Public Relations

Twitter – I Can Do That, Gis A Job

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

Came across this, which is a look at the American political Twittersphere – I know, I know, sounds horribly complicated and not a little worthy (and it is) – but actually worth a quick look – if only to see who’s using it. Anyway, it’s not the point of this post, so don’t waste too much time.

While I was looking at it, I was drawn to @schwarzenegger (like a moth to a flame, or a fly to dog poo, or a small child to an unprotected electrical socket) and my morbid fascination, dear blog snorkellers, was amply rewarded. Do, please, have a quick look.

Quite clearly, The Governator is not going to tweet himself. No, he has a team of tweeters – and judging by their performance over the last few days, they have fallen foul of ‘Call Me Dave’s ‘too many tweets makes a twat’. I’m sorry – I don’t know Mr Schwarzenegger (although I am a great fan of his oeuvre) (serious) but there is no way on God’s green earth that he is going to post “in case you missed it, here is a clip from our water press conf. That’s what I call bipartisan.” He’s just not. Sorry.

So, I may have missed the point. 1) Maybe it is him, and I’ve been suckered by his monosyllabic silver screen routine. 2) Maybe he dictates it. 3) Maybe no-one cares what the words actually are – it’s the message that counts.

Actually, none of this. What we have here is failure to communicate. Governor Schwarzenegger, publicity-hungry, comms-oriented soul that he is (and I believe he is, and for most of the right reasons) has been advised to ‘do Twitter’. So he’s said yes. And he clearly can’t do it himself, so he’s got someone to do it for him.

Nothing wrong with that – I think most people would expect it – but it throws up a fundamental rule of corporate communications which perhaps the social media strategists have yet to learn. It’s a simple one. Ready?

If, in your communications, you take on the voice of someone else – the CEO, or the Governator – make sure that you approximate their usual delivery (either spoken or written).  Most people understand that this stuff is written by a ghost writer, but no-one wants their face rubbed in it.

Anyway, based on the Governator’s twitter feed – I could do better than that.

Dear Mr Schwarzenegger, can I be your twat?

Sustainability, Social Responsibility And Social Media

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

It’s got to be more than 10 years ago that I was first exposed to sustainable hysteria. I was, at the time, working for a well-known FTSE100 constituent who – it has to be said – had a fairly good (if somewhat misguided) track record in the field of corporate philanthropy (because that’s what it was in those days).

It would have been possible to argue that a literary sponsorship did far much more for the literati than it did for reading in schools, and that the continued funding of a manufacturing plant’s brass band, long after the plant had closed down, was a refusal to let go of the past, rather than an investment in the future. That (rather churlishly) being said, the company tried, and tried to get its workforce involved and on-side.

So, as an exercise in community relations – and this was a company that operated in communities – and as part of building a cohesive internal culture, this company’s CSR programme didn’t do too badly.

But then along came the concept of ethical investing. For the first time, it seemed as if investment decisions – particularly amongst the big investors – would be made as much on ethical track record as on corporate business performance. On top of that, it was suggested that consumer purchasing decisions would be made on the back of the brand’s ethics – so either way you looked at it CSR, sustainability, corporate ethics became the things that would make the difference between success and failure.

And in no time at all, an industry had grown up around it – consultants to advice you on your CSR and your sustainable business model, and organisations that would benchmark you, so that you’d know how you’d performed. FTSE4Good, Business in the Community, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index – all time-consuming, all expensive – but all doing a very good job of selling themselves to the business community to the point where absence was more conspicuous than inclusion.

It’s just my perception – and many would argue with me – but there was something of the Emperor’s new clothes about it all – and I for one, in my next job, told the executive Committee that we would not longer take part in FTSE4Good, or the DJSI as they cost money, wasted resource and delivered no real value. I have a feeling that many communicators felt like me – not dismissive of CSR, rather dismissive of the parasitic industry that sprang up to feed on the corporate social conscience.

