Pushing Rope Now On Facebook

Pushing Rope officially has a Facebook site. The goal is to branch PR out and experiment with different forms of media. This is not going to replace the blog in any way, shape or form.

My friend Annie Heckenberger is the social media director for GPTMC. She has been pushing social and other new forms of media on me for quite some time. She recently did an interview on social media.

5. Do you see a day when most, if not all offline companies are involved in social media?

When I was in the for-profit world and explaining the social media revolution to Fortune 500 companies, I explained it like this: We are no longer living in the marketing world that you’ve known. There is a social revolution occuring globally and the power is now in the hands of the individual user/consumer. So you can either get up to speed and join their world, or you will be left behind in their dust because this is not a fad.

6. It seems as though quite a few people are finding success through connecting with bloggers in promoting their products and/or companies. How important do you consider this aspect of social media PR to be?

For marketers, communicating with bloggers is critical. If you aren’t engaging in a dialogue with these people whose voices are sometimes heard by audiences as large as small town newspapers, you aren’t doing your job. Bloggers are no longer a specific target (age, income, sex, etc), they are a psychographic of people - all ages, races, incomes, locations, etc.

I have been hit up a few times by concert promoters to do ticket giveaways. Ditto with advertisers. The entertainment industry look at blogging as an avenue to reach consumers. I certainly have no illusions that I'm Daily Kos. In fact, my traffic has dropped.

I'm interested in how new forms of media can be harnessed to tie in the Florida progressive blogosphere with smaller grassroots organizations. I want to reach people that do not follow politics. I enjoy preaching to the converted as much as the next lefty blogger, but that isn't going to help us win elections.

Another reason for using Facebook is to educate people about shelters for abused women and children. There are also alcohol and drug prevention centers that aren't widely known. There are so many smaller issues that the blog doesn't get the time to write about.

I'm going to talk with Annie about the Facebook site. This is is open forum for Ropers. Zen, Litbrit, and SineQuaNon, what do you think?