By Marty McDonald, Associate Vice President
One of the toughest things about working for a PR agency is developing and honing the right daily media diet. In other words, which of the mind-numbing sources of information will I actually take the time to pay attention to each day?
Generally, my morning includes skimming the Dayton and Columbus daily papers (online versions, of course), USA Today headlines, CNN headlines, a few key trade publications for the clients I serve, and a couple of personal interest blogs just for fun. Lately, however, I’ve started making time to read a few comic strips.
At the top of my list is Dilbert. There’s just something endlessly hilarious about office satire as proven by the success of movies like my all-time favorite Office Space or series’ such as The Office. I mean seriously - just try not to smile when you hear, “It looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.” (I knew you couldn’t do it.)
Anyway, comic strips have always been one of the best reflections of popular culture, but they are easy to overlook - often buried in the back of daily newspapers’ print editions alongside Soduku and Word Search. But more than comic relief, there’s real knowledge to be gleaned from the artistic musings of people like Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
In the PR and marketing field, social media is something we’re expected to understand as a new way of communicating. We’re supposed to know the secret language of tweets, diggs, del.icio.us, widgets, wikis, revver, threads, posts, feeds, forwards and mashups. We’re also supposed to understand the prevailing trends and attitudes the general public holds about this new frontier, and we can take some good cues from comic strips.
When CEO blogs were the “it” thing to do, here’s what Dilbert had to say about it:
Pointy-Haired Boss: I’m starting my own blog.
Tina the Tech Writer: Dear God, no!
Pointy-Haired Boss: Every day I will record my personal thoughts about our business. I need you to write the first one by noon. I can’t wait to see what I’m thinking!
Here’s another clever statement from comic strip Zits on the rising popularity of Twitter.
Jeremy: Did you know that people used to write notes on paper and secretly pass them around in class?
Pierce: What? When did this supposedly happen?
Jeremy: I dunno. But it must have been B.T.
Pierce: B.T.?
Jeremy: Before Twitter.
And another Zits strip about teenagers’ growing addiction to texting:
Connie: How did you drop your cell phone in the toilet, Jeremy?
Jeremy: I dunno… I was just texting and it slipped out of my hand.
Connie: You text while you’re in the bathroom?
Jeremy: Of course! What reasonably cool person doesn’t?
Connie: Well, I don’t. And your dad doesn’t…
Jeremy: You’re not answering my question.
Even Cookie, the daughter of Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, recently encouraged her father to set up a “MyFace” page in a recent comic strip.
Perhaps one of the best examples of social media done right is Dilbert.com itself. Understanding that one of the goals of social media is to enable interaction with a brand (especially if that brand is beloved), designers of Dilbert.com have created tools to allow visitors to write their own punch lines to popular comic strips; read and comment on the creator’s blog; rate new comic strips; download hilarious widgets; link to videos of actual Dilbert illustrations being created; search archives and much more.
But let’s face it, not all of us are trying to support comic strip enterprises. I work with some people who can make your head spin (in a good way) talking about new media tools and how to apply them to your business in a way that actually makes sense to your bottom line, but it has to start with strategy and plain old common sense. Just because social media references are everywhere doesn’t mean these tactics are right for your business. So don’t be a “pointy-haired boss” when it comes to social media and Web 2.0. Start with strategy first and add cool factor as it makes sense.
I’d like to hear about anything you’ve learned from the funny pages and in other unexpected places.