Of course, ethics never went away – in the same way that they’d always been there in one form or another, long before someone invented the term ‘ethical investment’ – and a set of corporate ethics is fundamental to all business success. Simply put, if you make your products out of toxic waste, employ slave labour in the manufacturing process, and test the results on children, then you WILL be found out. You don’t need a consultant to tell you that. (I hope.) Business ethics have been around since Dickens’ Christmas Carol – some companies shout about them, others choose not to. No company needs to pay an outside organisation a fortune to judge their ethics for them.

Sustainable hysteria took hold again about two and half years ago. As the icecaps melted, the last few square hectares of rainforest were cut down and (in the UK anyway) there was the threat of a) a change in government and b) legislation in terms of emissions and operating practices, so companies started on their Social, Ethical and Environmental Policies – put something in place to stave off the worst excesses of the legislators. Again, out from the woodwork came the mountebanks and the charlatans – the advisors on sustainability, ready to devise you a plan and relieve you of your budget. A budget, incidentally which hadn’t existed before and which had thus been taken from other areas of your business. A business that was probably already in decent shape.

And then came the Great Recession of 2008/09. Suddenly a lot of people – business leaders, legislators, consumers – all realised that corporate ethics are all well and good, but really, you’ve got to treat business like the grown-up that it is. On the one hand you have to trust that it will behave ethically most of the time and on the other hand, you’ve got to believe that it merits your trust. The recession demonstrated that there are more important things in life. Not that anyone forgot about emissions, recycling, energy saving – they simply stopped wasting time agonising and proselytising.

The Great Recession, however, by some strange twist of fate (and this cannot be coincidence, can it?), has been accompanied by one of the greatest social shifts of modern times – the global embracing of social media. And, as I’ve posted here before, the rise of social media has created – mostly in America, but I fear for the UK – the cyber-hippie, who believes that all people are equal under the blog, that everyone should be free to have a voice, that the very fabric of capitalism will change as the inherent contract between consumer and brand becomes a contract between consumer and brand employee, via the social medium.

This is both frightening and infectious – the idea that business as we know it will change, become more embracing of its stakeholders, accept and act upon feedback and suggestions – to the point where products and services will not be created by the companies who manufacture and supply them, but by the consumer. A Utopia where the consumer simply has to blog that they want a frozen pizza with banana and limestone, and a brand owner will make one.

The Great Recession, and the misery that’s gone with it, has made this a very attractive proposition. Everyone wants to believe that we can make a better life with what we know now and that the post-Great Recession world will be focused more on ethics and social responsibility than it will be on capitalism and the creation of profit. People-driven, rather than profit-driven.

Clever people have been suckered by this. Some, such as Robert Phillips writing in PRWeek, have been so taken in by it, that they’re actually setting the communications profession up as the next set of charlatans, mountebanks and snake-oil salesmen who will advocate this way of operation at the highest level. (Sorry, can’t link to the PRWeek article, which is a shame.)

Until the pain of the Great Recession fades, and we re-enter the ‘Good Times’ phase of the cycle.

Corporate Communications – Make Dictionaries Mandatory

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

Opinion piece in PRWeek, issue dated November 13, by Robert Phillips, UK CEO of Edelman. He uses the word ‘mandate’ twice, both times incorrectly.

Is it just me, or is the word ‘mandate’ getting an increasing amount of use amongst communicators currently? Often, as far as I can see, being used to supplant the tried and tested ‘brief’ or ‘account’ or, heaven forbid, ‘service contract’.

Well – here’s the news. It’s an incorrect usage. Getting a mandate does not mean being contracted to provide a service (PR or otherwise) for money. Just a quick look at t’internet reveals the definition here reproduced:

mandate

n [ˈmændeɪt -dɪt]

1. an official or authoritative instruction or command

2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) Politics the support or commission given to a government and its policies or an elected representative and his policies through an electoral victory

3. (Historical Terms) (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (often capital) Also called mandated territory (formerly) any of the territories under the trusteeship of the League of Nations administered by one of its member states

4. (Law)

a.  Roman law a contract by which one person commissions another to act for him gratuitously and the other accepts the commission

b.  Contract law a contract of bailment under which the party entrusted with goods undertakes to perform gratuitously some service in respect of such goods

c.  Scots law a contract by which a person is engaged to act in the management of the affairs of another

vb [ˈmændeɪt] (tr)

1. (Law) International law to assign (territory) to a nation under a mandate

2. to delegate authority to

3. Obsolete to give a command to

[from Latin mandātum something commanded, from mandāre to command, perhaps from manus hand + dāre to give]

mandator  n

Collins Essential English Dictionary, 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

Nowhere in the definition can I see the meaning that Phillips and others within the industry would attribute to the word mandate.

