Laermer maintains that in this world a written pitch will be considered spam, whereas media outlets and other consumers of information distributed by PR pros will view multimedia pitches as informative and engaging.
The post was essentially a warm-up for Laermer's latest book project, 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, which examines the impact a number of emerging technologies and trends will have on us all and gives some insights into his predictions on which of these trends will go on to be hits and others misses. While I haven't had a chance to read the book, in the interest of full disclosure, it's generally been positively reviewed by those who have. That said, I think one future trend that may be a bit off the mark is the notion that PR, and marketing as a whole, will evolve into something that's dominated by the consumer rather than a company or one of their consultants or agencies. Basically, if someone likes your idea, Laermer believes they'll become an evangelist, much as the way Apple Computer Corp. has always had a core group of evangelists going back to before the company was hot again.
While Apple has certainly had that, something I can attest to having spent many years as a tech reporter and written a few stories that had negative Apple news, I don't think that means most companies can expect to achieve it and/or that most companies will want to market themselves that way. Certainly, some consumer-oriented companies might, but the world is full of successful companies doing all kinds of things that may not be "social-media worthy," but are important -- and profitable -- nonetheless.
So for now, while viral marketing may have some influence on a few campaigns, I'm not sure it's going to be a game changer in the PR world as a whole.
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