Tag: Public Affairs

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.

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.

Storytelling over big budgets

Title_storytellerA tale heard many times in varying incarnations in Brussels:

  • Big company X spends hundreds of thousands to get an independent report published by a reputable institution.
  • Takes months, the report is finally published and the company is happy: the facts support its side of the story (e.g. product Y is not nearly as dangerous as some say) and the report is truly independent, so case closed – or so they think.
  • What’s the story? Company X publishes “independent report” which proves so and so? No, that’s not interesting enough. The story becomes company X publishes supposedly independent report but pressure group Z says it can’t be trusted as it’s industry sponsored. The report flops in PR terms.

This is another tale that’s been around the block a few times:

  • Pressure group Z doesn’t have any budget but understands PR far better than industry behemoth X.
  • It makes a mountain out a molehill by taking a nothing story and relating it to a day-to-day human experience e.g. the equivalent of say “paracetamol will kill you” without mentioning that you would have to take 100 tablets or whatever to do so (to be fair, plenty of NGOs and the like publish material that is much less controversial, but you get the gist.)
  • Pressure group Z gets loads more press than Company X got for its crumby report.
  • Company X responds to the story with a press release a week later rather than responding to it immediately using online crisis communications tactics that have more impact.

What are the lessons for corporate players in all of this? Each of these points could be a blog post in itself (if not something much longer), but in short:

  • Re. the last point, clearly, your crisis communications requires an online element.
  • Most of all though, don’t get caught up in trying to win hearts and minds through science and fact alone. Nobody cares about science, however spuriously, if their family’s health may be at risk.
  • Don’t let business people, academics, engineers or scientists decide on your story. You need communicators on board.
  • Don’t just make it about defensive communication and proving that you’re not as bad as they say. So your substance isn’t that harmful (or whatever) but is your organisation really doing good deeds in the long run? If not, it should.
  • Treat pressure groups with respect, engage in dialogue, show them that you do good things, and they might even be nice to you. Or at least be less outrageous.
  • And I have to say this considering my line of work… Go online and develop a super web presence to engage directly with the public and explain your story to them without intermediaries. Media relations is important, of course, but the press is likely to side with pressure groups more often than not, no matter what you say or do (and if you’re truly nasty, deservedly so!) Why? Because they’re the nice guys and readers like them more than you.

Why the Brussels PA bubble isn't embracing the web

gorilla1Smug online consultants in Brussels (and elsewhere no doubt) are constantly saying that traditional communicators are not embracing the web because they just “don’t get it.” What a load of tosh. However, web uptake has been slow, but it’s not because thousands of smart people have suddenly gone dim. Sure, plenty think that the web isn’t important because “MEPs don’t use it” or “surely only lonely teens use Facebook” etc. However, they’re not in the majority.

Instead, I’d split the majority of web naysayers into three groups:

1. The people who generally don’t value campaigning. Those who think all decision-making takes place in cramped offices with key stakeholders while everybody else is happily getting on with their lives with little knowledge or interest in complex matters of politics. These people “don’t get it” more broadly: they think comms plays second fiddle; they split PA professionals and communicators into two different camps and consider the former far more important (and clever no doubt.) Are these people dumb? Generally not. Their model has worked for decades and I’m sure backroom dealing is still the most important tactic out there, especially for issues that haven’t made it into a pressure group’s in-tray.

2. An extension of the first point – let’s be honest, there are people who don’t really need the web. The experts whose job it is to really explain the nitty-gritty of policy to legislators. They still make up the majority of communicators in Brussels and they’re pretty essential.

3. Those who appreciate the value of the web in communications terms but can’t see the ROI (i.e. primarily the agencies). The thinking here is: “I can charge 100K for an event but Twitter is free. It’s a no brainer.” They’ve got a point, and until they’ve got clients that will happily pay for events and see more value in a trade-press article than a blogger relations campaign, they’ll stick to it. And rightly so. They’ve got a business to run, after all.  Two points I’d make though. First, mastering the web is difficult: selling really competent web strategy, putting together the pieces, mapping online conversations and how to react to and shape them (and so on) doesn’ t come cheap. And as for billable hours, sure, setting up a Twitter account is quick and easy, but following conversations, engaging in them, producing content for multiple platforms, engaging with bloggers etc. takes a lot of time! Second, you’ve got the risk of the client one day saying: my competitor is doing really good work online, why aren’t we? What do we do? You want to be proactive now rather than reactive later.

What’s my vision? The scenario is really not a showdown of traditional vs. modern models. They key lies in integration of all tactics in the most suitable manner considering an organisation’s communications objectives. However, I do think any approach should embrace the web, whether its simply the place where information is centralised and made easily obtainable for all stakeholders; or the focal point of an engagement approach in which an organisation seeks to listen and engage in wider debates that can ultimately dictate the pace and nature of regulation (or ideally both…)

The said model has worked for decades and I’m sure backroom dealing is still by far the most important tactic out there, especially for issues that haven’t made it into a pressure group’s in-tray.