Doesn’t make us, as communicators, look very clever, does it.

And as for the rest of Phillips’ article – well, I’ll post some comments when I’m feeling slightly more objective.

Internal Comms/Social Media – Addenda to Social Media Policies

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

The whole social media space is a minefield littered with UXBs and especially so for a company’s employees. Social media are growing and changing and influencing behaviours far faster than most people can keep up – it’s got to the point where a corporate use of social media policy is not only a business necessity, it’s actually part of the corporate ‘duty of care’ to employees.

Here’s a thought – educating employees in the use of social media may be seen, in the future, as an employee benefit provided by the company. Possibly those more forward-thinking companies, without exposing themselves to the free-for-all that is open employee access, might actually be seen to be taking a lead on the issue, simply by ensuring their employees are social media savvy in a semi-formal fashion. Brown-bag training sessions, interactive intranets. Who knows.

Anyway – here’s an article from The Guardian that deals with the specific problems of colleagues following you on Twitter, or friending you on Facebook. Particularly senior colleagues. The implication – and it’s correct – is that social media are blurring the lines between work life and personal life. There is no such thing as a personal life anymore – what you’ve got is a work life and life when you’re not working. Use of social media – Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, et al – means that anyone can find you at anytime. Nothing that you post to these sites is private. There is a record of all you have written and uploaded. If it sounds a bit Big Brother, that’s because it is.

There is, obviously, a solution to the dilemma. It’s taken a lot of thought. It’s not popular. It flies in the face of current thinking. It’s this. DON’T USE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK. OR ANY OTHER SOCIAL MEDIUM. If you want to organise a party, send out invitations via email (still trackable, but not available to everyone). If you fancy getting in touch with someone – meet them for a drink. Give them a call. Write a letter. Go on, give it a try.

But no. You want to be free, to get LinkedIn, to have a good time. And this why – as the boundaries between you personally and you professionally blur and dissolve – it’s more and more important that there are not only corporate social media policies, but corporate social media etiquette statements also.

It pains me, but we’re here (how? how?) and now we have to deal with it. So, in the spirit of understanding and sharing, here’s something that I stumbled across earlier. I should say now that these are the thoughts of one Bristol-based managing editor (mid-thirties, apparently) who makes it clear on his blog that monkeys like me are not to steal his thoughts without due attribution and permission. I haven’t got permission, but consider this attribution. These are not my thoughts – I am simply passing on the wisdom of another.

(NB The guidelines that Mr Bristol sets out here are, actually, quite corporately focused. But they work equally well for use of social media on a personal level. You could adapt them. But I’d ask Mr Bristol for his permission first. You never know.)

Internal Communications – Solving The Sidewiki Issue

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

Oh dear. Much Fuss in the Wold. Google launches Sidewiki at the end of September and in reasonably short order – well, a matter of weeks – the blogosphere is givin’ it all that about how a) anyone can post anything about your website and b) your employees (if you’re a business) can get all disgruntled and post stuff about your website. Aaaagh – we’ll all be ruined!

 So, let’s get this straight. You’ve got a website and – for those people who’ve downloaded Sidewiki – they can now see visitor comments on your site, in a side bar. These comments are posted by both randomers visiting your site, and regulars, so they may – or indeed may not – be positive or negative or neutral. Those with Sidewiki can, obviously, post their own comments.

 And the hysterical rationale from those who’ve ‘embraced’ social media is that, of course, everyone who’s on social media will all get jiggy wid de Wiki and it’ll be the end of corporate web presences as we know it. Well, no. Bollocks.

