Musings of a Marketing Maven

I’m supposed to be writing a book review on social media for PR professionals, but I stumbled on Wordle and couldn’t resist putting my notes into visual form first. (Yes, I confess this is creative procrastination.)

Here are ideas sparked by the handwritten notes I took while reading Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge:

For those who haven’t yet played with Wordle The tool scans a text stream (Atom feed, RSS, etc.) and then applies some magic algorithm to the selection and placement of words that appear in the visualization. You can influence (but not control) the font, color palette, and a few of the layout elements.

Wordle lets you influence what appears, without allowing you to control the message or its placement. I chose this playful approach for my review because it seems singularly appropriate for the subject matter of the book, which is all about storytelling, influencing the influentials, and the burning need to reinvent and transform the practice of public relations in the face of the social media revolution.

I do recommend the book for PR professionals, although not for leading edge PR pros who have been immersed in conversational marketing, active listening strategies, or “the new PR.” For pioneers like you, this book would be too basic.