Crisis Management

Social Media – More on Corporate Social Media Use and Policy

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Just as I’m seeing chinks of light – OK, maybe social media can be used in localised and focused fashion to boost the fortunes of smaller concerns (see here, no apologies for linking you to the US and all that goes with it, we have a special relationship, get used to it), although I’m still a bit fuzzy on the bit that gets the punter to the Twitter – up pop the creatures.

The post in question dates from last week and, because I know you, blog snorkellers, and you can’t be bothered to do clickety-dickety, it’s yet another take on the reasons why corporations don’t embrace social media. I am, surprisingly enough, not going to pass judgement on it – I’m going to limit myself to a few observations.

1) Employees will waste time with social media.

Yes. They will. But let’s not confuse the internet with social media. The internet is, broadly speaking, a Good Thing in the work place – a source of information and ideas that can assist the company in the achievement of its goals. Social media are simply bits of the internet, choices if you like, which may or may not be benign, and if they benefit a company only do so if approached in a planned, strategic and carefully monitored fashion. Policies on social media usage by employees should be draconian and companies are within their rights to block usage of social media sites.

2) Haters will damage our brand.

Yes. But haters will damage your brand whether or not you have a social media strategy or presence. This is about whether your brand’s any good. If it isn’t, word of mouth will damage your brand. Get it right, however, and people will like it (simple. eh?) – and no-one goes out of their way to say nasty things about a brand if it isn’t nasty. You don’t need the followers of a Twitter feed to do your crisis containment for you. Trust me, you don’t.

3. We’ll lose control of the brand

Of course you won’t. But that’s because a brand’s essence is controlled by the brand guardians, its equity is protected by law and its appearance enshrined in the brand guidelines. – not because people are talking about it on-line or off-line. Of course people talk about brands – always have done, always will do – doesn’t change the brand unless the brand guardians decide it should.

To say, however, that message control is an illusion is either laziness or a failure to grasp one of the most basic principles of corporate communications. Message control is about the messages you, the brand communicator, and your brand spokespeople, put out there. Your output, over time, should change the tone of the general chit-chat in the way you want it to. That’s message control. It takes time and effort. It is not suited to social media but, hey – if you want to be constantly at risk of being backfooted and you want to increase your investment manyfold – go ahead.

4. Social media requires a real budget! It’s not really cheap or free.

Yes, it does. No, it’s not. And as social media doesn’t deliver a quantifiable ROI and has yet to make anyone any money, just, exactly, why would you put your limited marketing budget against it? I merely ask.

5. They’re scared they’ll be sued.

And rightly so. Employees + unregulated access to social media = Risk.

6) They’re scared of giving away corporate secrets or that information on social networks will affect the stock price.

Yes, you do need to create a social media policy. But policies aren’t foolproof. The FSA (in the UK) has serious rules on disclosure – doesn’t stop people playing fast and loose with financial information, and these are professionals, not naive and untrained employees.

Some employees are hired to represent the brand and talk to customers, others are hired because they have  a specific and specialised skillset. Not all of them would be comfortable being a brand ambassador. Others suffer from a sort of corporate Tourette’s when confronted with message boards and suggestion boxes. It’s not a question of trust, it’s a question of horses for courses.

Someone actually said – and I’ve quoted it in a previous post – that the very nature of social media leads to inadvertent disclosure. Which scares the living crap out of me.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with another post. This time about a company that gets mentioned quite a lot in connection with social media (along with Starbucks, Dell, Zappo, Amazon and Dominos – always these six, strange really), Best Buy. They asked, on their Facebook group, whether they should have the Best Buy website in Spanish. Cue negative, even racist comment. (Actually, in fairness, how were they to know? But it does say something about the type of Facebooketeers attracted to Best Buy.) So what were they to do? Well, as I understand it, if you’re a social media head – a company hippy – then you join the conversation. You motivate your online community to rally to your defence.

Horsesh*t. If you’re sensible, you do exactly what Best Buy did. You pull the plug and hope that it goes away.

This is the wonder of social media – you never know what it’s going to do and whether it’s going to take a big chunk out of your bum. If it does, however, just turn it off.

Join the conversation, my *rse.

Social Media – The End is Nigh!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Evaluation, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

In a recent post, I said I was delighted to be the first to announce the beginning of the beginning of the end of social media. Obviously, I was being provocative – and I’ve been inundated with literally no comments at all about my position.

