As media evolve, so do the ways of using them

5 March 2009 | By Mark Cridge

You may have seen Hugh’s Gaping Void cartoon, ‘If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face.’ This wonderfully captures the feeling of dismay those in digital have felt when they saw their traditional counterparts wade in, uninformed, and claim, “This digital lark, it’s all just more screens, innit.”

In fact this was a useful argument as the nascent digital industry carved out a role for itself, distinct from traditional advertising, emphasising the need for a new approach, a distinct set of skills that, coincidentally, only a digital agency could provide.

Clearly, as the traditional industry rapidly gets its act together, it would be naive to think this state of affairs will last much longer. It’s interesting, then, to experience a sense of déjà vu as we see social media rise as a distinct discipline, again requiring a unique set of skills and experiences which, of course, only self-named social media experts are able to provide. This is perfectly understandable as with any new industry it’s a good idea to distance yourself from what has come before and to carve out a profitable niche you can exploit.

Partly this requires a good deal of expedient exaggeration, as the phrase goes, but mostly it’s true you can’t simply take the old ways of doing things and apply them to any new medium in exactly the same way. This is especially true within social media, which is as different to the digital of the last few years as that was to traditional channels. Just as digital types complained that traditional sorts shouldn’t treat online as a mass broadcast channel, so the same is true with social media, where you can’t expect the rules and behaviours of traditional or even digital to work in the same way.

It’s perfectly acceptable to continue to shout in traditional broadcast mass-market media, especially as TV isn’t going away anytime soon. Similarly, online and digital channels combine a heady mix of branding, direct response and word-of-mouth, a wide variety of approaches each with their own rules of successful behaviour. Potentially a minefield, but a hugely lucrative opportunity for those agencies and clients that have learned how to use them well.

In social media, where the rule is listen first then join the conversation, we need to learn to speak in a genuine voice. Right across this full spectrum of bought, owned and earned media, the opportunity is for agencies to work with clients to understand how they can find their true and consistent voice across each of these media.

In practice this may mean the client has to speak with a different voice each time according to the correct rules of etiquette for each channel, but in doing so will always communicate in a way true to itself. This is exactly where smart agencies will find they can help the most.