Category: Social Media

Don’t overlook the importance of being able to communicate directly with your audience

comms-workflows

When explaining why online communications is worthwhile to clients operating in the Brussels bubble or anywhere else, it’s easy to overdo the sell. Bloggers, engagement, social networks, the value of two-way communications and so on sounds great, and most will acknowledge that it’ll matter at some point in the future, but for now, it often puts people off: “we’ve got a small team, Directive X is now in its second reading, I just need to get an article in the right paper now, I’ll think about the web next.”

What I tend to do is to start off highlighting the diagram above. It outlines that which most people tend to overlook: that the web is more than an entirely new and separate medium. Sure, making the most of the web does require a mind-shift and a new way of working. But it also allows organisations to communicate directly to their target audiences. That’s a phenomenal opportunity:

  • It allows them to publish more good quality content
  • The content is available instantly, not however long it takes to get something published and distributed
  • It reduces reliance on journalists who then might skew the story anyway
  • It can improve media relations by providing journalists with more, better and easily accessible content

Being an online communications consultant in Brussels: annoying conversations

These aren’t transcripts of conversations I’ve had, by any means, but not too far off.

Co = consultant   Cl = client (existing or prospective)

1. Being an online comms agency/consultant

  • Cl: Could you build this cool new flashy online gimmick for us please?
  • Co: Why? What are you selling? Whose opinion are you trying to shift? Who are you mobilising? Where does this fit in?
  • Cl: Ummm. I just want the gimmick. You’re an online agency/consultant, right?
  • Co: Yes, but we should figure out what we’re trying to do first, then think about the tools later.
  • Cl: But I’ve got a proper agency that charges €900 an hour to do strategy. Can you not just build the gimmick?
  • Co: …. (lost for words).

2. What’s the point of campaigning?

  • Cl: We’ve got a really contentious issue, but we should own it. We’re doing the right thing, we’re safe, we provide jobs and growth, we’re cutting edge.
  • Co: But politicians are screwing you?
  • Cl: They know we’re right, they’ve told us so. But the issue is super political they say. The public thinks we’re scum because pressure group X has done a really good job and the media has eaten it up. They need to keep their constituents happy. Politics, what can you do?
  • Co: Shouldn’t you campaign..?
  • Cl: No we lobby. We don’t need to campaign: we know all the relevant legislators and other stakeholders, so they know where we stand already.
  • Co: Clearly that’s not working though. Why not mobilise people in your industry? Answer people’s questions, alleviate their concerns? Try to shift the debate? Use the web more: why not bring all your arguments, 3rd party endorsements and relevant external content together in one place online and market it heavily to constituents?
  • Cl: Ummm. I told you, we don’t need to show politicians our arguments. They know them already. And anyway, politicians aren’t on Facebook (snigger, snigger).
  • Co: …. (lost for words).

Why don't organisations encourage their employees to communicate?

I’m a little baffled by companies and other organisations that invest heavily in finding, hiring and keeping really talented people, but then won’t let them communicate to the outside world as representatives of their organisation. It’s a real loss, as happy and clever employees are potentially an organisation’s best ambassadors, especially at a time when: a)  people trust communication from “someone like me” a lot more than anything else, in particular the communications which these same organisations invest heavily in (brochures, website content, TV ads, press releases et al); and b) online tools are widely available for people to create content themselves easily, quickly and for free.

What’s the excuse? Usually something about complex approval processes, concerns over the type of content that might be produced, and a fear of backlash. In truth I think what it’s really about is resistance to change and getting your head around the fact that communication can be effective even if it’s not pristine and checked by 22 departments.

Things are changing though: companies like Sun Microsystems and IBM are showcasing their employees’ blogs with pride, and more are hopping on the bandwagon every day.

Learning from Obama: Labour and Tories online

Thomas Gensemer, a consultant who worked on Barack Obama’s online strategy during his campaign for the Presidency, talks about Labour’s and the Tories’ online offerings in this short clip.

The two key elements to take away are:

  1. The need to be authentic and have something to say: it’s not about the technology (it never is) but how it allows you to share a message or contribute to a conversation. This is a lesson for anyone engaging in political, advocacy and other communications online: don’t do Twitter (or whatever) because everyone else is on it; do it if you’ve got something interesting to share, can fit it within your wider communications and remain coherent, and appear eager and honest (let others be the judge of this).
  2. Limited focus on mobilisation of activists and other supporters. The Obama campaign worked because it made it really easy for people to create, share and spread material; to find and arrange events, and so on. This got people excited and provided the Obama campaign with scores of highly active volunteers. However, Labour and the Tories still aren’t making it really easy for their supporters to engage and get involved. As Gensemer puts it: it isn’t easy to find “5 things to do” on the sites, although all the elements are there somewhere. They should be the centrepieces of the sites however, not an afterthought.

