public relations and social media instructor: richard bailey
Post on 22-Dec-2015
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TRANSCRIPT
Public Relations and Social Media
Instructor: Richard Bailey
About this talk What’s changing ‘out there’? What’s changing inside the corporation? Where are the points of conflict and
contention? Who are the key sources?
‘Online public relations is not linear. Stuff happens!’ Phillips and Young 2009
Members of publics have always controlled the messages to which they are exposed.
Publics create themselves around problems their members face in life situations—stakeholders define their stakes in organizations.
Two-way symmetrical communication is more effective than asymmetrical communication in building organization-public relationships.
Reputations, images, and similar concepts are what members of different publics think and say to each other, not something controlled by an organization.
These cognitive representations are a by-product of organizational decisions and behaviors, active communication with publics, and the quality of organization-relationships.
Grunig revisited
Grunig: Functions of PR
A messaging, publicity, informational, media-relations function?◦ Publications, news, communication campaigns, media
contacts. A marketing function?
◦ Support for marketing through media publicity? A strategic management function?
◦ Active participant in decision making?◦ Research-based, organizational listening and learning?◦ Building relationships for other functions, including
marketing?
Theoretical Paradigms
The symbolic, interpretive, paradigm vs. the behavioral, strategic management, paradigm.
Both paradigms existed in the history of public relations, are practiced today, and are competing for the future of the profession.
Public relations cannot take full advantage of the digital revolution if it is practiced under the interpretive rather than the strategic management paradigm.
The Symbolic, Interpretive, Paradigm
Public relations manages how publics interpret the organization—to buffer the organization from its environment.
These interpretations include popular concepts such as image, identity, impressions, reputation, and brand.
Emphasis is on publicity, media relations, and media effects.
Views the effects of public relations as changes in cognitive representations, as the negotiation of meaning.
Behavioral Strategic Management Paradigm
Public relations participates in strategic decision-making to help manage the behavior of the organization.
Public relations is a bridging activity to build relationships with stakeholders rather than a set of messaging activities designed to buffer the organization from stakeholders.
Emphasis is on two-way and symmetrical communication of many kinds to provide publics a voice in management decisions and to facilitate dialogue between management and publics.
Views effects as changes in behavior, as the negotiation of behavior.
Media evolution
‘The late 19th and 20th centuries were dominated by mass media and mass communication that predominantly involved top-down, one-way distribution of information to ‘audiences’ which, in the main, had to passively accept what was given to them. Also, in the mass media model, organisations controlled the messages distributed.‘This has completely changed with development of Web 2.0-based social media.’ Macnamara 2010
21st century mediascape Macnamara 2010 connectivity (rapidly approaching ubiquity), communities, co-creativity, collaboration, collective intelligence, communication (two-way not one-way), conducted as... conversation – that is, open discussion that
is authentic, not speeches, lectures, political propaganda, ‘spin’, or corporate-speak
Understanding PR Understanding the nature and significance of
values in relationships and interactions is now at the heart of organisational optimisation.
In principle, relationships optimisation is the key to all organisational evolution and success.
Relationships enable a return on value including the ROI of reputation as well as other desired outcomes.
Management of the effects on values in ubiquitous online interaction includes offline interactions in 21stcentury
(David Phillips, lecture slide)
Internet communications
One-to-many (broadcast)TV, video, news, celebrity Tweet
One-to-one (conversation)IM, email, DM, Skype
Many-to-manyTwitter, forums, comments on popular blogs, Facebook groups
Many-to-oneRSS, aggregators
One-to-several (network)Blog, Facebook, Twitter, group email
‘The distinction between broadcast and communications used to be clear.’ Shirky 2008
Consumer mindset There’s no market for messages This means the end of ‘interruption marketing’ A need for ‘permission marketing’ (Godin 1999) ‘Markets are conversations’ (Cluetrain Manifesto
2000) Rise of activists and single-issue campaigns The end of ‘command and control’?
‘The certainties of consumer expectations, behaviour, segmentation and communications that have underpinned marketing seem to have evaporated. Marketers are struggling to come to terms with splintering social structures, changing tastes and a fragmenting mediascape’. Professor Stephen Brown, Cranfield University
Corporate landscape Downsize or die? Consider the rise of open source projects
(Linux, Wikipedia) What’s happening to command-and-control?
