US and THEM or Us vs THEM?

In recent posts we have all discussed the use of social media in Public Relations to bring back the public, so lets take a look at some of the campaigns that have truly succeeded in doing this, creating change, and acceptance for their brand.

In 2008 US president Barack Obama, found his way to the White House through the implementation of one of the most successful online campaigns. Obama understood that in 2008 the Internet held the capabilities necessary, to truly run a citizen based campaign.Obama launched his own social media site My.BarackObama.com the site allowed Obama followers to create their own sites, fundraise, host events, door knock, interact with other followers, watch key speeches join affinity groups and other activities. These individuals held the power to this campaign, it was truly grassroots and in every aspect of Obama’s campaign he acknowledge this through the “we”, it was rarely every “I”. The campaign saw success on every level, it raised over 600 million dollars, got the largest number of people out to vote since 1908 and contributed to the success of Barack Obama in his journey to the white house. (Norquay 2008, Talbot 2008)Through employing almost every social media platform available including, Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, blogs, Flickr, and Digg, Obama interacted with his supporters in ways that have never been seen. He used the platforms to inspire, motivate and mobilise publics, the result, was the highest number of voters since 1908.

Lets take a look at a more recent campaign.

Greenpeace International boasts some 500,000 followers on Facebook, which when you think about the worlds population probably isn’t really a great deal, but when you think about in terms of reach, it is a lot of people. Recently Greenpeace international along with its geographical counter parts set forth a campaign to stop Nestle’ from using palm oil from suppliers destroying the habitat of orangutans.

Over a few weeks Greenpeace international posted many status’ around Facebook urging followers to send emails to Nestle to urge them to stop destroying our rainforests, they posted a ad to Youtube depicting a man eating an orangutans finger, which has had some 20,000 hits, and when this didn’t worked they urged us to pick up the phone.

Nestle retaliated, angrily requesting people did not replace the Kit Kat logo with Killer and this just made people angrier, and when Nestle did decide to stop using these palm oils, their message was merely a whisper in the abundance of noise Greenpeace had created.

I first heard of the campaign when it came up in my Facebook newsfeed, then we discussed the issue in one of our classes, and since it has been a topic for bloggers as they discuss the poor management of Social Media campaigns.

I guess the point here is that social media is a great way to get the public involved in your campaign, but we need to understand what to do and how to manage the situation when the campaign is against rather than for us.

Bianca Agius

Norquay, G. (2008) Organising without and Organisation: The Obama Networking revolution. Accessed 13/5/09 from http://www.irpp.org/polarchive/0ct08/norquay.pdf.

Talbot, D., (2008) How Obama Really Did It. Social Technology helped bring him to the brink of presidency. MIT – Technology Review 111(5) 78 – 38. Accessed from EBSCOHOST.

Think Outside The Square You Live In or Perish...

Some really interesting thoughts about the Future of Public Relations by Futurist Gerd Leonhard. If you are interested in some of his other ideas in Technology and Communication take a look at his website: http://www.mediafuturist.com/

BY JESSICA HODGES

A DANGEROUS THOUGHT!

I would like to address Ashleigh Smith’s comment about new media not killing old media and the development of Web 2.0 and the ‘pro’ user being beneficial as it eliminates journalistic bias in news selection and ‘twisting’ of stories.

It is true the Internet is rapidly growing, and as it grows with new Web 2.0 media and public relations practices other traditional media such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines are drastically decreasing.

It seems people and companies alike are tailoring any type of information like pubic relations, advertising and news to what they want and to what concerns them.

Advertising Age editor Jonah Bloom highlights how public relations is ‘slowly, but systematically seeing the destruction of journalism’ as its fundamental structure has been overtaken by competition through social media, aka Web 2.0.

Today’s market is so segmented that people are exposed to what Jonah refers to as ‘news and views they already agree with,’ offering no diversity of information, reinforcing and not demanding other perspectives, which as a consequence can lead to laziness and a limited scope of the world and company products.

It seems new public relation practices and mediums are all about Personalisation! Personalisation! Personalisation!

