Tag: Public Affairs

In policy-land, your opponents want you off the radar

One thing to never forget in policy-land is that opponents want you off the radar. Too much traditional PA relies on damage limitation or maintaining the status-quo as near as possible to where it’s been before. Fine for now perhaps, but it’s a short term fix: opponents will keep coming back for more. You’ve reduced something or other by 10% and yet a couple of years later they’re back demanding another 10% – and given that all you’ve ever done is reactive damage-control lobbying, they’ll win again, and keep doing so until you’re off the radar. Do you really think they’re ever going to go away? No. They only asked for 10% because they knew they wouldn’t get 20% – but they also know they can keep doing more of the same. Why? Because they own the public narrative while you’re completely eschewing it. Solution? Think big. Tell a story not a key message. Think global not Brussels. Think your entire industry not just your organisation. Be a CAMPAIGNER not a lobbyist.

Why PA struggles to adapt to digital: don’t blame it all on the old fogeys

I just re-read my last post and had a thought. Point two – in which I state that PA professionals increasingly need to think issues and reputation management rather than pure government relations, and hence should embrace the campaigner’s toolkit, including digital – sounds simple enough (the concept, but certainly not the execution.) However, although I imply that it’s because people aren’t moving with the times, I’m now thinking this – as easy as it is for young whippersnappers like me to blame old-school PA types for the fact that Brussels and other PA hubs are lagging, two other issues are no doubt key in determining why organisations aren’t more visionary in their PA approach:

  1. The nature of the game: short-term legislative priorities over long-term reputation. Countering Directive X is more pressing today, frankly. And as soon as Directive X is dealt with, along comes Directive Y to soak up all your time. With a PA team consisting of 5 people and 1 consultant on call whose hours are nearly all used up, it’s no surprise that organisations struggle to think long-term.
  2. It’s not you but your entire sector that needs rebranding. A lot of organisations struggle with long-term reputation because they operate within a tiny niche of a far bigger sector. They produce chemical X or energy resource Y or financial tool Z; but no one has ever heard of any of them. Yet they’re getting hammered because chemicals, energy and financial services at large have reputational issues. Why should they, representing 0.1% of a far bigger industry, be leading the charge? Quite.

Many would no doubt add another reason for PA’s struggles with digital: the fact that many issues are off the public radar and don’t need a campaign element given that “we know our entire target audience” or “our audiences don’t use the web.” Whatever. Sure, 90% of the issues I work on don’t require campaign elements suited to digital, like mobilisation and community building, but NO ONE can possibly think they are maximising their chances of success without backing up their offline narrative with a good online content strategy, supported by at least a search strategy to ensure maximum visibility amongst target audiences.

Digital in PA: why?

At its very very basest, I’d centre on two arguments:

  1. 93%. In Fleishman-Hillard’s survey of the online habits of MEPs last year we found that they pretty much all use web search every day to conduct research on policy issues (the aforementioned 93%). That in itself is immensely important; and presumably, figures for other politicians, key officials at EU or national level and members of the press are equally unambiguous. Organisations conducting Public Affairs thus need to have a presence online if they want their views to be seen, which in practice requires strategies covering: a) content; and b) visibility to target audiences (especially search, and in most cases, engagement.)
  2. The growing convergence of government relations and bigger world issues and reputation, as represented by this basic visual. Meaning what? That issues that affect public opinion and consequently an industry or organisation’s reputation must be addressed in a government relations context more so than has been the case in the past. Put simply, convincing policy-makers is not enough anymore; you need to persuade numerous stakeholders, and then consequently prove you’ve done so to the policy-makers. In practice, this is far broader than just digital: it involves employing the whole communications toolkit to listen to, reach and engage a far wider set of stakeholders than before. To conclude: mastering policy minutiae and the policy-making process are essential, but PA professionals need to pick a leaf out of the NGO handbook and think like campaigners, on and offline.

“We do government relations, we don’t need digital”

To people in PA hubs like Brussels who understand the value of communicating on issues (fewer than you’d think, given the status of traditional government relations), digital is no longer treated with suspicion. Although there is plenty of confusion around what digital actually entails and an annoying propensity to approach it tactically rather than strategically (i.e. “let’s do Twitter” rather than “who do we need to talk to and what do we need to say”), it’s generally regarded as an important part of the toolbox.