Obama: not losing the online momentum

white-house-site4 Yet another Obama and the web post. Zzzzzzz. Many apologies, but the subject matter is too good to let go.

Much has been said about the positioning of the blog on the White House website. It’s right there, in first place in the first submenu (see image). It’s nothing more than a symbolic gesture however as the blog only informs and does not do what a “real” blog does (engagement via comments or trackbacks, references to other blogs etc.) And I understand that: their blog is for information purposes only; the White House can’t suddenly start blogging as if they were a political commentator, it’d be ridiculous, inappropriate, totally out of their remit, time-consuming and bound to get out of hand.

No, what really shows that the Obama administration gets the web is what’s still going on on barackobama.com. In addition to an exceptional candidate, the success of the campaign for the Presidency was based on two factors which were both web-enabled: 1) mammoth donations; and 2) mobilisation of supporters.

The latter is still taking place via the site, as people can meet likeminded supporters, organise events, find events near them, all via the site. That’s what makes it special: it’s not the fancy web gimmicks, it’s the grassroots mobilisation on the ground that’s being enabled simply by making the logistics easier. Seems basic, but it’s pretty revolutionary in a sense: everyone had assumed that people were too busy and politically apathetic to engage in participatory politics, but that was plain wrong – all they needed was a leader to rally around and the organisational aspect taken care of somewhat.

What’s more, the Democrats are now being far-sighted enough to build on the momentum from the campaign by keeping it going rather than resting on their laurels. Good for them.

Reputation management in a day

The smart people at We are Social had an interesting post up describing a conversation that took place on Twitter about their client (@stephenfry). It was claimed that he didn’t write his own tweets, which he in fact does, but within a day the whole thing had been cleared up and the person making the claim, none other than Robert Scoble (@scobleizer), had retracted the claim and apologised.

How? We are Social were scanning Twitter for comments about their clients, caught the relevant tweet, responded on Twitter immediately, and Scoble obviously did the right thing and apologised. Case closed.

This incident is a great case-study in how effective monitoring and quick reponse via social media can speed up reputation management. Of course, in this case all people concerned actually work in social media, which helps, but generally, social media monitoring and rapid response is becoming part of the communications mix for a number of organisations and politicians, in an attempt to nip untruths and other damaging stories in the bud. On the political front, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was, as ever, at the forefront with Fight the Smears.

And if we look into our crystal ball?

  • All organisations and politicians will have a social media monitoring set-up as well as a social media presence which will permit them to address issues directly and instantly.
  • Reputation and crisis management will be web-led.
  • PR agencies or even internal comms teams dealing with reputation and crisis management will be given a lot less time to clear up the mess..!

Twitter is an AMAZING learning tool

I’ve blogged about Twitter a few times, but have only really started using it a lot over the last few days (@steffenmoller). Although I’ve banged on about the value of Twitter as a learning tool – i.e. you hook up to the right people who share your interests and they provide you with insights and links that you wouldn’t have found yourself – I’m amazed by the extent to which this is the case.

I use Netvibes a lot, which allows me to view the latest posts and updates from a variety of blogs and news sites (100+). I update it regularly by adding new blogs and love it, but I have to say I’ve read far more interesting material over the last couple of days via links and hints from people I’m following. And I’m only following 28 people so far: what will it be like once I’ve found hundreds if not thousands of people that I want to follow? I think today is the day I really understand what all the fuss is about and think Twitter has raised the bar for how professionals of the future will be expected to interact and the knowledge they’ll be expected to possess.

Yes, Twitter is worthwhile

As the Twitter craze finally hits Europe, I’ve come across a few posts such as this one questioning its value. My first response would be that Twitter can perform a really simple function that any web user would appreciate: finding content that interests them. If you invest a bit of time in finding the right people to follow i.e. people who are clever and are interested in the same things as you, they can point you to content you simply wouldn’t have found yourself. That’s enough justification in my book already. However, as Laurent rightly points out, Twitter is not mainstream enough to actually make this viable for anyone who isn’t into social media, marketing, technology or a few other niches: ‘If you want to target doctors, if you need information because you’re a fireman, if you just want to find interesting links if you’re “just” a normal citizen, you don’t find them on Twitter.’