Mr. Bloom poses what I believe to be a very important question of debate; ‘Do you really want to be working with a herd of poodles following fewer stories and rarely challenging the establishment?’

But wait! What does this mean for PR professionals?

Katerina James (2006) describes how the PR industry will be drastically affected by online journalism. In particular she focuses on blogging and what more technology savvy individuals call the ‘blogosphere’.

Blogging is a big part of the Internet, enabling audiences to express their personal opinions and post ‘news’ stories about clients. However, they share not only the positive but also the negative stories about an organisation by utilising mainstream media outlets.

Ms. James argues that PR professionals need to establish new modes of crisis management techniques through accessing the ‘counter-culture’ provided in blogs.

A prime example of the shift in traditional journalism over recent years to citizen journalism is the horrific 2005 London bombings. We saw ordinary people become cameramen and reporters using unconventional media such as mobile phones and social networking sites to publish content and images over the Internet during and after the attacks. It was very confronting, as the material was raw and not just from a third person perspective but from a first person viewpoint as well.

Julia Day and Chris Johnston from The Guardian (2005) report, "Within minutes of the first blast we had received images from the public and we had 50 images within an hour. Now there are thousands. We had a gallery of still photographs from the public online, and they were incredibly powerful."

This new dimension on media coverage in all media leads to the question; will traditional journalism and the blogosphere ever integrate enough to compliment each other in order to allow audiences to receive ‘the best’ of both worlds?

BY JESSICA HODGES

Day, J., & Johnston, C. (2005, July 15). Public Provides New Dimension To Media Coverage. Retrieved April 17, 2010, from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jul/08/attackonlondon.digitalmedia

James, K. (2006, June 27). Citizen Media or the Death of Journalism? Retrieved April 17, 2010, from Behind the Spin - Public Relations: Students + Practitioners + Academics: http://publicsphere.typepad.com/behindthespin/2006/06/citizen_media_o.html

To Jump Or Not To Jump On The Bandwagon: Traditional Media vs. Social Media

It is clear that social media has reinforced the ideal two-way communication model back and has provided many other benefits to the practice of public relations; however there has been a hesitancy to discuss the potential downfalls of social media. As Bianca just previously discussed, it is apparent that as public relation practitioners we need to adapt traditional communication methods and tactics so that they are more appealing in the social media forum. But just how much is social media asking for public relations to change? Have we become so blind sighted by the potential benefits social media has to offer that we could be damaging the future of public relations?

Perhaps the most notable benefit social media has provided is an ally in the battle against media gatekeepers. Social media has helped to brake down the media hierarchy, and provided tools that allow direct access to key publics (Infuential Marketing Blog, 2006). Additionally social media has expanded the limitations on time and space. Newspapers and television have very precise constraints; where as social media is not restricted in any way. Social media tools can be large and posses a layered capacity for both submitting and receiving information, especially in regards to obtaining feedback. Collaborating public opinion can be limited, time consuming and effortful using traditional media tools. As discussed previously by Ashleigh Smith, social media has presented new and efficient ways to measure public opinion and the success of online public relations.

Whilst the above points highlight the notable benefits of the application of social media in public relations, many academics are quick to challenge these ideas. The recent claims that social media has a ‘dark side’ have caused many large organisations to hesitate jumping onto the social media bandwagon (Bardack, 2009). One the main arguments put forward is that social media essentially allows anyone with limited training or professional values to enter the public relations sphere. Such non-professionalism can jeopardise an organisations’ credibility, and can also damage the professional image of public relations. Additionally the credibility of social media has been put to question as most of the information provided through social tools severely lack news values and journalistic standards. Lastly traditional media generally have a large loyal based audiences, developed over years of relationship building, one aspect that social media is yet to achieve.

It is apparent that the induction of social media has revolutionised the management of public relations, however we must consider its possible implications in a global perspective. The transformation of the Internet has largely been to the advantage of Western countries, those of which who have benefited previously from such industrial revolutions. Hence as to why the development of the Internet has placed a huge ‘digital divide’ across the globe, separating those who have access to an abundance of information to those that have none. “91% of the worlds users of the Internet are drawn from only 19% of the worlds population” (Cameron & Wilcox, 2009). These figures highlight the problem if communication resources are devoted exclusively to social media channels, key publics can be lost.

