He Hate Me: The King of Social Media Gets Unsociable

Peter Shankman has a pretty amazing story. An early employee of AOL, he ended up on his own and has thrived in an uncertain world for any type of business. At the Ragan Communications conference in Las Vegas, Shankman told of standing on the street with a sandwich board while handing out resumes to passers-by on the street. When he got home that night he had 479 messages on his machine from people who wanted to speak with him about work.

Who wouldn’t?

This is the kind of force of will and ingenuity any employer would find attractive. Shankman also regaled the crowd of us at the social media conference with the tale of how he sold thousands of tee shirts making fun of the fascination with the Titanic. The text on his popular shirts said, “It sank. Get over it.” Sound counsel, that.

Lately, Shankman has been rocking the world of social media on the internet. He is an inveterate communicator who, even before he hit the web, was always talking to people. A lot of those people were reporters wanting to interview sources for stories they were writing. Eventually, Shankman started an email service called Help A Reporter Out (HARO), an ingenious list serve that now goes to 65,000 subscribers. They are either public relations professionals, reporters, or people wanting to be interviewed as thought leaders. HARO flies out three times a day and many PR professionals consider it an indispensable service.

Back when his list was a lowly 50,000 subscribers, I inquired with Shankman about his advertising rate card. All of his emails are sponsored. At the top of each there is a paragraph about the sponsor and a URL to the company’s site. Shankman writes something nice and flattering and does his best to drive traffic to his advertisers’ web pages. By all indications, he is hugely successful in bringing attention to his paid advertisers. Based upon the rate card I saw a few months ago, those three emails earn Shankman more in a day than many middle class families net in a month. (I told you this guy was smart; sending out emails and getting rich, which doesn’t even calculate his speaking fees as an expert and cultural leader.)

Reporters who have an urgent need for a source can contact Shankman and he will post their requests on Twitter, where he is known as Skydiver. He is also inordinately successful on Twitter, the new social media network that affords communicators the chance to update anything and everything in 140 characters. Shankman has more than 31,000 people following him on Twitter. The man knows what he is doing.

He was the keynote speaker at the Ragan Social Media Conference at the Wynne Encore Hotel in Las Vegas and I was anxious to hear what he had to say on the subject. Not surprisingly, his insights were excellent. Shankman predicted that all social media will converge and there will be one net and that the traditional news release will disappear in 36 months. His most profound thought, though, had to do with public relations. Shankman said that a business does not have a responsibility to talk about itself but rather it has an obligation to get other people to talk about its products and services. Obviously, he’s right and that will facilitate the new era of corporate communications and PR through the use of social media on Web 3.0

To keep my colleagues at S3 of Austin informed about the Ragan conference, I was on Twitter and posting my thoughts on all of the presentations. When Shankman got up to keynote the first day’s conclusion, I was taken aback by his level of energy and the speed of his garrulousness. Either the microphone was bad and muffled or he was not articulating. I had trouble understanding much of what he said but even if I had heard everything I don’t think his messaging was likely to resonate because of his delivery. I “tweeted” that I wondered “how much Red Bull is this guy drinking.”

After a bit more thought in the evening, I reached the conclusion that Peter Shankman lives better online than in reality. I also made that comment on Twitter. Oops. Peter doesn’t like criticism. No matter how smart I think the guy is (and believe me this guy gets the net in ways that almost no one does) he just doesn’t like criticism. I suspect he is uncomfortable with anything other than idolatry. About 3:30 a.m. in Las Vegas, my Blackberry buzzed with a note after he had read my tweet about being a bit disappointed. He said he was glad I was in the minority. I understand his point of view.

While sitting at a morning presentation, a young lady introduced herself to me and asked me if I were “twittering” the convention. I told her I was and she wanted to know my name.

“I’m MooreThink,” I said.

“Oh, you’ve been very controversial,” she pointed out. “A lot of people are talking about you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, they say you are critical.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m also flattering. Shel Holtz blew me away. I want to go hang around that guy’s office and soak up what he knows.”

“What about Shankman?”

“I thought he was great. I just didn’t like his style. His substance was great.”

“Oh,” she said, and then picked up her phone and began to punch in text.

I realized a bit later that she was Shankman’s assistant or friend and she was sending him a note that she had found MooreThink and was likely describing me to Peter. When I got a business call on my cell, I walked out to take it in the hallway and a few minutes later looked around to find Peter Shankman standing a few feet away staring at me like a New Jersey wise guy.

“I’m going to be a few minutes,” I said, pulling the phone away from my mouth.

“I want to talk to you,” he said. “I’ll be over there.”

“Sure. See you in a few minutes.”

Shankman disappeared but found me a half hour later and indignantly asked me, “Why are people emailing me all morning and asking me why you are bad-mouthing me?”

“Don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Are they just making things up? They say you are just talking horribly about me.”

“Again, I’ve no idea what you are saying.”

“Are you calling them liars? Are you saying you haven’t been talking bad about me to people?”

“That’s what I’m saying. I believe I told my colleague in a private conversation that I didn’t like your presentation style but I thought your ideas were great.”

“Well, that’s not what I’m hearing. Do you want me to get some of those people out here?”

“Well, you can but I only know what I said and who I talked to and I can’t account for your friends. You think it’s possible someone over heard a private conversation at cocktail hour and alcohol changed the tone of their story?”

“No, these people aren’t like that.”

“All I know, Peter, is that I haven’t been bad-mouthing you to anyone.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to just do it with your 48 followers on Twitter.”

“Holy crap, are you condescending to me based upon the number of followers I have on Twitter. This is the most absurd thing I’ve ever experienced. Where’s the damned camera crew?”

I laughed and walked off just as he said, “Oops, never mind, looks like it’s 47 followers. Sorry, I just checked.”

“Turns out you are also funny, Peter. Good job.”

“Yeah, and good luck with that whole social media thing, Jim.”

When I left the conference, I passed Peter and told him, “Good luck, I’ll see you down the road.”

As the day waned and I lingered at the airport waiting for a flight, my friend Jack Holt at S3, who had communicated with Shankman, got a direct message from him on Twitter. Jack apparently had asked Shankman if he were angry at me.

“Nah – no time for hating,” he twittered. “Life’s too short/not worth the energy. (smiley face) Peter Shankman / skydiver.”

I thought it was all over when I got an email from Peter that sounded quite gracious after our energetic discussion in the lobby.

“Always appreciate speaking with people, whether fans or detractors. I always believe one can learn from both.

Hope the conference went well for you.’

-Peter Shankman

I sent a note back saying that presentation style was a subjective taste issue and that I thought he was very insightful on the state of the net, social media, and PR for businesses. This I believe. I wrote that criticism makes us all better and I told Shankman I hoped to be a constant and close follower. But that’s not going to happen. I logged onto my Twitter account to see what Shankman was up to and I was notified he was done with me.

“Blocked,” said the message.

So long, Peter. I hope you’ll at least let me stay on your email list for HARO. But if not, it’s okay.

Oh, and good luck with that social media thing.

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