LR 37 - Media Day - April 2019

Photo courtesy of Catherine Clodfelter

​By Catherine Clodfelter
Associate, Parker Poe Law Firm
​
Quote of the day:

 “You don’t just go viral.” - Seth Crossno

Our Leadership Raleigh 37 Media Day couldn’t have opened a more relevant month of news. Am I right?

I started out the day with a heavy dose of skepticism that I would enjoy talking about or learning about social media.  When I think of media and social media, I tend to think of going “viral,” how many followers someone has, or the “tweet.” But my Media Day epiphany is that media and social media is all about the people behind the tweet, insta, camera, or whatever comes tomorrow, and if you’re going to be a successful user of media, you can’t forget that.  Sounds obvious, but I’ll explain. 

Seth Crossno’s presentation was a serious reality check for me about two different aspects of social media.  First, you reach more people through humor.  You can use social media for any type of message, whether it be an advertisement, social commentary, or news.  But, humor delivers the message to the most people. Second, if you work in social media, and your goal is to wake up and make content, you’ve missed the point.  Seth is successful and continues to enjoy what he is doing (or appears to) because he wakes up every morning with the goal of making himself laugh, which then makes us all laugh.  He doesn’t get out of bed to create content.

As an aside, that’s a powerful observation for both social media and also what we do in our professional lives.  As a lawyer, I don’t often get to get up and have a goal of making people laugh (though it sometimes happens by accident).  I can take Seth’s comment to heart in my business, though, and I think we all can.  If you are a lawyer, and your goal is to wake up and get your motion filed with the court, you’ve missed the point.  The goal is to wake up and get the best result for your client possible. 
​
Our lunch panel of hosts described social media as an aid to the sports media business that is only helpful because it helps reach more people.  My take away from that panel was that social media is a necessary pain.  It has the ability to reach the most people possible.  The important cautionary tale was, if social media starts to take away time and effort from the people whose stories you are telling, you’re doing it wrong.  Once again, the point isn’t creating “content.”  If you spend so much time worrying about pushing content out that you aren’t putting something out that celebrates the stories that make you love sports, you’ve missed the point. 

Our final official stop was the ABC-11 newsroom.  For those of us who mostly sit in offices all day, this place was a playground.  I was get inspired by our panel with ABC-11 Anchors Amber Rupinta and Joel Brown to have some fun in capturing the message learned from their experiences in social media:

Listen up Triangle, they start with coiffed hair and big voices boomin’
Bringing us news, of gunshots, good deeds and bad weather loomin’
So, Triangle, in your DM’s and posts,
Show respect and love to those who care to convey to us most,
Cuz behind the glamour, microphones, and cameras rolling, everyone’s human

---

Photo courtesy of Catherine Clodfelter