This week my Edelman colleagues Eoin Dowling and Piaras Kelly launched an infographic video which appeared on the Edelman Digital blog and highlighted the explosion of social media usage amongst key audiences, as well as the Irish love of digital technology.

I found the data about social networks insightful (Facebook has grown by 500% since 2009 etc), which will definitely help with the planning of future digital campaigns. However, for me the key takeaways are around the untapped potential of mobile in Ireland.

Everywhere you go in the country it seems everyone has a mobile device – and with over 5 million handsets in operation, representing a huge 116% mobile penetration rate, this statement is no exaggeration. However, the way in which people use mobile devices is changing and the video alluded to this.

People in Ireland currently browse the web via PCs and laptops, but over the coming years we can expect to see this dominance disrupted by mobile technology. Whilst iPads may be out the grasp of many, smartphones are increasingly attainable and there is a growing number of people who want to stay connected. As we have seen in other markets, people not only want to communicate with friends via calls and texts, but stay connected with email, news and brands.

This surge in smartphones sales means that by Spring we expect there will be 1.1 million people with smart devices in their pockets, swelling the number of apps downloaded beyond its present 8 million mark.

This fantastic growth means that mobile poses a challenge we should not shy away from and with near field communication (NFC) chips, which allow debit and credit purchases via smartphones not too far off, it also presents a great opportunity for brands to engage with consumers on another growing platform. For many brands mobile is not yet on the radar and remains an untapped area, but if your company sells products through its website to the public, then an app or .mobi website may well, be a wise investment.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In short, social is important amongst Irish customers. It’s the here and now. But mobile is getting here and is definitely part of the future. However, I’m not naive enough to suggest all brands should invest in mobile right now. You don’t want to get into this space if none of your stakeholders are. As always, it’s about timing, balance and integration.

Brands need to hit upon the right mix of maximising the now, but also keeping an eye out for what is round the corner. After all, its the profits made now which enable brands to look to and have a future.

If you would like a chat about the now or indeed the future, please feel free to drop me a line at contact[at]ben-cotton[dotcom] or check out the Edelman website.

Recently, PR Week (Wednesday 13 January 2010) ran an article lamenting the level of digital skills within the PR industry. Using stats provided by recruitment agency Major Players, Matt Cartmell highlighted the gap between PR roles that require digital skills and the relatively small number of candidates who mention these attributes on their CV.

Whilst the article contained some interesting snippets of information, it left me with more questions than answers, namely:

1. Who should be teaching digital skills?
2. What digital skills do employers want?
3. How can people demonstrate digital skills?

I enlisted the help of industry colleagues Marshall Manson, Director of Digital Strategy at Edelman and Stephen Waddington, Managing Director at Speed Communications to share their thoughts on these questions.

Marshall said:
“1. In my experience, academics are good at teaching principles and lousy at teaching practicalities. So most of the training is going to have to be done by employers in a professional setting. Mostly though, PRs need to take the time to build experience. That’s what I’m always looking for nowadays.

2. Experience. Real depth. Understanding of how the platforms really work. And increasingly (especially at senior levels), real insight into how to build strategies and work with the platforms to undertake successful campaigns built on conversation. Also critical: Ability to listen to the conversation and discern insights.

3.Talk the talk. And back it with real examples.”

Stephen said:
1. The digital PR industry is too immature for formal teaching courses to have been developed. The rules have yet to be written. But there are plenty of good books and lots of materials online. And the tools are free are readily available for anyone to experiment.

2. If you’re new to PR you need to build your own social networks on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. And you need to develop content on a blog platform, Flickr and YouTube. Likewise if you’re in PR and want to stay in PR you equally need to learn how to use digital techniques to create and seed content.

3. It’s the old adage. Show me what you’ve done don’t tell me what you could do. Build out your own social networks and use a blog platform, Flickr or YouTube. I am constantly astonished at the number of PR and journalism students that aren’t sufficiently motivated to experiment with these new forms of media. I would always choose someone that had made the effort versus someone that had not.”

I’d like to put on record my thanks to both Marshall and Stephen for sparing the time to give their views on this issue. I’m sure any graduate looking to break into the PR industry in 2010 will find this a valuable post. On a personal note: I look forward to exploring this topic more closely in an article for Behind the Spin magazine.

On Friday PR Week ran a feature that proclaimed ‘digital is ‘too low’ a priority’ for many organisations.

The accompanying research did show that organisations are starting to focus on online communities, but the main battle we PROs have on our hands is to convince senior management the value of social media and how it can be used effectively. In order to do this we need to become better at putting things in language that senior management will understand and be less abstract about the outcomes. The rationale for going digital is clear – 1.5 billion people are online, but all too often the benefits are fudged and not explained in a way that will have directors becoming digital evangelists.

I am not saying drop everything and put all your resources into digital activity, but we are in the digital age. It is another channel that people communicate through and for many it is the first stop to finding out information on organisations. It is too big to be ignored or given to a junior member of staff.

Another challenge we have is to shift people’s perception that digital comms should be a matter for the IT team. Whilst their technical skills are very important, it should at the least be a joint venture between comms and IT or something that comms leads on with techie support from the IT crowd.

The ‘battleground’ that Mark Adams of Next Fiftheen describes is all too common. He went on to say ‘there needs to be an IT person who is a communicator. For PR people, this poses a problem, because their technical skills are usually low.’

So for all budding PR students out there, I believe there is a real gap in the market for a PRO with strong IT and digital media skills. I for one am trying to brush up on mine. A prospective employee with these two distinct skill sets will prove to be an asset to any organisation.