Public Social Marketing Relations: Say It Twice

December 2011 was an interesting month for me. I was closing out a pretty good year when I was slapped pretty hard by reality. I won't get into the gory details, but after 18 years of being in the communications business, I was back on the job market right before the holidays.

Needless to say, it was a tough pill to swallow.

However, everything happens for a reason, as the saying goes. And after the past two weeks, I truly believe that the saying is dead on.

Flash forward to today, and I find myself sitting on some very interesting opportunities -- all leading in different directions, yet with a very similar focus.

You see, I've built my career in order for me to be a generalist/specialist. This means, I'm good at a lot of things as it relates to Public Relations, Marketing, Digital Communications, Mobile Marketing and of course, Social Media.

I've worked for big, mid-sized and small agencies. I've worked on the client side. I've developed programs for big, mid-sized and small companies across a variety of industries.

This broad experience means that one day, I can be pitching trend stories to connections I have at the Wall Street Journal and later that hour, managing a client's social listening program in order to provide them with market intelligence via online chatter.

What this boils down to is that I'm good with people. I'm good at managing relationships. I'm good at connecting people with people, people with brands and brands with brands (in the case of B2B communications).

This leads me to my point: PR, Marketing, Advertising, Social Media, Mobile Marketing, etc., etc., is now called Public Social Marketing Relations, i.e. there are no more silos between these job roles. Companies that have people in place that know how to function across all of these roles and integrate them will win. They will develop programs that create a surround sound experience for a brand's target audience. This is why, for example, you see advertising shops doing social media and digital communications shops doing advertising work -- PR doing marketing; marketing doing PR, and on and on...

You get my point.

So over the past two weeks, I've had a number of conversations with brands and agencies that are looking at me to fill a variety of roles. The question always comes up about my background and what is it exactly that I want to do. Basically, I give them a Reader's Digest version of the above.

I want to develop, tell and measure stories -- stories that are business focused and create that surround sound experience I was alluding too. So, I'm not a PR guy. I'm not a marketer. I'm not a social media "guru."

I'm just a guy that wants to tell you a story. You may read it in the paper. You may read in on Facebook. You may even watch a video of me reading to the story to you on YouTube. At the end of the day, however, I'm going to get it into your hands, on your screen, TV, newspaper, magazine, social network, etc.

Integration is the key word in my story and despite how the space that dictates my career changes, I think that word will always be part of my DNA.

Thanks for listening.