That has not stopped me maintaining my stance, but changing it slightly. Today, blog snorkellers, I am announcing the beginning of the beginning of the end of this round of social media. That’s not to say that there won’t be more, but this lot are definitely on the way out.

Why am I taking this view? Well, partially because my gut tells me it’s true – and as you’ll all know, there’s a big school of thought that says all decisions should be made with the gut – and partially because of this.

Yes, the Times of London – if you summarise the article and extrapolate the messages – doesn’t believe it’s for real either. And the geeky types they’ve got to explain the social media thing are just trotting out the same old, same old nonsense. So, don’t listen to me if you don’t want to – but do read The Times.

Social Media – Culturally Diverse, or Simply Take It or Leave It?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Evaluation, External Communications, Internal Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Apologies in advance – this isn’t a terribly clever post. (And we do like a bit of clever, blog-snorkellers, don’t we?)

It’s simply that I got randomly forced, like a reluctant and rather fleshy square peg into an unattractive and not-terribly-fulfilling round hole, into attending a training course recently, entitled ‘Communicating Across Cultures’. With the help of some Janets and Johns, we were introduced to the pitfalls of dealing with colleagues and stakeholders from other parts of the world, and the things we might need to think about in order to ensure that the message got across, that we didn’t mortally affend anyone and that the right outcomes were achieved. We talked about direct and indirect styles  of communication, task vs relationship focusing and egalitarianism and status as a leadership and personality styles.

Then, in direct contrast, at home, over the weekend, over a glass of wine, I watched a movie called ‘Body of Lies’. (Which gives you an insight into the sort of cultural level at which I am comfortable operating.) Said movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, is almost an anti-course in cultural awareness. Russell Crowe is extremely effective as the senior CIA operator who – quite clearly – does not give a shit whether he offends or not, and is either self-confident enough, or deluded enough, not to care how he is perceived. At the end, however, you feel he is rather more isolated than he would like to be and, while achieving against his goals and the goals of his employer, there is something slightly pathetic and tenuous about him.

Unfortunately, I cannot help but thinking that social media is the Russell Crowe Body of Lies character. It’s heavy-handed and there’s no room for nuance. Indeed, as the province of the cyber-hippy, where we should all love each other and share everything and give peace a chance, well – there’s no need for nuance, is there?

It works well across communities and countries which share common cultural dimensions. What this will mean in practice is that the US, the UK, Australia and South Africa will be comfortable sharing a social medium, but it’s unlikely that China, or India or (perhaps surprisingly) Brazil are going to want to join them.

The thing about communicating effectively across cultures – and being successful as a business across cultures – is that it requires a basket of difefrent tools – words, attitude, behaviours and knowing which medium to use. The thing about social media is that it is one-dimensional and it brings nothing to this party.

It’s something else for the social media gurus to start working on and something else for their clients to throw money at. And I’d warrant that it’s something else that will never be resolved.

Social Media Policies – Company Hippies vs Corporate Nazis

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Internal Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Yes, it IS that simple. Apparently. When it comes to social media use in the workplace, you are either one or the other – Company Hippy or Corporate Nazi. There appears to be little in the way of middle ground and the two groups do not like each other very much.

I’ve been on the way to this conclusion for some time – as my regular blog-snorkellers will know, I did a tentative post on the new New Age a bit ago, and postulated the existence of the cyber-hippy – but an article I happened upon today served as the crystallisation catalyst and suddenly all was sparkly clear. (Yes, I know it’s four months old, but the internet’s a big place and I’ve only just got round to this bit of it.)

As background, I’ve been giving a bit of thought to corporate policies on employee use of social media recently – yep, quite late to the party, sorry, but, to misquote Kurt Cobain, ‘here I am now, entertain me’ – and today I found a list of such policies, one of which was the policy cited in the Mashable.com article mentioned above. (If you’ve not seen it before, the list is worth a look – it offers an real insight into the true state of corporate thinking on the social media issue.)

The article and the comments it attracted are a stark illustration of the divide that exists and the lack of middle ground. First we start with the editorial, in which the journalist (a Company Hippy) suggests that the most important question any organisation should ask itself is ‘what can social media do for my organisation’ rather than the (to my mind, more germane) question ‘how can social media harm us and what can we do to prevent it’. (Note the use of language in the second question – I’ll re-phrase it – ‘what potential damage can use of social media do to our organisation and how can we limit that potential damage’.)