Therefore we must not only adapt traditional communication methods to the social sphere but also continue to use traditional media channels that are so deeply embed in the history of public relations. It is apparent that public relations need to utilize both traditional and social media in order to successful get their message to key publics. As upcoming public relation practitioners, it is clear that we cannot rely on social media to achieve business objectives, especially in countries that are still behind on industry revolutions. The amalgamation of both traditional and social media provides their benefits to be utilized, maximising the success of any public relations campaign.

Ashleigh McLennan

Bardack, S. (2009, October 23). Penn Olson. Retrieved April 15, 2010, from Did Social Media Kill Off Traditional Media Relations?: http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/social-media-bandwagon.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.penn-olson.com/2009/10/23/did-social-media-kill-off-traditonal-media-relations/&usg=__28PrOkUUEDyJgQbJVVlHle2bYxQ=&h=353&w=420&sz=43&hl=en&start=77&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=iTH4YkrFNIYOEM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtraditional%2Bmedia%2Bvs%2Bsocial%2Bmedia%26start%3D72%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26ndsp%3D18%26tbs%3Disch:1

Infuential Marketing Blog. (2006, October 16). The Dark Side of Social Media And 5 Ways to Avoid It. Retrieved April 15, 2010, from Infuential Marketing Blog: Refelections On Creating Compelling Marketing, Advertising and PR Strategy: http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/the_dark_side_o.html

Wilcox, D & Cameron G (2009) Public relations: Strategies and tactics(9th Ed) USA: Pearson

Social Networking vs Social Media

So there's a problem with our posts... all the posts below have addressed how social NETWORKING has impacted PR and it's connection between publics, but haven't looked at the broader definition of social media.

Social networking refers to the connection of individuals via a common link. God knows I'm sick of hearing about social networking tools like twitter, facebook, and [to a lesser extent] Myspace! but unfortunately that's what most people associate with social media. However, in addition to the communication barriers that were reduced to rubble during web the rise 2.0, a profound shift occurred in media production that broadens the term of "Social Media".

The once heavily specialised professions that revolved around the production of Audio, Video, and Photos were reduced to the realms of hobby. Today anybody can be a producer because the tools and the audience are readily available and easily accesible. I have an SLR camera, a microphone and a keyboard hooked up to the computer in my bedroom. Using this equipment and the software loaded on my computer I can produce practically anything I want, and in a very short space of time. I also have free medium dedicated distribution channels for sharing my creations with an audience. My Videos go on youtube and vimeo, my photos go on flikr and photobucket, and my audio goes on garageband.com. The social aspect of exists on all of these sites with community based feedback, comments and rating schemes.

Piracy [a social medium in it's own right] has fuelled media production. The level of quality of any given media often has a direct correlation with the quality of the software used to create it. While there are many free pieces of software for basic editing, more advanced editing software is rather expensive [for example a single license for Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended will set you back AU$1,671]. It is easy to understand how a 10 year old amateur photographer, on $10 pocket money per week, that wants to further his photographic skills would choose to pirate a copy rather than saving his pennies for 3 and a half years. I should point out that it's not just 10 year olds that are responsible for piracy's popularity, it's pretty much everyone. Peer-to-Peer file sharing gives anyone access to any and all software/digital information that's stored within the collective peer-to-peer community. This also means that things are often available in the peer-to-peer community well before official release. That being said, not everybody pirates - I for one think producers deserve their money and make a point of not pirating anything.

So, I hear you ask - how does this relate to "social media putting the public back in PR"? The Short version is: loss of control & consumer created corporate identity. Stay tuned for the long version...

