Change of century, change of ways of communicating. This is the principle that personalities and companies have not wanted to see at the same time that the changes in the ways of relating and thinking are taking place and in this sense we will talk about the PUBLIC IMAGE.
During the twentieth century, communications focused on building the foundation that would structure them in two ways: a. making visible the importance of feedback from audiences and, b. build the necessary infrastructure to become massive.
The above occurred while witnessing the development of the market, which opted to improve marketing and advertising techniques that would rationally and psychologically impact the public.
This logic does not leave its validity, but we must make an effort to recognize that the implementation of Web 2.0 was not only a technological revolution that allowed consumer empowerment, but also transformed the ways of communicating, beyond managing social networks as it is commonly misunderstood today at all levels.
Today a community manager turns out to be more important than a publicist, it is vitally important to have a marketer than a communication strategist.
What is really happening is that in many Latin American countries there has not been a transformation in the ways of thinking about communications.
It has not been realized that while in the last century we were more rational, now audiences are more emotional; before the communications were unidirectional; now bidirectional; Previously there were content producers (one to many), now everyone can produce it (many to many) and have the platforms to channel their concerns.
But the most drastic change brought about is that previously special attention was paid to the message while now, due to the overflow of the amount of surrounding information (infoxication) and the change in the ways of selling (relational), it is the stimuli that govern the comunications.
Personalities and companies continue to focus on the message against emptying it, while what they should focus on is the management of collective perception (motivating idea) which will determine adherence to an offer or proposal.
All summed up in one sentence: PUBLIC IMAGE.
This discipline has been defined by the Mexican expert Víctor Gordoa as “shared perception that will provoke a unified collective response towards an individual or organization”.
This means that characters and companies must concentrate on defining verbal and non-verbal stimuli, which will be reflected in communication actions (not precisely marketing), which build an idea, a perception of the product, service, brand, country, character or proposed entity.
If today we are more emotional in the assimilation of information, the audience privileges non-verbal aspects such as color, shape, smell, in addition to having a predominance of images and stimuli, the communicational discipline to which attention should be paid it is the PUBLIC IMAGE because it is the one that has the capacity to manage all these aspects in a comprehensive and strategic manner.
The point is that nowadays there are prejudices about the public image: that it is not understood, it is very expensive, tangible results are not obtained (such as greater sales and followers), it takes a long time and that it is not marketing.
But it is no secret to anyone that there is a time when in the logic of supply and demand, the market no longer responds to the advertising and marketing carried out by national and transnational companies and figures.
So it is curious that these instances resort to tightening their pants, that is, readjusting their internal operation, instead of re-oxygenating their public face so that it studies the changes that have occurred in the audiences (with the speed that they are occurring) and respond more effectively to their needs, tastes, desires, aspirations and dreams.
So what are we waiting for, I ask the characters and companies: Do you want to sell more and generate trust and credibility in the audiences? What they have to do without question is PUBLIC IMAGE, the communication logic of the 21st century.
