Don’t forget the art of conversation in PR, warns Liberty Comms’ Dee Gibbs

Social media has certainly shaken things up over the last decade. To date, companies have embraced social networks and channels by setting up Facebook, LinkedIn pages, Twitter and blogs; with many viewing these as an extension of their current marketing mix and offer product information, sales notices and contact information similar to that on their corporate websites.

Companies have started using Twitter as a broadcast medium; tweeting when they have new products or are having a clearance sale as a syndicated one-way communication with their followers, but it’s the collaboration afforded to companies and individuals by social media that really sets it apart as a game changer.

Social media channels and the Internet generation are by default, all about working collaborations. Digital networking is la mode du jour; but for those who have grown up amidst the digitally enabled world, can it actually lead to social isolation?

Isolation in this sense comes from the fact that whilst actively engaging with others in real-time, often being part of a wider conversation or community, they are doing so sitting in front of a screen on a device enabled with social media tools, never actually having to physically communicate in face-to-face conversation at all.

Does that really matter though I hear you ask? Email didn't kill the conversation, so why should social networking kill social skills? Isn’t it enough to converse via a screen and keypad?

Each generation has used different forms of technology to interact with each other – the burning beacon, smoke signals, semaphore, Morse code, the list continues; surely this is simply the next stage in the evolution of communications? In some respects this is fine, and the younger generation have, for the most part, become experts at writing compelling content, because at the heart of social media - as in PR and business - content is still very much king.

Collaborative working is a team thing – after all, no man is an island has never been truer than in our social media enabled age. However, to work successfully in a collaborative way, it is imperative the digital youth of today be able to communicate with others in the tried and tested, old-fashioned art of conversation.

Social media channels and digitally enabled workforces are here to stay – it’s not something that can be uninvented, and there is no way back now. Twitter, Facebook, email or instant messaging (IM) are all commonplace in the businesses of today and tomorrow, and they are only likely to become more so as workforces become less centralised thanks to technology and improvements to mobile communications.

Now it is a question of how the new rules of engagement will better the business environment. Ultimately it's down to the individual to make the time, and take the initiative to remember that there are different ways to communicate other than an IM or email: the phone (fixed-line or mobile) is still a great way to converse and get an immediate and unscripted response. If content remains king – which in all businesses it undoubtedly is – even in the digital, social media orientated world of today, personal conversation is still very much queen.

Dee Gibbs is managing director at Liberty Comms