Valid points for personal use of Twitter. As for the professional use of Twitter, I still think there is “hidden” value in using Twitter, even though it isn’t going to allow you to find reams of useful content or reach huge numbers of people immediately:

  • Being proactive rather than reactive i.e. understanding how it works while it’s still relatively unknown, rather than hopping on the bandwagon in two years time. It doesn’t have to be a drain on resources: set up an account now, play around, figure out how to build relationships, not annoy people, and who the smart people worth following are (even if they’re few and far between for now). A few minutes a day on your PC or your iPhone and you’ll be a bonafide Twitter expert in no time.
  • Impress people. Yeah, so it’s shallow, but frankly showing your boss, client, stakeholder etc. that you’re an early adopter of new technologies that can, in time, help you reach and engage with relevant people is valuable, even though you might not prove its worth immediately (but do spend 99% of your time on things that have a slightly higher proven ROI though.)
  • Quality over quantity. So your target audiences may not all be on Twitter, but maybe some of the brightest people in your sector are. Why not build relationships with them now rather than than when they have 3,000 followers?
  • Added value on key activities. The nature of the format (short, quick, updates from anywhere) can make it ideal for certain types of interaction, such as live-updating from an event or a Q & A  on breaking news.

And a last point: it’s not all in the numbers! You can add a feed from Twitter to a blog or a site, where people will be able to read your updates. You may only have 10 followers, but if the webpage your tweets appear on have 10,000 visits a day with people spending half an hour on that page, you can be pretty sure they’re seeing them.

Digital PR/PA: it's not all different

A running theme of this blog is that online communications need not be something entirely removed from that which PR and PA professionals have been doing for years. Although social media et al has changed the communications landscape and a new approach is required to make the most of it, the web can also help strengthen, but not necessarily change, age-old activities, such as basic content production.

In this post (including video interview), Sally Falkow explains this concept a little better than I’ve done i.e. that PR practitioners should still be producing content, because that’s where their expertise lies, but that what’s different is that they now need to be thinking of more formats and different distribution channels.

How a blog is better than a newsletter

I spoke to someone recently who was busy writing the latest issue of their company’s newsletter.

Me: Why don’t you blog instead?
Them: We work in a really traditional industry, nobody would read a blog.
Me: Why would they read a newsletter but not a blog? If it’s because you think they’d only read something they can find in their inbox, that’s OK, you can subscribe to posts by email.
Them: Maybe, but my boss wouldn’t want us to blog, we work in a traditional industry.

First, I understand the implication. It’s that blogging is somehow not cerebral enough for a traditional or “serious” industry. That’s plain wrong: it’s a medium just like a newspaper is, but no one would say newspapers aren’t serious because of the drivel that tabloids publish. It’s the quality of what you publish that matters.

Beyond that, I think there are a few reasons why a blog may actually be plain better than a newsletter.

  • For a “traditional” industry like my friend’s, if blogging really is that unusual, then being the first to do so is a fantastic opportunity. Blogging is so common now; but imagine the chance to be viewed as ground-breaking and innovative simply by publishing one? An opportunity not to be missed I’d say.
  • I think the blog format is a lot more appealing. It’s less daunting for readers who don’t have much time, enabling them to focus on one article at a time rather than have a whole load thrust at them at once. Plus I’d argue that the momentum you build up with a stream of posts is worth more than a one-off monthly bang when your recipients receive your newsletter.
  • With a blog, all your content is in one place. Sure you can have a newsletter archive, but it’s a lot harder to browse through material by clicking on Edition 74: January 2006, looking through it, closing it, then opening Edition 75 and so on, than it is to scroll down ablog in search for titles that catch your attention.
  • On accessibility, again, a blog makes it a lot easier for people to access specific content, using categories and tags (you could have a complex search function for newsletters, but it’d cost a fortune and probably not work; tags and categories are standard and always work).
  • Interactivity. It’s a lot easier for people to leave comments on a blog than it is to give feedback on a newsletter, even though newsletters can have feedback functions. Plus in a blog, with comments published underneath posts and your responses in the same place, you’re in practice having an online conversation. So what? 1) You have the opportunity to explain yourself to doubters/naysayers and to showcase your expertise further; and 2) you become the company/person that’s hosting an informed conversation on the issue, and that’s valuable.
  • There’s an online community for everything, even the most traditional of industries. Engaging with it may not be your priority from the off – your focus may rightly be on making sure you publish good content. However, having a good blog will make it easier to fit into that community if you choose to do so, and will give you more leverage when engaging with the other experts in your field (or even prospects) that are part of it. If you think your industry/sector isn’t representedonline, check on Technorati or Google Blog Search. You’ll be surprised.
  • Marketing a blog is easier than marketing your newsletter, but I’ll save that for another post.

Just to be clear, I think newsletters are an excellent medium for showcasing your expertise, keeping people informed, and even attracting new business. I’d ordinarily make them part of the communications toolkit, but if I had to choose, it’d be blogging every time.