Author: Steffen

Reaching a legislator before and now

then&now

A few months ago, I posted a simple diagram to highlight that organisations should not overlook the importance of being able to communicate directly to their audiences. I’ve taken that diagram a little further to show how tactics to reach legislators have developed  in the age of the Internet.

The two key elements that are different now are: 1) being able to reach legislators via content and search i.e. organisation X publishes on its website, blogs, posts a release on an eWire etc. and a legislator picks it up via Google; and 2) the main indirect influencer i.e. the press via media relations has now expanded to include all sorts of other influencers e.g. bloggers, while far more people can become engaged in political activism that might influence legislators (online advocacy via communities, ePetitions and so on.)

Any thoughts? Have I missed anything?

Eurobloggers are not the Brussels press corp

This entry is prompted by a recent post by Julien on his mistrust of Brussels PA/PR agencies and their attempts to connect with him; and an even more recent conversation I had with a consultant who asked how to best “harness” Eurobloggers (p.s. I told him to not hold his breath.) Yes, Brussels communicators are trying to engage with Eurobloggers to push their stories. Will it work? No. Eurobloggers aren’t journalists. They blog because they’re into politics. If pitching journalists is hard, pitching bloggers is much harder because they usually only have a personal, not a professional stake.

Lost opportunity? No, blogging is important, but for Brussels communicators, it shouldn’t be about the Eurobloggers, at least when it comes to a blogger relations strategy. It should be about getting clients to dip their toes into blogging etc. themselves and then trying to tentatively build relationships with people who write about their issue, not those most likely to be read by MEPs. As a consultant or communications adviser, your role should be guidance, not doing the blogging yourself.

Here’s an extract of the comment I wrote in reply to Julien’s post in which I describe in brief how best practice blogger relations should be carried out (and in turn how it should mean Brussels agencies won’t be pestering him for much longer!)

I work on social media strategies for clients… I can honestly say that my approach to blogging, Twitter et al (and ZN’s too) centres on how I can best help clients use the tools themselves… Why? Frankly, it works better… you’re far better off helping clients build constructive relationships themselves, and generally not with eurobloggers but preferably with issue or sector experts…(.)

Although some agencies no doubt make the mistake of simply transferring media relations to the web and seeking out people most likely to be read by legislators, I suspect this practice will fizzle out. Why? Because an article in the FT is undoubtedly worth more in “PR dollars” than a far better article in a relevant trade publication, whereas online, impact can be determined more by quality than by reach because of search, hyperlinking and aggregation.

To spell it out, here’s two (very simplified!) scenarios I could propose to clients (no prizes for which one I think is most likely to work.)

1) We’ll write a post on our blog saying you’re great. We’ve hooked up with Julien Frisch and the other 30 popular eurobloggers – maybe one of them will pick up your story (but don’t hold your breath, none of them have ever written about your issue.)

2) Your 3 experts could blog or tweet (assuming they want to.) We’ll help them out with the dos and don’ts, but they have to do the writing and it has to be honest. We’ll do some research to identify other people (academics, scientists, companies, pressure groups, students etc.) writing good content on your issue (whether for or against) and run them by your experts. In due time, we can add them to our blogroll, your experts could link to them in posts or comment on their blogs, and maybe we can build relationships with them if they’re interested, and hyperlink to their content or maybe even get them to be guest bloggers.

The difference is obviously that it’s the organisation’s experts and not the agency that is telling the story, and you’re promoting good quality content and interaction rather than throwing a story at someone who happens to have MEPs amongst his/her readers and hoping that it will stick… (.)

Communities require plenty of work, I'm afraid

In the four pillars I’ve been raving about recently, I speak of an almost “organic” growth towards a community if you have the right building blocks in place and do the right things. Meaning that if you listen and bring together information, start using social media effectively, enabling stakeholder dialogue, this can eventually develop into a community of people who act as mobilisers on your behalf.

Abstract example of how the model should ideally work:

  • My organisation does wonderful things but nobody knows.
  • I start finding out what people are talking about in my sector or on my issue and who might be interested in the things I do. I bring them together.
  • I start engaging with them online, humbly, and they like me and get excited about what I do because they feel I have something to offer.
  • More people are brought in; they talk and engage.
  • Eventually, I have a community of people excited about what I do who help me spread my message, attract members or maybe even advocate my take on an issue.

However, this is the point at which I want to announce my warning: it’s really not that easy; your community will not be totally self-sustaining. Maybe it won’t need you, but fact of the matter is that you need someone to “feed” the community. Even community benchmarks from across the field from say Ben and Jerry’s Facebook group to Barack Obama’s online platform worked because people engaged and spread the word, but they both needed people from the campaigns themselves to listen, respond, feed information, and generally animate. Again, it needn’t be you; it just needs to be someone who takes charge. On Firefighternation (one of my personal favourites) it’s active firefighters who are not necesarrily the founders who have taken the lead in animating their community.

Political wonks vs. communicators in Brussels

A point raised in a recent client meeting by a head of communications: it’s hard to find people who both get the issue and are real communicators; it tends to be either one or the other.

