Category: Social Media

“If only they knew what we were really like they’d be nice to us”

This statement underlies a significant proportion of the comms briefs which agencies receive in Brussels. The thinking is as follows – “Pressure groups are more effective communicators and have shattered our reputation because we’ve never spoken up. Now, after 20 years of keeping quiet, we’re finally allowed to communicate. Excellent. Once we’ve said that our product is safe because the report we funded says so and/or that our industry employs X million people in Europe, we’ll be fine.”

No you won’t. The myth that misinformation amongst the elite drives policy that damages industry is one of Brussels’ biggest crocks of s***.

First, people – including MEPs or whoever – are entitled to a difference in opinion. Your product may be safe/beneficial, but the alternative is so too and is biodegradable to match. Or cheaper. Your industry may employ X million but the alternative industry employs Y million.

Second, believe it or not, public opinion matters. Sending your MEP a report won’t do if his/her constituents loathe you, even if they believe every word of your report. So the far bigger part of the puzzle becomes ensuring that whoever influences said MEP – constituents and whoever else – changes their mind. That calls for far-reaching reputation management programmes and a lot of perseverance. Daunting, but bury your head in the sand at your peril.

The digital political party of the future

I was a panellist last weekend at a workshop held at the party conference of the Dutch Liberal Party (D66), along with MEP Marietje Schaake and Rosa van der Tas, Dutch web politician of the year. The theme of the discussion was “the digital political party of the future” and I was included amongst such a stellar cast for my insights on how political parties could pick up a trick or two from the corporate world.

My key points were as follows (with lots of apologies for the use of ghastly PR jargon):

  • As an aside, it’d be wrong to think that business is always a step ahead: politicians, parties and political movements have forever been driving innovation in communications, from radio addresses to television advertising through to mobilising networks of support and fundraising online.
  • Having said that, in some areas, business is leading the way (although there’ll always be some political entity somewhere that’s just as cutting edge, and every area I mention has already been mastered by some political party or campaign at some point.) For instance, on “content”, business (not all of it, by any means) has learned that, in an age of information overload where users increasingly access information via search engines or through peer recommendations, simply delivering content does not work. Cutting through the clutter and convinving increasingly cynical constituents requires a compelling narrative, developed through what we call (PR jargon #1) “content strategy”. In short, that means identifying and breaking down audiences, and methodically assessing what will make them tick, including what they’d like to hear and what medium they might like to hear it via. So the digital political party of the future should not just regurgitate dry commentary: it should develop a system for determining what its constituents care about, and it should respond to it by delivering a heart-felt, interesting, honest and relevant story, through a variety of channels.
  • As part of that package, the digital political party of the future should also develop its capacity for (PR jargon #2) “community management”. It should not just track and assess audiences so that it can develop a more compelling and relevant narrative through content, but should also do so to nurture and expand its community of supporters. Meaning what? That the party has communicators on board dedicated to identifying and tracking people interested in it and its issues online, engages with them, answers their questions, asks for their input, allays their fears – and importantly, helps connect them to each other, on and offline. This latter point is key. Are there people in a neighbourhood in city X or in village Y of the same political conviction but who do not know each other? The community management element of the party’s programme helps connect them.
  • A frequent conundrum for businesses engaging online is how to manage the brand vs. people balance, given that lots of people will engage with a brand if it articulates a vision they believe in, but others prefer to engage with individuals that represent the brand. Ensuring a good balance will also be key to the digital political party of the future. In practice, this means that elements of content and community management can be centralised via the party, but in addition, the party needs to help to harness the (PR jargon #3) personal brands of those within it i.e. its politicians. So beyond producing content and managing a community on behalf of the collective narrative of the party, it needs to help nurture and promote the “personal brands” of its proponents by acting as a guide to those who have not yet mastered online communication, as well as offering a focal point for their activity by aggregating and promoting their social media activities centrally and helping to redistribute via the community manager role.

Get off your high-horse PA folk

I use this image frequently when presenting on how Public Affairs is developing in Brussels (usually in the context of Public Affairs and digital specifically). It’s not a particularly novel or intricate notion: campaigners/pressure groups, have influenced policy making beyond what their resources should have permitted because they have told a better, and simpler, story. They’ve aligned with public opinion – and later driven public opinion – sometimes by pulling at the heart-strings, always using compelling, simple messages, oft-repeated – and plenty of visualisation. In the PA context, industry has famously been poor at doing just that: telling a simple story that resonates with people – including policy makers.