 1)       In order to use Google’s lovely Sidewiki, you’ve got to download it. And in downloading it, you tacitly allow Google to track your internet usage. And you have to have the IQ of an Eccles Cake to do that

2)       Those people who do have the IQ of an Eccles Cake are, obviously, not people about whose opinion anyone actually gives a shit

3)       Those fine folk at Google have the final say on what’s posted on Sidewiki and they’re interested, obviously, in the thoughts of those people who’ve given them the most trade/traffic/personal information. The average (and most dangerous) Eccles Cake-head does not figure in the Googlisation of the world and thus their comments won’t get posted

4)       What are you doing anyway? Why are you worried about your employees (those who are Eccles Cakers anyway) posting to Sidewiki – they shouldn’t be able to do it from work anyway. And they should be dissuaded from doing it at home by a  binding contract that will see them skinned alive, rolled in salt and then parboiled should they decide to get all clever on your arse

5)       What are you doing anyway, Part 2. Why on earth should your website attract unpleasant Wikiness? Are you not the model of a business? With a luvverly corporate culture, and employees who believe in you and a demonstrable set of ethics and – hopefully – no instances of toxic waste and smothering children in your past? Of course you are and therefore – why should you be bothered?

6)       No company is wholly able to tick the point 5) box – get (and enforce) a Use of Social Media Policy, quick-smart, choppy-chop

 Oh – and please, please, can we stop panicking. How have we – perfectly sensible people – come to this?

Corporate Communications – The Whale Penis Story

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

Here’s something you simply couldn’t make up if you tried. Some Russian automotive manufacturer decides to upholster the seats of their latest blingmobile in – yes, obviously – whale penis leather. For the hard of thinking, that’s the tanned skin of a whale’s penis. For the puerile, yes, it came in four skin colours.

 Pamela Anderson gets involved, because, obviously (again) she can’t bear to think of the plight of the whales’ penises. Sends email to Russians. Russians decide not to use whale penis leather any more. Issue a retraction. Everyone happy.

 Now, listen up. The serious message in this is…………………..no, you’re right. Who cares. Enjoy it for what it is.

Social Media – A Presence On Youmytwidioboobespace

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

Some time ago, I suggested the imminent coalescing of one or more social media – as the only real way that they can survive individually is by broadening their offer and thus encroaching on each other’s space. (It’s my space! No, it’s not, it’s TwinkedIn.) Just in case you’re not an avid follower of my random – but increasingly accurate – musings, you can catch up here.

Hurry up, the rest of us aren’t going to wait all day.

Right. Anyway, the point is that I’ve just received my first request though LinkedIn to be someone’s bitch follower (or was it that she wanted to be my follower?) on Twitter. Oh, but yes. The gradual merging of media has started and who knows where it will end. As an aside, I cannot see how the Twitter/LinkedIn deal is going to work – LinkedIn has already taken on some of the aspects of Facebook, as people forget that it’s a business tool and post quick updates on their musical tastes – and the culture of Twitter (the Twattish behaviour, if you like) will not mix well with the orignal culture of LinkedIn.

Be that as it may. This is the beginning – as I’ve said several times before – of the end, specifically the end of the social media free-for-all that exists now. So – if you’re a corporate, and you’re thinking of dipping your toe – perhaps even investing something in it – is now the time?

Remember Betamax. You don’t want to be Twitter-savvy, if it turns out that Wave is the future – and yes, OK, I know that’s a bit faux-naif. (Qui? Moi?)

But social media, as a business tool – marketing, comms and to a certain extent, sales – does not deliver tangible benefit. And while it’s still sorting itself out, it’s unlikely to. So curb your enthusiasm – because I know you’re just busting to get involved – and let’s see how it shakes down.

It won’t take long, mark my words……..

Crisis Management – Yes, Stupid, You Need A Plan

Posted on by in Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

Following on from news of Burson Marsteller’s research in to European companies’  level of crisis-preparedness – I wrote about it recently – which revealed (in addition to such gems as ‘crises may affect share price’) that while 60% of companies polled had encountered some sort of crisis, 53% didn’t have a plan – PRWeek sees fit to inform its readership that “Crisis Comms Is (a) Hot Topic”. (What is this? Some sort of uncontrolled outbreak of the Galloping Bleedin’ Obviousnesses?)