I haven’t been at it for that long in Brussels but my inkling is that this is true and that the balance is heavily skewed in favour of policy wonks. Most comms professionals have a background in politics, policy, regulation etc. How many have PR, marketing, advertising, branding, corporate communucations or media backgrounds? Hardly any.

Makes sense. Clients and members need people in Brussels who get the stuff and can open the right doors (and know what to say). They also however need people who can build ambitious communications programmes that help shape the regulatory landscape in the long-term. Does the current Brussels balance address this? Probably not, given how archaic most communications activity I’ve seen is, but I’m open to challenges.

Getting you story out: the FT alone won't do

At least once a month, we hear a Brussels-based communicator state that their goal is to get their organisation’s story into the Financial Times. I get it, and I agree to the extent that if I had to choose to have my best story appear in just one place, it’d be the FT. Please don’t think “mission accomplished” if your story gets coverage in FT though, or any top-tier publication for that matter. It’s simply not enough; people – and this includes legislators – need more: individuals view 8 sources of media per day and on average need to hear a story 3-5 times to believe it (Richard Edelman.)

So what do you do about it?

  • You open your eyes and acknowledge that the list of credible news sources has grown exponentially, and it’ll often include people you’ve never heard of. Edelman speaks of dispersion of authority, meaning that figures of authority aren’t just main stream media and the like anymore, but also other experts or aficionados in any given sector or issue who might not reach 100,000s of readers like the FT, but will reach everyone who matters within their niche.
  • You extend your monitoring so that it refelects this shift to niche content providers, whether online (usually) or offline.
  • Extend the scope of your editorial work so that you’re present in all the spaces that matter. Whether that means responding to blog comments on someone else’s blog or writing your own tweets doesn’t matter. What does matter is that your editorial plan reflects “dispersion of authority” and the shift to niche.
  • People don’t find information by having it sent to them or by picking up a paper. They look it up on Google, so you really need to have a search strategy in place. It’s the dullest part of the job but arguably the most important (remember: +90% of MEPs use search daily!) Get an SEO agency in to help you, and produce content that will mean people find you online when they look for information on whatever issue you’re working on. Tip: publish far more press releases on your site and on eWires only than you do at present as it’ll mean you provide more good value content and improve your search engine ranking without bothering journalists. For more on this, I’d recommend David Meerman Scott‘s eBook, New Rules of PR.

Don’t listen to smug online consultants

thumbs_up_man_smalljpgThe web is the greatest communications tool ever invented. It allows for more engagement than anything that’s come before, it has low barriers to entry thus allowing anyone to take part and making it more democratic, it fosters innovation, it’s transnational and transoceanic. It’s quick, sometimes instant, and most of the stuff on it is free. It’s revolutionised the way we access information, what it takes to do business, shopping and other forms of commerce, all communications disciplines, publishing and the music industry. And we’re just at the beginning.

Having said all that, don’t listen to smug online consultants who tell you TV and print are old and web is new; the former is out of sync and out of date while the latter will help you take over your sector. It’s not the case: TV is still huge, radio is bigger and better than ever, plenty of people trust print over the web, lots of people read papers offline and not online, trade publications are largely offline, and meeting people face to face remains the best way to get your message across.

So what should you do as a communicator? Three things:

  1. Build a strategy backwards from your objectives and stakeholders and select the right communications channels for each scenario. This will help ensure that you pick the right toolkit. Sounds simple but to be honest plenty of communicators do it the wrong way around.
  2. Include the web in that mix but make sure you make the most of it rather than treating it as a another communications channel. It’s not just an outreach tool. It’s potentially your best engagement tool, your best reputation management tool, your best crisis management tool, your best market research tool, your best polling and surveying tool, your best measurement tool. And so on.
  3. Use the web as your overall campaign or communications programme integrator, meaning that everything you say and do – online and offline – should be directed from or link to your online hub in some way. Issue a press release? An advertorial? Host an event? Make sure you make it all come together online.

Image source

Replicating the marketing journey in issues communication

In marketing, companies have made the journey from being brand-focused, to now being ever more consumer-centric (didn’t make this up; I heard it as recently as this morning in a podcast with Saacthi CEO Kevin Roberts.) In practice, companies are increasingly looking to create outstanding products and services that are easy to use or that match the most intricate customer needs. By doing so, they can instill in their customers a sense of loyalty which a branding approach alone could not achieve. Consumers are more cynical now; creating a fantastic brand which conjures up abstract images (I too can be the Marlboro Man if I smoke Marlboro reds) won’t work on its own anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. Branding still matters. But people expect the world, and no amount of smart branding can prevent a non-customer-centric company from appearing distant or to fail to meet the “what’s in for me/does it really do everything I could possibly want” tests.

Can we transfer this thinking to the world of issues, where companies and other organisations don’t try to sell directly but are looking to influence the general public and other stakeholders in order to showcase their activities in a positive light?

