Digital and Social Media and a reflection

Since we are here in Winnipeg, I decided to get back to school. I have a Bachelor Degree in Social Communications from Brazil. I also have a diploma in Teaching. But I realized that if you don’t have Canadian education and/or Canadian working experience, being an immigrant, would be hard to get a good job here.

So I decided to take Public Relations,Marketing and Strategic Communications at PACE (Professional, Applied and Continuing Education) at University of Winnipeg.  It is an amazing program; I am in love with my choice.

One of the courses I am doing now is Digital and Social Media. Great opportunity to think about what is going on in our world in terms of communication, both personal and commercial.

When I graduated, back in 2000, everything was about the message. We should deliver good messages. As we had, by the time, a pretty standardized type of media to reach some type of audience, we weren’t worried about the media, just about the message. Everything was the same, and the message itself was the difference.

We barely had Internet access. The smartphones weren’t a big thing until the late 1990s and just in 2007 Apple introduced the IPhone. I guess it was from the time when internet went into smartphones that everything started to change.

New media, same old messages?

The ways we communicate with each other have changed dramatically. Also the ways companies communicate with us have changed.

I would dare to say that the majority of this new generation of people couldn’t even imagine life without connection – and social media.

So, messages are still very important to us, obviously. But today, the way we deliver the message seems to be the most important thing. The presence in a social media channel is crucial to any company out there. And is also important to us, if we want to make part of this new generation and be truly updated.

In addition to the channel where the message will be delivered, we have a new strong component on the media mix: time. We can communicate today in a matter of seconds. Literally seconds.

But there is something that is still true in terms of communication: we still want authenticity on our relationships. Actually, we want relationships rather then just connection. It is all about people. It is not about the technology.

We still want to connect with people and be part of something. We still want to feel appreciated and show appreciation too. That’s haven’t changed at all.

And that’s the challenge of being connected. Find a way to maintain the authenticity either on our personal or even commercial relationships.

Disclaimer: although this post is not directly related with the main topic of this blog, which is my experience being an immigrant, is a relevant topic for my program at University, which subsequently is part of my immigration process.

Hope to see you soon!

Carol