When I was in middle and high school, studies regarding the effects of watching too much tv revolved around attention span issues. Today, microblogging (ahem, Twitter) is considered a tool designed for folks with short attention spans. Give me lots of news, give it to me fast, and then let me move on.
Today, I discovered StatusNet, “the WordPress of microblogging,” according to TechCrunch.com. My first thought was, great too many short attention spans are degrading writing and leading to mass microblogs. Just what the Internet needed. And then I thought about my own blog. I haven’t exactly been a faithful blogger. In fact, I have several draft ideas in queue, but I can’t stay focused long enough to write a decent entry before I realize my idea is old news. (Is that an effect of my short attention span or an issue with the super-fast information highway?)
Giving this microblogging business one more second of thought before moving on, I realized why I think the service StatusNet offers will be a big hit for social media. It actually ties right in with one of my blog entries that hadn’t moved beyond the brainstorming stage yet.
When I was working on my undergraduate degree in mass communications as an aspiring public relations pro, my professors often asked why we wanted to work in PR. While my answer was that I liked the variety it offered, from writing to event planning to creating publications, my classmates often answered that they enjoyed working with “the public.” Wrong. Ten years ago public relations didn’t exactly involve working with the public. It was more about managing your public, or more specifically, managing your image within your publics. PR was a one-way relationship. You spoke, the public listened.
If I taught a PR class today and one of my students said she wanted to be a PR pro because she enjoyed working with the public, I would say she is in the right profession. From the Internet, to blogging, and now microblogging, PR has become a conversation between you and your publics. While you still manage your image, you don’t manage your publics. Instead, you work with your publics and they assist you in managing your image.
So, true, while a boom in microblogs may signal mass destruction in attention spans, I think it’s the next step for PR pros. Corporate blogs are just one more way for a company to talk a lot about “me” and hear a little bit from you (in the form of a comment.) Using a microblog will not only even the playing field, it also will create a conversation between you and your target publics – not the mass public.
Is a KandiKreatives microblog coming soon? Stay tuned.
Is my attention span at risk? Well, considering a tweet by @markraganceo turned into research, brainstorming, a blog entry, and several future tweets, I think I will keep “focus” in my vocabulary.
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