And yet “we do government relations, we don’t need digital” is still frequently heard around Brussels. Why? In actual fact, it’s got anything to with digital per se: the people who say it used to claim, “we do government relations, we don’t need communications.” In an environment where that just won’t stick anymore, given that the need for integration of government relations/advocacy and wider communications can not be disputed in polite company, the naysayers have found something new to dismiss: digital. They like the comfort zone they’ve developed over the years. One where long-term client reputation matters little compared to the ability to get a half-hour sit-down with the right official or MEP.

Wake up and smell the coffee. The sit-down will not matter if you haven’t got a credible storyline to back it up. The storyline needs to respond to real-world matters, and should be delivered to the right audiences via the right channels – including digital.

Policy blogging in Brussels: more of it please

I wrote a post on Fleishman-Hillard’s Public Affairs 2.0 blog last week on the shortage of policy-specific blogs in Brussels. My point in short was this: plenty of good quality blogs are being written about the EU at large which cover a wide array of issues and often result in decent conversations. Movers and shakers in Brussels read these blogs, and yet the scores of organisations present here whose remit is to engage with policy makers and other stakeholders on issues key to their sectors are virtually non-existent in the blogosphere. Why?! They’ll write position papers, engage in face-to-face meetings, develop alliances, work with the media, and yet they won’t blog. What a wasted opportunity to present their views in an ongoing narrative, engage with other stakeholders and build relationships, all while showcasing people in the most open and transparent medium imaginable rather than just presenting a faceless organisation through the same age-old tactics.

Anyway, no point in paraphrasing the post when you can read it here (note the good comments too.) Further comments very welcome (here or on PA 2.0.)

Your first priority online: become a resource

In PR/PA anno 2010, the web is acknowledged as being an absolutely integral part of the communications mix, but quite often for the wrong reasons. PR professionals who view their job through the prism of media relations have transferred their thinking to the web, but replacing journalists with bloggers and the like. They view the opportunity purely in having more influencers to tell a story to; they’ll even ignore the web entirely if they find there aren’t high-profile bloggers interested in their issue.

To be honest, it’d be tricky to run a blogger relations campaign or build community on most issues. Sorry, but there just isn’t enough critical mass yet. That doesn’t mean the web has no value in these instances though! We’re moving from a world of push to one of pull. People’s first point of call? Google. So when they do search, you need to have a presence: and an impressive one at that. So forget about the external influencers for just a second and start thinking of yourself as one instead. You reach the end-user DIRECT through search. Grasp the opportunity.

p.s. and even if your issue could warrant a blogger relations campaign or a community-building approach you STILL need to build a great presence before engaging, or you won’t be taken seriously (the four pillars of online engagement maps out the steps in a little more detail.)

Online engagement: Brussels audiences’ five standard questions

Here are five questions which I’m invariably asked when organisations are thinking about exploring online engagement but aren’t quite sure what they’re getting themselves into. They’re not the most interesting or strategic questions, but are understandable stumbling blocks which hold organisations back and need to be answered. Here goes.

1. Won’t we get attacked by the other side? What if they say things we really don’t want anyone to hear?

Maybe, but in any case, you can moderate, so if there’s something you really don’t want to expose, you don’t have to (read a recent post about angry commenting trolls here.) Having said that, don’t moderate too much. If you remove everything that isn’t rose-tinted, what’s the point of engaging? View it as an opportunity. There are people out there who dislike you no matter what. There are others who aren’t so sure about you, but if you actually respond to their concerns, you might even win them over.

2. OK so we can moderate, but aren’t we going to get inundated by thousands of hateful attacks every day? So much so that we’ll end up spending all our time moderating?

In my experience, nobody has ever been attacked in this way (don’t flatter yourselves: people have better ways of spending their time!) I’ve heard of instances of automated responses by angry pressure groups, but have never experienced it myself. In any case, these people had your email addresses before: were you “attacked” then?

