You’ve probably been there; you’re at a party and there’s a doctor or similar health professional present among the throng, and as soon as people find out their profession someone’s got a question for them. I am guilty of this myself, even blagging a free chiropractor session a couple of years back which made me feel like a new person! I’m increasingly finding nowadays, however, it’s me, the social media consultant, which people want to get free advice from at parties.
Back in the day when I did purely traditional technology PR, no one was interested. When I responded to that whole “so what do you do?” thing I could see their eyes glaze over and drift towards the leggy brunette over my shoulder. Now, conversely, if I say “I’m an online PR consultant, you know, I do a bit of social media training, a bit of search engine optimisation, heaps of blogging blah blah”, suddenly their eyes light up and a volley of questions come my way. This week I already committed some free advice to an Argentine beef baron and managed to commit myself to setting up a blog for a vicar with basic WordPress training to boot (!).
My lesson for this week, therefore, is not only that everyone from small business entrepreneurs to maverick clergymen recognise the value of social media, but that as a skillset social media is highly sought after so don’t give away your secrets for free!
I’m too nice for this business…
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If you mention to anyone that you work with computers, then you will become their default tech support line. I’ve had half the family and friends call me at some point to ask me questions from “Why doesn’t my printer work?” to “What laptop should I buy?” to obscure questions about software packages I’ve never heard of.
do people *really* get excited when you talk about blogging!?
In my experience people would be very interested in my job initially – PR does have a weird glamour to those that don’t work in it. But as soon as they realised it was technology PR the eyes would glaze over…
Thanks for the comments, guys.
Paul – people are genuinely interested but it’s the motivation for that interest that’s key. Both cases this week were individuals who wanted to improve their online presence for sales in one case and personal profile/communication in the other, so it’s not that they’re ‘interested’ interested, it’s that it’s something that they know they NEED to know and don’t quite understand it yet. IMHO
Definitely agree with James on becoming people’s tech support when you mention technology PR.
Chris, perhaps you should do what doctors/solicitors allegedly do – send a bill next day to anyone you’ve given advice to. If that works it’ll show social media has really arrived.