Now, in fairness (because, when all’s said and done, I’m a reasonably fair bloke) PRWeek is reporting that ‘more than 60 communicators from large international corporations across the EMEA region were set to meet in London to discuss the findings” (of the Burson-Marsteller report).  Which I find both terrifying and very difficult to believe in equal measure – what are 60 communicators going to do with the loosely-structured, scaremongering collection of motherhood statements that is the B-M report? Will they agree with the statistics – ie 36 of their number have experienced a crisis, while 32 of them don’t have a plan in place? And will the 28 who do then jeer and point at the others?

I suspect, given that the keynote speaker at this – judging by the breathless PRWeek copy (“Senior comms executives were set to convene this week to thrash out crisis comms strategies in the wake of new research” – oh, please) – hastily-arranged gathering, is the owner of a security and risk management advisory firm, that this is more of a paid-for training session cum conference. But, hey, call me an old cynic.

Two things then. All you 60 communicators set to gather in London – what are you doing? If you haven’t got a crisis plan – and you don’t know where to start –  don’t spend your money on coming to London to listen to a lecture. Get in touch with the CIPR or the PRCA and ask for their recommendations on a crisis management consultant, and then go and have a conversation. Quick-smart, choppy-chop.

Thing two. PRWeek. Instead of reporting this horseshit in a breathless fashion, could we please, please have a three page feature on creating a robust crisis management plan – some case histories maybe? You could even shadow one of the 32 of the 60 who don’t have a plan as he or she goes through the process of getting one together. Just a thought.

Corporate Communications – The Boxing Metaphor (2)

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

Story of my life really – I back an almost unassailable certainty and, with my support, it rapidly turns itself into an outside chance at best, a practical impossibility at worst. So it was with the Haye/Valuev boxing extravaganza on Saturday night last – I used the fight as a metaphor for companies/organisations who are caught out in a lie. They lose respect, consumer confidence, loyalty – in effect, they get caned. So it was – obviously – to be with Haye – mouthy git, giving it all this about knocking Valuev out, comes the time to prove it, he’d get in the ring with the behemoth and – smack – good night, Vienna.

Only. Only…..he didn’t. When push came to shove, he danced round the foothills of man-mountain, nipping at Valuev’s heels, worrying his hamstrings and cutting a long one short – as you will all know, my boxing blog snorkellers – he won on points. So – firstly congratulations to Mr Haye and secondly – OK, OK, I was wrong.

But it still niggles, The metaphor was quite a good one and I think there’s something to be salvaged here. Like the company that’s called to put its money where its mouth is and prove some of its claims, Mr Haye did enough to save himself from exposure. But it wasn’t terribly convincing. It was an explanation with holes in it, that everyone knows probably isn’t the real deal.

So my metaphor still stands – David Haye is the company that’s done some burbling, bumbling and obfuscating and has wriggled off the hook. But make no mistake – no-one’s going to forget this and they’ll be waiting should this company/organisation try something similar again.  

And in my metaphor’s case, he has no choice other than to try something similar again.

Crisis Management – Who’d Have Thought It?

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

Today I is mostly loving Burson-Marsteller and their ability to keep a straight face. That most marvellous of publications, Communicate Magazine, has a story about some research that B-M has conducted into the crisis-preparedness of European companies.

I am extremely lazy, and therefore, you – dear blog snorkeller – can read it for yourself. Click the light fantastic here.

What prompts me to share it are B-M’s findings as regards the consequences of a crisis (crisis (n.) an unstable period, esp one of extreme trouble or danger in politics, economics, etc), which, apparently, can include “falling share prices, loss of corporate reputation, loss of media and/or public trust and law suits by individuals or groups”.

In other news, scientists at the Institute for Studies have discovered that water is wet, the sky is blue and petrol is frighteningly flammable.