So, it is very important the relations of the company with its stakeholders and publics, but we don’t have to forget that PR´s practitioner in this sense is like the company, he needs to take care his own contacts, because with them, he can help his own clients.

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How can a PR presentation turn from banana into cucumber?

Things are not always as they seem or as we expect them to be. A PR campaign, for example,can be ruined if it has a meaning to our audience that we never intended to give.

As Launa Spenser mentioned in her article, what is obvious to one person is not, necessarily, so obvious to another and things can sometimes follow an unexpected path. Let's relate a PR presentation to the image on the right. Although we may expect the presentation to have a particular interpretation for our audience, sometimes "hidden" meanings can cause averse results, especially due to cultural differences. We might intended to make our cross-cultural audience feel confident and secure for working in our organization. The way we presented that, however, might be totally inappropriate and cause feelings of insecurity. Unexpectedly, our presentation turns out to be a mess, exactly the same way the banana on the right, out of the blue, turns out to be a cucumber. Therefore, taking into account the diversity of cultures should be in the best interests of an organization to avoid such unpleasant surprises.

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