Transcript Public Relations and Public Affairs from a European

Public Relations and Social Media
Instructor: Richard Bailey
About this talk
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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
Grunig revisited
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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: Functions of PR
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A messaging, publicity, informational, media-relations
function?
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A marketing function?
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Publications, news, communication campaigns, media contacts.
Support for marketing through media publicity?
A strategic management function?
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Active participant in decision making?
Research-based, organizational listening and learning?
Building relationships for other functions, including marketing?
Theoretical Paradigms
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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
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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
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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 2.0based social media.’
Macnamara 2010
21st century mediascape
Macnamara 2010
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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
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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
‘The distinction
between broadcast
and communications
used to be clear.’
One-to-many (broadcast)
TV, video, news, celebrity
Tweet
Shirky 2008
Many-to-one
RSS, aggregators
Many-to-many
Twitter, forums, comments on
popular blogs, Facebook
groups
One-to-several (network)
Blog, Facebook, Twitter,
group email
One-to-one (conversation)
IM, email, DM, Skype
Consumer mindset
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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’?
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‘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
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Downsize or die?
Consider the rise of open source projects (Linux,
Wikipedia)
What’s happening to command-and-control?
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‘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
Dominant
coalition
Based on
Phillips and
Young 2009
Dominant
coalition
Traditional ‘command and
control’ management
Networked
communication
Changing organizational
structure
Social technographics
ladder
The conversation prism
Brian Solis
Input-output model
Investors
Suppliers
Organisation
Employees
Customers
Cornelissen 2008 p39
Stakeholder model
Governments
Investors
Suppliers
Organisation
Trade
associations
Employees
Cornelissen 2008 p39
Political
groups
Customers
Communities
Transparency
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‘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)
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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
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Information has always leaked out of organisations, but it’s
so much easier today
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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
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‘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
c
A small network of five members has ten
connections.
d
e
b
a
A ten member network has 45connections;
a 15 member network has 105.
‘A group’s complexity grows faster than its size’.
Shirky 2008
Planning Research &
Evaluation
Source: Watson and Noble
1. Audit
Where
are we
now?
5. Results and
evaluation
4. Ongoing
measurement
Where do we
need to be?
How did
we do?
Are we getting
there?
How do we get
there?
2. Setting
objectives
3. Strategy and plan
1: Audit
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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
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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
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‘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
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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
Business complexity
Phillips and Young 2009
Technical complexity
Risk and opportunities
Business criticality
Phillips and Young 2009
Campaign size
Known unknowns
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What could go wrong that can be anticipated?
Risk analysis should be an ongoing process
Unknown unknowns
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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
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‘There are very good indicators that can measure the
public relations footprint of an organization.’
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Trends monitoring:
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Website/blog visitor numbers
Referrals (where the traffic is coming from)
Inbound links
Subscriptions (RSS)
Keyword monitoring
News monitoring and reporting
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eg Cymfony, Radian6
Recommended reading
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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