Nicholas Demille | Oct. 25, 2011
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| Photo by Nick Demille |
| Larry Weber, who founded Weber Shandwick, then several other technology public relations companies, told students that social media will have more influence on the industry than TV. He spoke to a PRSSA group Wednesday night. |
“Social media will have a bigger impact than television,” Weber told his audience at Wednesday night’s talk at the Georgian Room in the IMU. He crammed hours’ worth of his personal and advertising insights into a 40-minute talk to members of the Public Relations Student Society of America.
With his years in the business, Weber can make such comparisons. He built the Weber Group, the world's largest technology public relations firm, before merging to found Weber Shandwick, one of the largest public relations agencies in the world.
Since the 2001 merger, Weber has started the W2 Group, a marketing services system organized to help marketing officers, which includes Digital Influence Group, a social media marketing agency; Racepoint Group, a global public relations agency; and Two Martinis. He’s also author of several books on marketing.
Weber talked about a recent evening at his computer that exemplified his belief in the power of social media. He found himself on Amazon.com because of a targeted email from the company.
“I love Faulkner” said Weber, “and because Amazon knew that, they sent me video links of old interview footage with Faulkner that brought me to their site.”
From there, you can imagine his trip: 12 additional book purchases for friends and family, posting of product reviews, emailing of links to more friends and family, and even tweeting and Facebook posting of content he felt was relevant. He stood up from his computer almost two hours later feeling as though he’d been entertained, informed and more important, included, he said.
For Weber, this was a story that would lay the groundwork for his larger explanation of how the public relations and advertising worlds have been fundamentally changed by social media.
“The continued micro-segmentation of consumer markets, combined with highly-targeted content derived from social media spaces like Facebook and Twitter will change entirely the way we both shop and communicate,” he said.
It’s a viewpoint that is supported not only by observation but by research. Pete Comley, founder of Join the Dots, compares the evolution in e-commerce as moving from an "adult-child" relationship into an "adult-adult" relationship. In a short span of time, advertising and PR have moved from a model where companies speak and consumers listen to one which is much more interactive.
As with Weber’s Amazon.com example, you have to invite people in and keep them there with a variety of interactive methods such as videos tailored to their interests or helpful peer reviews of products.
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| Photo by Nick Demille |
| Xiao Ou Yuan, IU PRSSA chapter treasurer, presents Larry Weber with a few tokens of Hoosier appreciation after Weber's talk. |
“In over 30 years in the business, I’ve seen times when agencies were ahead of corporations, as well as times, like right now, where corporations are ahead of agencies,” Weber said. “There are exceptions, of course, but corporations are a little bit ahead right now because they are using social media to connect directly with their customers. They know, and so should all of you, that this is really serious stuff.”
A graduate student and former PRSSA president in attendance, Kristina Hunter, BAJ’11, expressed appreciation for the advice.
“Larry Weber was amazing,” she said. “He's obviously a very influential leader in the social media world, and that's more important now than ever in public relations and communications.”