3. We’re only a small team with a small budget: do we really have the resources to do this properly?

Sure, proper online engagement is time intensive, but so are conf calls, meetings and writing reports no one reads. View it as an opportunity, not something you could do on top of all your – supposedly – far more important tasks. This might actually be the most important thing you do (although this depends on the nature of your sector or organisation.) In any case, if you plan properly, it needn’t take up too much time. Have an editorial plan in place so you organise publication properly, and give yourself a timeslot for the actual work like you would for a regular meeting or whatever else, and you will find it just becomes part of your working day.

4. How do we target people in multiple languages?

The perennial comms nightmare in Europe. It depends on the nature of the organisation in question and what you’re trying to do. If your key target audience is French-speaking but your organisation primarily operates in English, it’d be hard to recommend against trying to communicate in both languages. As a starting point, I’d certainly recommend against overstretching i.e. trying to engage in multiple languages; but to what extent this is the case really depends. Conversations shouldn’t be translated, so I wouldn’t ever translate blog posts, tweets, forum entries and the like; but I would not recommend against a mixed basket approach where a few languages are in use on the same platforms (but not more than three….) For instance, a blog could have posts in different languages, each tagged by the language in question so that a user can select to view all posts written in any given language in one list. Again though, this is complex issue and there’s no right or wrong answer apart from don’t overstretch…!

5. How do we know if engagement works? How do we measure success?

Another perennial question, and one which I’d (controversially) say is relatively easy to answer, even though ROI calculations for engagement (and comms in general) are notoriously contentious. I’m not saying that it’s easy to guarantee success or that it’s easy to define very clear ROI measurements – it’s not at all – but there are so many things you can measure in quantitative terms online, that you can develop a very substantial set of KPIs which you can follow and improve on an ongoing basis. So when the question arises, your response can be: with press releases, you get clippings; online, you get viewing numbers, behavioural and trending figures, you’ll know who said what, when and where; and you’ll know how many of your key targets viewed your content. Plus you’ll have qualitative input which you’d ordinarily have needed polling to assess because you can measure word of mouse (as opposed to traditional word of mouth…) i.e. you’ll know what people think because they may comment about it. The bottom line of the sell is this: my professional opinion is that this will work, but don’t just take my word for it; with you, the client, we’ll develop a very detailed set of KPIs which will be exact indicators of success. Given that they’re so substantial, you’ll know very clearly whether the programme is a success or not; far more clearly that any of the other communications channels you use.

Are people totally won over? No, the novelty of engagement and the “loss of control” it entails is still a big leap; but at this point people tend to be willing to take their first baby steps.

The bane of the online communications consultant

It’s fun, it’s effective, it’s multifaceted and it’s on a steep upward trajectory. All in all, in Brussels and elsewhere, helping clients navigate the online space is a pretty good thing to be doing right now. But it’s a double-edged sword in some ways:

  • The implementation part has so many variables that it’s easy to get bogged down in dull, irrelevant nitty-gritty and lose track of your true objectives. Sure, you need to get things right, but often, strategic communications veers too far into sheer project management. The key here is to keep the role of the strategist and the project manager separate, and for the strategist to have more visibility.
  • One of the keys to a successful communications programme is integration. What you do online and offline should be closely aligned, but it’s often hard to get right because of the way communications teams are structured. Web, regulatory and media people are all kept separate, and as hard as you may try to put everyone around the same table, it often doesn’t happen. On the consultant side, discipline is also important here. You may understand the web inside out and be tempted to overlook the other stuff. Don’t do it.
  • Closely aligned to this is appreciation of the web consultant as a communications professional (my pride takes quite a hit sometimes on this…!) With some clients, it’s an ongoing struggle to remind them that online communications is primarily a strategic exercise, not a technical one. You have more in common with the business, regulatory, marketing and communications people than IT. All credit to IT, but they do something entirely different.
  • Then there’s the web doubters on the client side; people who aren’t quite sure of the value of online communications. Advocacy and media work have worked for years and are still relevant today, so why fix it if it ain’t broke? The fact is that the model is, if not broken, in need of an upgrade: old-school tactics are still relevant, but they need to be backed up. People are a lot more cynical, opinionated and engaged than ever before, and a well-executed online programme will help you cater to this part of the equation and in turn make your media work and advocacy more effective. As a consultant, what do you do about the doubters? You treat the sell as ongoing: you constantly have to re-explain the concepts, what you’re doing and why it will work. And most importantly, you need to identify your eChampions on the client side who strongly support what you’re trying to do and will mobilise on your behalf and join the challenge to win over the naysayers.
  • There’s the web doubters, but there’s also two types of know-it-alls that often present a challenge. First, the old-school communicators who treat the web as just another channel and simply transfer their understanding of the offline world to it. They think a website should look like a brochure; that a blog entry should be structured like a press release; or they’ll struggle with two-way nature of the web and simply use it as they would a megaphone. Second, there’s the (usually, but not always) junior communicator who has been handed responsibility for online comms because they like technology and are comfortable with it. What often arises in these cases is that they act as if they’ve got a new toy and spend lots of time setting up Facebook fan pages and tweaking things in Photoshop, but they’ll do nothing to help you reach your communications objectives. In fact, they may even be detrimental in that respect. What to do? As in the point above, the ongoing sell – or ongoing education even – becomes essential.