Lobbying at its most intriguing

A friend told me a story this week which gives some real insight into how sly lobbyists can be. A few years ago in California, Toyota and the US big 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) lobbied hard against stricter regulation governing emissions. This seemed odd at first. Toyota have spent years and billions in developing cars that produce fewer emissions – surely they’d want stricter emissions regulations as this would enable them to exercise their competitive edge?

Not quite. As ever, Toyota are a forward-thinking company (see my previous post):

  1. They understood that they have a competitive edge over the big 3 globally because they produce cars that are more environmentally friendly.
  2. They understood that the prospect of losing out on a huge market like California might finally move the big 3 to start investing more in hybrid technology and other less petrol-guzzling alternatives.
  3. Conclusion? They prefer having to compete with the big 3’s SUVs in California than have them invest in R&D which might in a few years make them viable competitors in the global hybrid car sector.

That’s clever. What I’d be curious to know is:  Toyota and the big 3 presumably sat down and co-ordinated their efforts at some point. Did the big 3 know they were being duped? And could the Toyota execs and lobbyists keep the smirks off their faces?

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.

Adapting media relations to the Internet age: more to it than bloggers

Most PA and PR professionals have understood that the web is important, which is great. However, they often get very excited about bloggers and then seem to stop there, as if the web had nothing more to offer. This is a mistake. No only do they lose track of the many other online tools at their disposal, but their lack of a “bigger picture” focus also results in them treating blogger relations as nothing more than an extension of media relations.

I’ll be writing about this again in future, but here’s a first few points I’d highlight. Simply treating blogger relations like media relations, and approaching bloggers like you would journalists, is a mistake. Sure, there’s room for building relationships with bloggers just like there is with journalists, but whereas journalists write for a living, bloggers write because they want to. What’s the difference? Journalists have deadlines, and need to satisfy readers and editors, and thus appreciate good pitches. On the other hand, bloggers write about whatever they want to in their own time. Result? While a good, relevant and tailored pitch is likely to interest a journalist, it’ll hardly ever interest a blogger. It might even annoy them, and worse, they could publish your email address on their blog accompanied by a rant about how annoying PR people are.

To entice a blogger you’d need much more time and patience. In short, you’d need to listen and engage in their community i.e. comment on their blog (relevant comments – not “here’s a link to my press release”) and perhaps even have your own blog which taps into and contributes to that same community. Or an alternative would be to seek bloggers’ expertise to enrich your story i.e. involving them, whether by testing your product, completing your experts survey, or whatever. That’s more likely to get them interested than a mere press release. Read my previous post on this for more detail. Or even better, read Brian Solis’ book on blogger relations.

Moving beyond blogger relations, what I think can actually add more value to your communications efforts is the integration piece i.e. how you can use online tools to improve media relations and vice-versa. What could this mean in practice?

You can enrich your press releases: rather than just giving your take on an issue and providing a quote, have a more complete press offering where you have video interviews with stakeholders that you’ve filmed with a basic hand-held camera and uploaded to YouTube, and include hyperlinks to other relavant material.

In addition, you should look more at the “pull factor” i.e. making it easier for the press to receive updates from you automatically rather than simply pushing it to them when they might not even be interested. The standard functionality here is RSS, which is now available on most sites, and allows people to subscribe to updates at the click of their mouse. In future, Twitter is also likely to take off, so journalists can simply choose to receive tweets from PR professionals (and vice versa). To anyone not acquainted with Twitter, it’s a microblogging platform that allows you to issue short entries (140 characters max.) which will automatically be picked up by anyone who “follows” you i.e. who has linked to you on Twitter.

There’s also another element to the “pull factor”. The web empowers individuals and organisations, meaning that they’re less reliant on intermediaries, like say journalists, than ever before to find the content they want. Online, you’re the publisher, so PR and PA people should shift some of their focus from pitching stories to the press to actually making it easier for people to find the story if they actually go looking for it. This first involves producing good quality content that people would want to find, link to, and even spread. Second, you should then bring in a techie who can tell you how to produce content or adapt existing content so that it is optimised for search engines i.e. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), meaning that your content will appear high in Google and other search engines if a user enters a relevant search item. Many people underestimate the importance of SEO. It sounds dull, it’s techy; surely nothing to do with good PR? No, in truth over 90% of sites accessed online are done so via a search engine, so having a high ranking in Google is invaluable. And a lot of it you can do yourself, by using the right keywords and titles in your content.

As for the other side of the coin, using media relations to improve your online content, at the basest level, this can simply involve showcasing news stories other than your own by hyperlinking to them. But you can also take it a step further. This may be a bit unconventional, but why not get the journalists you have an established relationship with to help improve your content via a comments feature? Or even interview them and put a video snippet on your site? I’ve interviewed journalists for a client, and they tend to really appreciate being on the other side for a change, they have a good take on the issues, are effective communicators, and are often well-respected (depending on the publication they work for).

In the near future, I’ll be writing more detailed posts on what a PR/PA professional can do to a) produce more appealing content online; and b) how to lead people to it.