The writer then goes on to suggest that ‘any company, really – should encourage their (employees) to intelligently and creatively participate (sic) in the wonderful world of social media. Mixing business and pleasure is bad? I say it gives a human touch.’ Definitely a ‘give peace a chance’ type.

Moving to the commentary – well – have a look at it for yourself. Almost evenly split and (in general) completely polarised. On the one hand, the company hippies – everyone should have a voice, it’s about dialogue and conversations, individual relationships between employee and stakeholder – and on the other the corporate Nazis – there’s a real risk, there’s a lot to lose, serious controls are necessary.

And me? Well, I believe that, as an industry, we communicators do not know enough about social media and how it works to be able to properly evaluate it and devise usage strategies. What I would say, however, is that we do know about other forms of media. We know that other forms of media can bite if mishandled. There’s no reason to expect social media to behave any differently.

Thus – let’s start off with rigid, even draconian, policies. And let’s review them monthly, quarterly, whatever. And let’s relax them – if appropriate – as we learn more about how it works.

Let’s not run before we can walk.

Social Media – Fire the Facebook Five!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Internal Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Another day, another example of social media tomfoolery. Today, for your delight and delectation, we have the Facebook Five – a group of prison guards from New South Wales who ‘stand accused of misconduct after making disparaging remarks about their boss on the social networking site’. The full story is but a click away.

 They’ve been threatened with the sack, however their union has gone to tribunal to save their jobs – the argument being that the guards were letting off steam in their own time, in a ‘private’ Facebook group, and therefore it’s simply like shooting your mouth off in the pub, which everyone does.

 And that’s the nub of the matter. Recently, I copped some flack after saying that employees should not be allowed to post to social media either about their employer or on behalf of their employer. This last function should be left to qualified company spokespeople. I said that freedom of speech is not a right that an employee has on company time or when using company equipment. I went as far as to mention disciplinary action.

 What I didn’t say, of course, because I took it as read, is that employees DO comment about their work, their company and their boss. Of course they do. To friends, family, colleagues and the posse down the pub. That’s a given.

 However, no matter what the Facebook Five’s union official may claim, there is a massive difference between making disparaging comments down the pub and making disparaging comments in a Facebook group, even a private one.

 The difference – quite obviously – is that no matter how private your Facebook group, there is a chance that someone – outside of your circle – will see it. And its content – your comments – may become a matter of public record. And, social media and the internet being what they are, your comments may attract a very wide audience.

 Simply put, remarks down the pub last as long as someone’s memory of them. Comments posted to social media last forever, somewhere. Social media, the internet, is not private and no-one should regard it as such.

 The New South Wales prison service should have had a social media policy – this may have acted as a deterrent. The Facebook Five, however, should have thought about what they were doing and recognised the potential consequences of their actions – and it’s for that crass stupidity that they should be fired.

It’s The End of The World As We Know It……..

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , .

….and I feel fine. Sorry. Gratuitous REM reference.

Listen chaps, sorry I’m a bit late coming to this one, but it is quite important. So listen carefully.

Great story in PR Week, couple of weeks ago. (I know, I know, I’m not a fan of PR Week, but credit where credit’s due, eh?) It was about the Guido Fawkes blog – see, here – more specifically, the chap behind it, Paul Staines, avowing to take on and reveal ‘the fat cats of spin and their hidden hand in politics’. He said his primary targets were Matthew Freud (almost had a Freudian spelling slip there – irony at its most pure), Alan Parker and Roland Rudd.

What Mr Staines is reported as saying is that ‘there is a legitimate role for lobbying, but (not) over coffee and cigars after a meal.’ He also said ‘people are coming to me with information and I’m building up a picture of who. what, where.’ Our august industry journal went on to reveal that ‘lobbyists privately dismissed Staines’ efforts, but were reluctant to go on record’. Hold on – where’s all that smoke coming from?

Personally, I think this is brilliant stuff. If Mr Staines delivers on his promise, then we (as an industry) are in for some very interesting times. Spin will have been proven. All those terrible rumours about PR behind closed doors will be exposed as truth – in the minds of most Daily Mail readers, anyway. What I would really like to have seen, mind, is some response from Messrs Freud, Parker or Rudd – but I am a realist and it’ll be a cold day in hell etc etc etc.

The real star of the piece, mind, was Lionel Zetter. “The Tories have been using the letters page of PR Week to send a clear message to lobbyists that it will not be ‘business as usual’ if they win the next general election.” Excellent.