And a final point. The web is big and complex; it’s all happening so FAST; you need to keep track of the other channels AND try to keep up to date with the issues; and you need to deal with the points cited above – in particular the ongoing sell. To get it all right requires a lot of patience; and you’ll need to read a lot every day to stay on track. But it’s worth it in the end.

Agencies and the commodity temptation

The role of the communications agency in political hubs such as Brussels, London and Washington is crammed with potential for exciting work. Issues experts and communications specialists join forces to formulate strategies that help organisatons navigate a complex political landscape…. a landscape that may involve all sorts of players from the pesky blogger to the virulent politician picking up steam in the press, cross-border nuances and awkward political realities, the sudden PR calamity…

It’s a shame then that agencies often fall into the commodity trap, where the goal goes from helping a client reach their business and communications objectives to doing just enough to rack up billable hours. The toolbox – reading up on the latest developments from whatever relevant government department, media monitoring, basic content production, website maintenance, event logistics and so on – become the commodity.

Sure, the dirty work has to be done, and I understand the temptation: the long hours, the lacklustre client, the short-term targets all conspire to lure you into simply doing enough to meet the requirements.

The problem is that as a communicator, you don’t have the luxury of the lawyer or the chemist, who perform tasks which are second-nature to them but which no one would ever dream of replicating without the apposite credentials. Everyone thinks they’re a communicator, and unless you’re challenging clients by offering them added-value thinking, they’ll think they can do it themselves (or get someone else to do it more cheaply.)

So what do you do about it? There’s no trick: it’s all about frame of mind and thinking to yourself that you sell brainpower, not items in a toolbox. So once you’ve developed a strategy and it’s in execution mode, don’t let it go: track your client’s issues on an ongoing basis and constantly revisit your business goals -> communications objectives -> strategy -> tactics chart to ensure that you’re proactively offering them smart ideas that will help them meet their goals. It’ll keep them happy and no doubt help get you more business (and what’s more, it’s a lot more fun and challenging for you, the communicator.)

Corporate comms and public affairs should be part of the same parcel

I came across an article on Euractiv which I’d missed earlier this summer entitled Business warned against ‘uncoordinated’ PA strategies which makes interesting reading. In short, it states that aggressive communications can put companies at risk and that Public Affairs and Corporate Communications strategies should be more closely aligned.

I could not agree with the latter more (or the former for that matter, but I’ll save that topic for a rainy day.) I’d probably even take it a step further. I think all communications activities, including marketing, should be under the same roof and closely integrated. Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but how can a legislator take a lobbyist seriously if he’s saying one thing while an EU media campaign is saying another and the ad in a trade magazine aimed at customers something else?

The web also makes integration more crucial than it’s been before. How? In particular, the nature of search (how +90% of information is accessed online) is such that it’s harder to compartmentalise according to target audiences online than it is offline. Look up a key term on Google and you’ll find the same thing wherever you’re a customer or policy-maker, pauper or CEO.

So what’ll the landscape look like in a few years? Even more so than is the case in forward-thinking organisations today, communications, be it PR, marketing, PA, advertising and so on, will be in the same building, have one boss and one strategy; and what’s more, they’ll be more closely connected to the “business” operations arm of the organisation than is the case today.