In the past few years, the human race has had to improve in its ability to handle ambiguity and change, especially in our work environments.
And it wasn’t all pyjama bottoms on zoom calls and testing all the banana bread recipes.
“Unprecedented” was named the People’s Choice Word of 2020 on Dictionary.com. A word that just about sums up how the world felt about the pandemic.
We lived each day without really knowing what was coming next. But by 2022, we were hoping for slightly more “precedented times”.
Then, Mark Zuckerberg introduced us to the metaverse in a livestream explanation of his newest artificial intelligence project.
I don’t know if it was just me, but it felt like he dropped this giant bomb on us, walked away, and watched our panic/excitement/freak out/*insert your reaction* here as he evil cackled…just me?
I mean, we only just got our everyday routines somewhat back to normal?
Now we have to consider a dramatic shift to virtual reality in the near future?
While I am not opposed to change, I do like to get my head around new concepts before diving in head first.
Up until recently, digital communication and socialising online was the only way we could connect with one another. The concept isn’t too far off “Virtual Reality”, the key difference lies in the ability to differentiate reality and said VR space from one another.
As PR and comms professionals, it’s important for us to think ahead and prepare our clients for the future. We need to be experts in any new media platform and have the ability to explain it as soon as possible.
We also need to be able to distinguish what is worth devoting time, money, and effort to.
The nature of PR is to connect brands with their audience in an authentic way, building trust and credibility through every outward communication.
With the excitement of new virtual experiences, we must not forget the importance of real, human connection!
Now more than ever, storytelling needs to be at the heart of how we communicate with the world.
The key is to embrace the virtual world. After all, showing up is important, but PR and Marketing professionals need to navigate a way to provide as close of an in-person experience as possible.
The best way to prepare for any new territory is pre-planning. I’m known as the Planning Panda - perhaps for this very reason!
Planning eliminates unnecessary stress for your future self. You’ll thank yourself for the preparation later.
For us PR Pros, we are all about reputations and we want to build magnetic ones. We work to help clients lay foundations to stay strong in stormy weather.
Taking on the metaverse is taking on unknown territory, although experts say that the metaverse will be safer than existing platforms - but can we really believe them?
Brands need to stay safe and project a unified front no matter what space they are in, whether that is digital or physical.