Wait a minute, though – is Mr Zetter saying that it IS currently ‘business as usual’? And am I right in understanding that ‘business as usual’ in the context of this article is the ‘coffee and cigars after a meal’ that Mr Staines talks about? Confirmation, perhaps, that Guido Fawkes is on to a winner?

Anyway, I know nothing about the subject. I think it is a marvellous story though and I look forward to the follow-ups.

The only thing, and it’s just a thought, why was it buried on page whatever of the magazine, while the front page was graced with a ‘story’ about research that showed that professional footballers are not in touch with their fans?

Surely some mistake? Or is Mr Staines considered too dangerous for the front page?

Social Media – Release the Inner F@*!wit!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Internal Communications, Internal Communications and Engagement, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Yep, she be gathering momentum.

Having just made a big fat posting about changing my mind, eating gateau d’humilite, and advocating getting a social media policy (quickly, quickly, before it goes horribly, horribly wrong) if only to control those of your people who will undoubtedly, as sure as a werewolf comes over all bristly roundabout full moon, mutate into dribbly village idiots when confronted with social media –  and I surf directly into this.

Oooop. The fine lads and lasses of the Emergency Department at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital find themselves suspended pending a disciplinary, having decided to play the Lying Down Game (google it, my life’s too short) and post their pictures on Facebook. Seven of them were suspended. You’d have thought, simply according to the law of averages, that one of them would have been bright enough to say ‘hey up, guys – maybe we shouldn’t be doing this’. But they did it anyway.

A fair proportion of the blame lies with the hospital authority. Quite clearly there wasn’t a social media strategy (for strategy, read ‘draconian guideline policy’) in place and quite clearly, no-one had bothered to monitor social media outlets to see what was being said/posted. So you can’t wholly blame the employees – they had a right (I guess) to expect to be protected from themselves.

Now – before anyone points out that I’m being a hypocrite and a two-faced, mealy-mouthed, stance-changer (having made it very clear that I believe social media to be impossible to monitor or regulate) – when I say ‘monitor social media’ what I mean is having a quick look at Facebook and Twitter and searching for the name of your brand, company or organisation.

In this case, it wouldn’t have been too difficult to track down the Secret Swindon Emergency Department Group. 

Actually, on reflection, maybe those employees on suspension deserve everything that’s coming to them.

Social Media – Careful What You Twit For

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , .

There was an article by Duncan Bannantyne (one of those TV entrepreneurs) in the Telegraph recently, dealing with Twitter and how it had got him into trouble. The article started thus:

“Does Gordon Ramsay always eat in one of his restaurants? Does Tiger Woods only wear Nike clothing?

 I suspect not.

 Yet when I had the audacity to spend some time at my French villa in between filming for a forthcoming TV show on great British seaside towns, I was called a “hypocrite” by sections of the national media.”

(You can read the whole thing by doing clickety-doos here.)

Unfortunately, Mr Bannantyne is labouring under the impression that the media hate him because he was filming a programme on British seaside towns, and spending time at his villa in France. I’d hazard a guess that really, that’s not the problem. The problem is that he’s got a villa in France and he’s Twittering about it. And about having glasses of wine. At his villa in France.

It’s a very fine line, obviously. He’s a successful man (I believe) and therefore he has the trappings of success. And quite right too. Thing is, people don’t really want to know about it. What they want to know from Mr Bannantyne is how to ape his success – they want from him pearls of wisdom in terms of entrepreneurship, growing businesses – making cash.

So, three things. (And, in fairness, Mr Bannantyne asks the questions and recognises the issues.)

The hubris of Twitter – why would you post from an airport terminal when you’ve time to spare? No-one – apart from your close friends and family (and not many of them) – cares whether you’ve got time on your hands in an airport terminal.

The content you post to Twitter – if you’re a celebrity, if people expect stuff from you, if you’re an expert on something, then recognise your responsibility. There’s things people want to know and things they don’t.

The ubiquity and immediacy of Twitter – once it’s posted, assume it’s everywhere.

Anyone who follows this blog (the blog that nobody reads) will know how I feel about social media and the dangers to corporate reputation that it represents. I think this is a great case in point – Mr Bannatyne is his own body corporate. He has a reputation to uphold – a reputation that he trades on. His off-the-cuff Tweets did some damage.

He’s a serious businessman. He probably understands the ins and outs of communication. Imagine the damage that could be done by someone posting to social media, on behalf of a brand or organisation, that doesn’t have an understanding of communication.