With readily accessible advanced production technology, the line between amateur and pro is blurred [if not invisible] - A fantastic example of this is the Volkswagon Golf, Terrorist commercial (Watch it HERE). This ad looks and feels completely legit but was actually original user generated content that went viral. The blurring of the line between pro and amateur makes it harder for companies and consumers to differentiate one another's content. Consumers can easily engage and become representative of a given brand through original consumer created content, and corporations can't control it. Consumers now help to create a corporations identity and reputation because consumer created content is ultimately consumed by other consumers and affects their overall perception of the brand. As a result, Traditional PR practices of CSR, CRM, now involve the consumer at a base level, offering both beneficial and detrimental contributions to corporate identity. Beneficial contributions include the wide applications of crowd sourcing. Detrimental contributions include negative campaigning and resulting issues/crisis management eg. the recent KitKat/Killer campaign by greenpeace.

The public is not just back in Public Relations, now it's in the corporation.

Original ideas & thoughts by Dave Goodfellow.

Can we rebuild old PR practices?

So much of this blog discussion has been surrounded by Social media topics, that I am beginning to wonder if media documents, sponsorships, events, interviews and product placement are all void tactics in a world of social Public Relations. Surely this cannot be the case, there needs to be a point of convergence, we cannot rely, solely on social media to reinvent Public Relations, or Public Relations will eventually die, when the public find something else to latch on to.

I guess what I am saying is Public Relations needs to be a Chameleon, we need to blend into the media that the Public is exploring changing to adapt to new forms, whilst keeping to our original shape.

So lets look at some traditional Public Relations tactics, how these have been previously used, and how we can develop them to appeal to the publics of today.

Media Documents – These have always been sent to the gatekeepers, PRP’s are taught to write these documents in accordance with the style and requirements of the journalists of the media we are seeking exposure in. We are told a press release should have a newsworthy value, be timely, and have an interest to the readers. (Wilcox and Cameron 2009). But is this still relevant with the decrease in newspaper readership, should we be reconsidering the way we send out our releases, this idea is supported by various PR bloggers (Mullen, 2009; Warner, 2008 and Rogerson, 2007). Maybe it is time for a revamp, maybe instead of writing for the journalist we write for our consumer, we learn, what it is they want to read, how they want to read, and adapt of media releases to suit this format.

Events – The aim of events has previously been to gain media coverage for a product or brand. Guests included key journalists, industry spokespeople and other key celebrities who may have an affiliation with your brand. However when your consumer isn’t reading the paper, and they really don’t care who was at your event cause they weren’t what is the point of holding an event? This idea is echoed by the author of 101 Public Relations (n.d). Maybe the way around this is to invite your key consumers, open communication with them, give them the opportunity to provide you with feedback, interact with your brand or product and talk about their experience with their friends.

Sponsorships are another just another tactic that falls on deaf ears. Unless your organisation is truly aligned with a certain cause or activity, it is pointless spending thousands of dollars to have your name printed in random and ineffective arenas. Consumers are personable, so if possible donate to organisations that are of strong interest to your organisation. This will resonate with your consumers and urge them to follow the same cause.

It is quite clear that old PR tactics are not yet redundant but PRP’s cannot continue to distribute releases, and hold events like they have been for many years. There needs to be a change and re-evaluation of our consumers, we can not ignore that the audience is changing and in a industry dominated by publics, then public relations should change and mould with them.

Bianca Agius

101Public Relations (n.d) The five stupidest PR tactics almost every company tries. Don’t waste your PR budget on these money pits. Accessed from http://101publicrelations.com/blog/the_five_stupidest_pr_tactics_almost_every_company_tries_dont_waste_your_pr_budget_on_these_money_pits_000229.html

Mullen, S. (2009) End Game PR “10 Dead or Dying PR tactics” accessed from: http://www.endgamepr.com/blog/2009/03/18/top-10-dead-or-dying-pr-tactics/

Rogerson, M(2007) Reina Communications. “Social Media Press Releases: Not your grandfather’s press release, or Ivy Lee’s for that matter. Accessed from http://reinacommunications.biz/category/pr-tactics/

Warner, R. 2008. Content and motion “Why the ‘Old PR’ Game is Broken. Spend Wisely – Online PR Rules…” Accessed from http://www.contentandmotion.co.uk/social-media-pr-blog/why-the-old-pr-game-is-broken-spend-wisely-online-pr-rules/

Wilcox, D and Cameron, T. (2009) Public Relations Strategies and Tactics. 9^th Ed. Pearson. USA.

