“Blogging is something I do when I’m not writing.”

So said Chris Jones, Director of the London Screenwriters Festival, last weekend.

What a good idea, I thought. Hence…

The Festival is over for this year. Sign up straight away for the next one, as soon as you can. Pay by instalment. And for the best discount, form a group.

Blah blah. Sorry, I can’t stop plugging the Festival. I’ve been doing it for months, what do you expect? It reminds me of my first father-in-law, who was a lovely man and a prison officer. (The two states of being are not incompatible, y’know). We roused him from a deep sleep in front of the television one night and he sat up straight and barked “Put him in the cells!”

Things become ingrained.

Chris was giving a talk on the social media revolution. It was great. Accessible, even to a techno-dunce like me. And I saw the importance of it, finally.

In my networking session I had criticised social media networking for being all about advertising. Well der…isn’t advertising what makes the world go around? Oh no, according to lyricist John Kander, that’s money.

But how do we make money unless we advertise?

I am a Screenwriting Agent now with SMART Talent (a quick ad there) and I help to sell tickets for the London Screenwriters Festival (you might have noticed) and I am industry manager for the SMART Academy of Writing (a subtle plug) and I offer various kinds of performance myself, including Coaching in Interface Networking (I’m blogging ain’t I?)

So I do need to Advertise. Or rather Publicise. Or is it Promote? Market? PR?

I’m confused. As usual. Let’s investigate. Good, I’ve been meaning to do this. Let’s get to the bottom of it once and for all.

Later, the same minute….

Okay so I’ve googled and basically they all come under the heading of Marketing.

Advertising is a “paid, mass-mediated attempt to persuade.” PR is a non-paid two-way communication between the players and the public, and Promotion is what you do in order to Market, ie all of the above.

What?

So Promotion and Marketing are the same? Hmmm.

Well anyway, here’s a great story about an elephant, which I found here.

“If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying ‘Circus Coming to the Fairground Sunday’ that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that’s promotion. If the evening news shows the elephant walking through the mayor’s flower bed, and you can get the mayor to comment about it, that’s public relations.”

So that means I’ve just advertised. Eeeyooo. I must stop doing that.