There’s usually a fair bit of nodding in the room at this point followed by one or more of the following inevitable rebuttals:

  • Yes, but you see, they can get away telling tales, we can’t.
  • Yes, but you see, our customers, directors, etc. expect us to be credible, scientific, cerebral, fact-based etc.
  • Yes, but you see, we can’t talk openly about our issues, they’re tip-top secret.

Tosh. The suggestion that pressure groups merely make up tales which gullible folk fall for is overemphasised. It happens, sure, but you need to give them more credit. Pressure groups do their groundwork: analysing audiences, developing storylines based on insights gained from their analyses, testing messages, delivering them through multiple channels and multiple forms of media with a fairly good inkling that they’ll succeed. They don’t do every issue, or attack every opponent: they focus on where they’re most likely to win.

Also, being story driven rather than fact driven need not imply fluff: it can simply mean talking about issues in an everyday context, openly and honestly, using real people, and language which people understand. It implies dropping the condescension and perhaps showcasing information in summary form or visually. It can mean talking to local community leaders and retirees rather than just policy-makers and the FT about things which resonate with them. In short, communicate about things people care about, in a language they understand, and be nice doing so.

Potential client in pitch: you need to understand our issues REALLY well

A colleague and I were recently discussing what organisations operating in Brussels look for in agencies in pitches, and we both agreed that the one thing we hear the most from their side is this: “we want the agency to understand our issues REALLY well.”

I wonder though: clearly, it’s absolutely key when an organisation is looking for policy counsel and support on other core government relations activities. However, they’re saying the same thing when they’re asking for help in areas like positioning and pan-European awareness raising.

Does a detailed understanding of the pertinent issues and industry matter as much as expertise in the relevant fields of communication (campaigning, branding, positioning etc.) I’d say no: if they’re looking for help in getting stakeholder group X in Greece and Finland to wake up and smell the coffee, who ultimately cares about Regulation Y. Surely an understanding of how to identify, target and engage audiences in far-flung places matters more?

Then again, it’s only natural that government relations professionals in Brussels see things through their prism: when their consultants speak their language, they feel more comfortable when judging them; more so than they do when they are recommending a programme that encompasses areas of communication which Brussels folk have managed to steer clear of for so long.

The challenge is for consultants to not simply frown and grumble in unison – “they don’t get it” – and instead improve the sell. Clearly demonstrate value: develop insights based on real facts and figures e.g. break-down audiences in Greece and Finland and determine what message, and who and what channel, is likely to reach them. Use case studies. And most of all, show them how you’ll make it happen, clearly, and step by step. This latter point is crucial: if people are out of their comfort zone, the best thing you can do is reassure them by demonstrating that you have what it takes to guide them, and not make it appear too complicated.

Develop a content strategy to succeed in Public Affairs

As PA professionals, we know our issues. Intelligence is our lifeblood: we understand the multitude of factors which determine how an issue might progress over time, we know who’s who, and so forth. However, we’ve developed a habit over the years of going straight from knowing our stuff to delivering it. We’ve kidded ourselves into thinking we’re not like marketing, corporate communications or consumer PR folk who need to tell a good yarn.

Meaning what? That our output often isn’t adapted to our audiences. We provide a 100 page document when someone wants 10 bullet-points. We talk about clean air when people would rather hear about the economy. We try to get a meeting when our target audience is looking us up on-line.

So what should we do about it? Learn from the marketers, corporate communicators et al: use insights to better analyse our audiences, differentiate the message, develop a gripping and relevant storyline, test the message, vary the output, vary the channel. In short, develop a content strategy which turns your intelligence into a compelling narrative, and then deliver.

PA and corporate communications converging: comparing London and Brussels

One of the running themes of this blog is that PA as we once knew it – the government relations centric model – is being superseded by one where government relations lives side by side with a range of other communications disciplines. An organisation’s reputation, often beyond Brussels, is increasingly important in determining how that organisation is perceived by decision makers, as is the extent to which it is aligned with public opinion on any given issue.

However, when I was asked just last week by a London-based Public Affairs professional to what extent corporate communications and PA are converging in Brussels, my reply was: probably not as much as in London.

That is not to say that I’ve done a volte-face on the statement above. However, the extent to which corporate communications and PA converge is not consistent: it depends on the nature of the issue. The more the issue is in the public domain, the greater the convergence, and the fact of the matter is that fewer issues are in the public domain in Brussels than in London.

In a previous post, I outlined three issue realities and the appropriate digital response, and I think the same separation is pertinent here. The three are, in short, the very technical issue which only a few policy wonks know about, the slightly less technical issue which is being discussed widely in policy circles, and the issue which affects a lot of people and has people talking beyond policy circles.