‘We see two schools of PR in practice today. One is the incumbent school of “command and control”. This school argues that companies should keep communicating in the same manner and with the same rules that they have always practiced... Some of the smartest are creating a new “listen and participate” school of thought in PR.’ Scoble and Israel 2006
Command and control
Dom-inant
coalition
Traditional ‘command and control’ management
Changing organizational structure
Dom-inant
coalition
Networked communication
Based on Phillips and Young 2009
Social technographics ladder
The conversation prism
Brian Solis
Organisation
Investors
Suppliers Customers
EmployeesCornelissen 2008 p39
Input-output model
Organisation
Investors
Suppliers Customers
Employees
Cornelissen 2008 p39
Political groups
Communities
Cornelissen 2008 p39
Trade associations
Organisation
Governments
Stakeholder model
Transparency ‘At the turn of the century, no PR department would
send a copy of a press release to a competitor at the same time they sent it to the press. Today a very large proportion of organizations do.’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
‘Transparency ... implies openness, communication and accountability.’ (Phillips and Young 2009) Radical transparency: the management method
whereby nearly all decision making is carried out publicly Controlled transparency: the controlled posting and
release of information to the internet Institutional transparency: information about an
organisation is made available by a wide range of authorities
Porosity Information has always leaked out of
organisations, but it’s so much easier today Email, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, text messages
‘A motivated, informed and alert workforce is the best and probably the only defence against unintentional porosity’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
Porosity is not always bad; it can add to the authentic voice of the organisation
Internet agency ‘Agency is the process of transformation of a
message as it is passed from one person to another online’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
Agency can and does change PR messages Control of the message is lost as it enters the
network
Network complexity
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a
d
eb
A small network of five members has ten connections.
A ten member network has 45connections; a 15 member network has 105.
‘A group’s complexity grows faster than its size’.
Shirky 2008
2. Setting objective
s
1. Audit
5. Results and evaluation
3. Strategy and plan
Where do we need
to be?
How do we get there?
How did we do?
Where are we now?
Source: Watson and Noble
4. Ongoing measurement
Are we getting there?
Planning Research & Evaluation
1: Audit The internet is the first place we turn for
news, competitor and market insight, commentary and real-time views
What is being said about you on blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia and social networks?
What about your web server stats? What about Search Engine Optimization? How do you compare with your competitors?
2: Setting objectives Situational theory of publics becomes a valuable
segmentation model since publics are defined by issues rather than consumer behaviour
Are we trying to raise awareness, achieve engagement, change behaviour or all three?
What issues could cause us problems? Is risk and opportunity manageable?
‘Online objectives have to coincide with organizational objectives and values, and to do so in ways that will make both transparent to the world. In addition, these objectives need to chime with an online community that has plenty of other places to go.’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
3: Strategy and plan ‘Aims and objectives for online activity have
to be part of a strategic, multi-participant, multi-media approach’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
‘The mass market/mass media mindset is hard to leave behind’ (Phillips and Young 2009)
The programme should be a mix of activities for old and new media (online media, media online)
Strategy is adaptable by nature
4: Ongoing measurement Strategy will include methodologies for
monitoring and reporting ‘Online activity can be slow to take off. It can
also be explosive!’ Have SEO goals been built in? What about link sharing and affiliate
marketing?
Risk and opportunities
Incr
ease
d lik
elih
ood
of ri
sk
Busi
ness
com
ple
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Technical complexity
Phillips and Young 2009
Risk and opportunities
Incr
ease
d im
pact
of r
isk
Busi
ness
cri
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lity
Campaign size
Phillips and Young 2009
Known unknowns What could go wrong that can be anticipated? Risk analysis should be an ongoing process
Unknown unknowns Some things cannot be anticipated.
There is no plan B. But is there a monitoring and alert system in
place? Trust is a core element in managing the
unforeseen.
5: Results and evaluation ‘There are very good indicators that can
measure the public relations footprint of an organization.’ Trends monitoring:
Website/blog visitor numbers Referrals (where the traffic is coming from) Inbound links Subscriptions (RSS)
Keyword monitoring News monitoring and reporting
eg Cymfony, Radian6
Recommended reading Godin, S (1999) Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends, and Friends into
Customers, Simon & Schuster Grunig, J (2009) Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalization, Prism 6
(2) Li, C and Bernoff, J (2008) Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social
technologies, Harvard Business Press Levine, R, Locke, C, Searls, D and Weinberger, D (2009) The Cluetrain Manifesto:
tenth anniversary edition Basic Books Macnamara, J (2010) The 21st Media (R)evolution: Emergent Communication
Practices, Peter Lang Phillips, D and Young, P (2009) Online Public Relations: a practical guide to
developing an online strategy in the world of social media, Kogan Page Scoble, R and Israel, S (2006) Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way
businesses talk with customers, Wiley Scott, D (2nd ed 2010) The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use News Releases,
Blogs, Podcasts, Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, Wiley Solis, B and Breakenridge, D (2009) Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How
Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, FT Prentice Hall Shirky, C (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without
Organizations Thomas, M and Brain, D (2008) Crowd Surfing: Suriving and thriving in the age of
consumer empowerment, A & C Black