Two weeks ago something amazing happened. Joyce Sullivan – a passionate social media professional and professor from New York – discovered my work and made me part of her social media talk during an All Women in Media NYC meeting at the AOL HQ in New York.

A day before the event, Joyce was looking for an infographic for her talk to show the attendees what's happening in public relations and social media.

When she googled “social media in public relations” my infographic about the results from my first dissertation on social media’s impact on PR that I had posted on visual.ly came up. (How amazing is that – to rank so high in SERP!)

After she discovered my infographic, she tweeted me and we started a conversation, which we eventually moved from Twitter to email and we even connected all over the internet – LinkedIn, Instagram, SlideShare etc.

Do you remember what life was before social media? I'm a Millennial, so I find it a little bit difficult, but I suppose for the older generations painting a picture between then and now must be quite shocking, especially for those working in the media – either in PR and communications or in journalism. Describing what's changed, how and why is the easy part. Adopting these changes and adapting to the new way of business for an effective modus operandi at work is the difficult bit if you are not a digital native.

So, let's dive into some cool infographics and interesting research findings from a few new studies in the areas of social media, journalism and PR.

First stop: our daily activities before and after the emergence of social media.

Then and Now

At the bottom of this post you can find an infographic from Zerofox that takes us a walk down memory lane, showing us what non-digital assets we used to rely on and their new social versions. Some of these include:

• post-its –> our 140 character tweets
• Polaroid cameras –> Instagram as our photo documentation tool of choice
• cork boards –> our digital Pinterest boards
• rolodexes –> our LinkedIn contacts

Funnily enough, I still have a cork board at home, but I use to pin little brochures or tickets from places I've been – for example the ticket from the amazing Sade concert I went to a few years back or the card I got from ShaunTerventionUK. So basically memories and things I've received offline, in real life, things you can touch.

Do you agree: storytelling is THE buzzword of the year in marketing and communications? From what I've seen, and read, and experienced, it sure is. I also got addicted (and still am) to studying storytelling and learning how to use it as a powerful tool in PR and social media (see here, here, here and here).

Apparently, the hype hasn't just affected me, but the whole profession seems to be fascinated with storytelling for business.

This was more than evident at the dmexco in Cologne last week – the international digital marketing exposition and conference with the motto "connecting the global digital economy".

I was at the #dmexco on the second day and even though I got to choose which seminars and sessions to visit, many of them touched upon or were entirely focused on the importance of brand storytelling.

But why this sudden fascination? Why this massive interest?

Big shift in media

Well, one of the reasons, obviously, is the "big shift in media" that we've observed over the last decade or so.

This shift is what Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed, presented in a really cool and funny way at the closing keynote at the event.

When talking about the "evolution" of BuzzFeed, he said that the company has quickly grown to an organisation which has the reach of a traditional media company, but doesn't function as one. This has been due to the emergence of thousands of new media technologies and types, which on the other hand have transformed media consumption and information sharing.

Today, attention has shifted – your audience is on social and mobile, not TV or radio.

So, the learning here is this: be where your consumers are and be relevant.

My last piece got me thinking about how much has changed in so little time and particularly about how much the world of PR has been impacted by the Internet and social media. I did a whole research on this topic when I was writing my first dissertation two years ago.

However, a lot has happened since then and I wonder how relevant my research findings still are...

You might think, two years is not enough for that much to change, but actually, it's plenty.

Speaking about social media for PR, many practitioners believe that social media has simply offered additional tools and channels, but the nature of the practice has remained the same. I partly agree with that. Yes, PR is about building meaningful relationships with people and organisations and about establishing a positive reputation. And yes, social media has given us many more tools to do our daily jobs.

But the bigger picture in my opinion is not just about how social media has impacted PR, but about how it has influenced human nature and behaviour: about how we as individuals now connect, interact, make decisions, believe or disbelieve, communicate and present ourselves to the rest of the world.

Why is that important for our industry?

Social media is booming! People spend 6.35 hours per month on Facebook; almost half of all Twitter users tweet at least once a day; there are more than 20 billion images shared on Instagram; more than two users sign up on LinkedIn every second; 100 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube per minute... No surprise social media is now the top activity on the Internet, with 60% of that time spent on mobile devices not desktops computers.

But how social are we really?

And by that I don't mean how active we are on social media, but how is it that we use our social skills to facilitate interaction and build relationships with others?

As an avid social media user, I firmly believe that all these new channels have allowed us to broaden our palette of ways to communicate. They have given us more opportunities to connect with individuals from all over the world and exchange information, ideas and knowledge.

On the other hand, one could argue that we might be losing our sense for face-to-face interactions.

No matter how much technology advances (for example, the use of sound and video, or Google Glass, wearable technology, smart watches and other geeky stuff), there is one element that is still difficult to transmit or sense to a full extent via the Web.

That element is emotion. Or the touch of all our five senses.