Arguably, only the latter reality requires highly proactive corporate communications, and the fact of the matter is that more issues fall into that bracket in London than in Brussels.

Why? Generally, because there is less interest in and scrutiny of the legislative process in Brussels than there is in London. Here are a few reasons why that might be:

  • Many of the meatier issues which tend to attract public interest are beyond the EU’s remit (immigration, tax, social security, most foreign policy etc.) Instead, the EU deals with many highly technical and – in the eyes of most people – dull dossiers.
  • MEPs have low profiles nationally and in their constituencies: they don’t necessarily need to prove themselves to their electorates based on issue alignment and so probably make decisions based on facts and figures more so than their MP counterparts, who are perennially busy courting voters.
  • The way legislation is put together in Brussels is based heavily on compromise and attaining the lowest common denominator in a drawn-out process, which is frankly less interesting (slow; fewer dog-fights).
  • A red thread here is the fact that the UK media has little interest in EU affairs, meaning most stuff passes under the radar in any case.
Anything I’ve left out?

Public Affairs and Digital: 3 realities

This is how I’d summarise the realities of organisations operating in the Brussels regulatory space and how they need to apply digital, developed a little further than done in my previous post entitled Digital in PA: two client types.

Couple of points:

  • There may be plenty of overlap – an issue may be mainly 1 with a bit of 2 looming; or an organisation may be dealing with an issue that’s 1 but overall very much fit into 3 due to issues beyond the PA bubble.
  • Most organisations operating in Brussels probably think it’s all about 1 but should be thinking a lot more about 3 (read my post on the “constituent consumer”).

It’s a content strategy you want, not social media

This recent post by Will Davis entitled “Why Companies That Say They Want Social Media Really Want Content Marketing” struck a chord. A lot of times, organisations operating in the Brussels regulatory space will ask me: “how do we start engaging in social media?” rather than “should we engage in social media?”

FH’s survey on how Members of the European Parliament – clearly a key Brussels constituency – use the web, illustrates in no uncertain terms that MEPs mainly look for content, not engagement. For instance, we found that while only 34% use Twitter (and only 31% state that it is effective or very effective as a means of communication – presumably because they use it as a megaphone rather than a mechanism for dialogue), 99% of them use a search engine several times a week to find content on policy.

Sure, in some policy areas, like ICT, MEPs, Commissioners, officials and other people engaging on the issues are fervently exchanging information via social media/social networks. In the majority of areas, this is not the case. And anyhow, you still ideally need content as a starting point for feeding information into the engagement loop to provide value and ensure that people take notice of you.

So if you’re doing online outreach in Brussels, take these steps:

  1. Develop a relevant content strategy and make sure you’re found via search.
  2. Figure out who is active in social media amongst your key audiences on your issues and track them.
  3. Determine how these people choose to engage: if they are demonstrably open to listening and sharing, by all means engage with them, but don’t jump straight in the deep end.7BMA5AEWAW6

Posts I’ve published elsewhere

I’ve written a few posts on PublicAffairs2point0 recently which might be of interest to some of the readers of this blog who don’t follow it:

A somewhat lazy post, apologies, normal service will resume shortly.

“We can’t do that”

Was just inspired by Nicholas over lunch. He said he’s fed up of hearing people say “we can’t do that”. So am I, so I thought I’d list some “we can’t do thats” I particularly detest. Feel free to add more:

  • We can’t do communication, our remit is just government relations (since when is government relations not communications and no it’s not your remit, your remit is success, and that might require stuff beyond GR.)
  • We can’t do digital, we’re not ready for it (well get ready.)
  • We can’t do digital, our boss/board/member is conservative (digital doesn’t have to be whacky geo-location stuff, it can just be content creation and you’ve done that for years. In any case, your audience isn’t conservative, so who cares if your boss/board/member is? Check FH’s MEP survey if you’re not convinced.)
  • We can’t do digital, our industry is conservative (so what?! Same reasoning as boss/board/member fits in nicely here too.)
  • We can’t do digital, our audience is older (we’re not saying develop an app aimed at 4 year olds on Facebook. Every demographic uses the web in some way.)
  • We can’t do digital, we don’t have internal support (prove value to them and use facts and figures e.g. the aforementioned MEP survey.)
  • We can’t do digital, we don’t have the resources (no one is saying do a global blogger engagement programme; digital is huge – start small and then scale.)
  • We can’t do digital, we only have an audience of 50 (no it’s never just 50; in any case, if it were just 50, they’ll still look you up online.)