Certainly. Organisations need to be customer-centric on two fronts now: in terms of the tangible goods and services they produce, as described above, but also by matching customers’ demands for organisations to do good things and for their goods and services to be more sustainable. They reward companies that are doing their bit for their communities or the wider environment; to the expense of companies that aren’t although they might make fancier shoes (or whatever.) What’s more, this trend is accelerating, and customers are also citizens whose whims legislators are responding to at a fast growing rate.

So what should you do to remain customer/citizen-centric on both fronts? For a start, do the right thing, full stop (or start heading in the right direction.) No amount of smart PR (or branding..) will make you seem nice when you”re really not. Modern-day customers are too smart and cynical. Next, communicate on the customer’s turf rather than where you can make a big splash. Go where customers and citizens themselves are, listen to their concerns and respond to them. Meaning that you may need to spend more time looking at iPhone apps, Facebook, Twitter et al than getting into your paper of choice or getting on a billboard at the airport.

The web in the hands of nutjobs: dangerous?

I heard today that the Internet is dangerous because it’s accessible to anyone, including “crazy demagogues who can manipulate naive people” (I quote) while TV and radio are hard to get onto and are thus safer.

What a load of tosh. Surely the opposite is true? Hitler used radio pretty darn well. However, no one could respond, no one could question, comment or start a counter-campaign. On the other hand, the web is accessible to anyone, meaning that for every nutjob, you get a thousand others countering.

So are we not better off in the Internet Age? Or am I missing something? Is the web indeed a threat?

Tracing eFluentials and what to do about it

An eFluential is an online influential (or influencer) i.e. someone who matters online, someone people read and respect, and who can drive and influence an issue’s trajectory online.

For obvious reasons, communicators are often eager to identify eFluentials within their sector or issue. That’s all very well. Unfortunately, plenty of  communicators then think it’s OK to pester them, assuming that of course they’ll be willing to spread a story and use their networks to promote anything from a take on an issue to a product launch. Think again. It barely works with traditional media, even less so online.

So as a communicator, what should you do? First, do identify these people. That’s not a crime. How? The basic tools work: look up keywords (brand, issue, legislation, organisation etc.) on Twitter search and Google blog search. Don’t forget blogrolls: finding bloggers via other bloggers works well. You can be even more sly. Look up your keywords on delicious, flickr, digg, reddit and check out if someone is tagging lots of good quality material. Google their names and see if they write blogs or where else they turn up (LinkedIn perhaps?)

OK so what do you now? DO NOT spam these people. Follow them, see what they have to say, learn from them, use them to gain an understanding of what’s driving your issue online. Then, if you’re really keen to build relationships with them, start engaging in their space  e.g. go on Twitter or start blogging (or rather, advise your client to do so) and provide interesting and insightful material that they too will be interested in – and only then try to hook up with them. If they share your interests and you build a mutually beneficial relationship, they might, just might, refer to you at some point, follow you on Twitter or put you in their blogroll (but only because they really want to.) If at any point, however, it becomes clear that you’re trying to plug a product or promote a position, you’ll lose all credibility and you’ll need to start from scratch. Be warned.

As a side-note, I’d highlight that eInfluentials are not necessarily the people with most followers on Twitter or whose blogs are most read in your sector: “pitching social media creators who are influential but who are not really customer evangelists for a brand are the wrong people to target” (from a post by John Cass.) This is relevant for issues as well. If you’re engaging in online advocacy and want to, say, build relationships with bloggers in the hope that they might help you spread the word, focus on those who really share your interests and are most likely to join forces with you: if they have a huge following but only ever write about certain elements of your sector/issue which don’t involve you, that’ll remain the case no matter how many scoops you throw at them. Remember, online isn’t like traditional media. Getting an article in the FT will always be more valuable than getting a far better one into a small trade publication. Online, that’s not always the case. Via search, people can find anything that is relevant, while good quality content even on a low-profile site or blog can spread like wildfire if it captures the imagination.

A community without first building community spirit? Won't work

hugsLots of clients want an online community, and in some cases I’d agree that it’s a good idea (see previous posts here and here.) Makes sense. A good online community can be the focal point for an organisation’s fans, customers, employees and so on, allowing them to engage with the company/sector/issue in question and as a result grow even more passionate than before and give them a launch pad for bringing others onboard.

However, if you don’t already have a very big, active and passionate offline community, your online community won’t work. Sure, you might get 50 people, and if that’s OK with you, fine, but in most cases it won’t be, especially if you’re trying to prove ROI (hard with social media in any case – impossible with 50 people.)

So what do you do? You build momentum towards community. You first pinpoint stakeholders and potential supporters online and engage with them nice and slow, instead of trying to force a community on them. If your issue is important and you make yourself a well respected thought-leader on it, community may then eventually happen organically, but as the result of human interaction and not of a tool that’s been provided. And please note that community in this case might not even mean an online community, say a Ning. It could just be people connected via Twitter, who engage on one very popular blog, or a Facebook group. Remember, it’s not the tool that is going to make people suddenly want to be in a community, it’s the story around it.

How do you start though? How do you bring people together, engage, create this momentum that will eventually lead to a community of mobilisers for your cause?! Why, you follow the 4-pillar approach to online engagement.