Changes: New PR model and Measurement (Ashleigh Smith)

Wilcox & Cameron (2009) questions “PRP’s need to re-examine their traditional approaches to the practice and think about media broadly and strategically. What media best meet a program's objectives? How can media be combined to enhance program effectiveness? What media are most efficient to reach key audience?” These are important questions that we all must ask and are constantly facing to ensure the success of a program/campaign. Previous posts have mentioned the growth of the internet, statistics of usage which notes how our world is changing. PRechnology (2009) comments that newspapers and magazines used to be the gatekeepers of publicity for companies, now social media and social networking is changing all that. With this old PR models and thoughts need to be ‘refreshed’ too.

An updated “unofficial” version of the 1984 Grunig and Hunt Model of Communication has been created. Phillips (2009) states that it was time to extend the debate and examine some of the practical applications of social media that Modern PR opens up. Click image below to enlarge.

This model supports our teams’ collective decision of social media PR as a Two-Way symmetrical flow, also creates more trust than any other means through open communication and public interactions (aided by twitter, blogs etc). However, implications from this model suggest cost (web design, hosting, and production) and control (loss of; as previously mentioned in posts). Phillips (2009) also mentions that companies are guiding themselves to Two-Way symmetrical models to achieve growth and corporate sustainability. Please note: James Grunig actually commented on this blog, saying he was going to refer to this model for a presentation for PRIA!

Cain-Miller’s (2009) article interviewed Brian Solis and he mentions that in the new world of social media, PRP’s must know hundreds of writers, bloggers, and Twitter users instead of having six top reporters on speed dial. The article brings to light three new changes in PR.

1. The people with the most influence are not always who you expect (e.g. a journalist VS. A popular blogger when it comes to publicity) Perez Hilton comes to my mind in terms of celebrities...
2. Social Networking is essential to the new PR. (A web of connections to influential people)
3. Power users on social media platforms such as Twitter must be reckoned with and utilized.

Along with, to succeed in the future of PR, success only comes when measuring a variety of business goals and metrics and to involve evaluation. Maltoni (2010) mentions measurement is an integral part of the PR process. Measuring ROI on communications is viewed as an achievable goal by the overwhelming majority of professional communicators. These days, PRP’s are beginning to measure success by the impact of their media coverage in shifting opinions, awareness or moving markets rather than where their material is placed in the media. This is perhaps a result from social media.

Maltoni (2010) further explains what needs to be measured. These include “exposure to content and message”, “engagement with publics”, “influence on perceptions and attitudes” and “action resulted from the PR/Social media effort”. Without measuring effectiveness of PR campaigns, how do PRP’s know what they are doing is correct. Due to this world changing and therefore PR changing, measurements need to be examined to see what works and how PRP’s can master social media and its dominant inclusion with PR today.

-Ashleigh Smith

References

Cain-Miller, C. (2009). ‘Spinning the Web: P.R in Silicon Valley’ in The New York Times. Retrieved online 14 April, 2010 from, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/business/05pr.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=spinning%20the%20web&st=cse&scp=1

Maltoni, V. (2010). Putting the Public back in PR Measurement. Retrieved online 15 April, 2010 from, http://www.conversationagent.com/2010/02/putting-the-public-back-in-pr-measurement.html

Phillips, D. (2009). Visualising Social Media from a Grunigian Perspective. Retrieved online, 15 April, 2010 from http://publicsphere.typepad.com/mediations/public_relations/

PRechnology. (2009). The Changing Role of Public Relations: Community Cultivation. Retrieved online 14 April, 2010 from, http://www.prechnology.com/blog/the-changing-role-of-public-relations-community-cultivation/

Wilcox, D. L., & Cameron, G. T. (2009). Communications. In Public relations: strategies and tactics (9th ed., pp. 170-192). Boston: Person/Allyn and Bacon.

The Inconvenient Truth

I’m All Ears…. But What Was That Last Part?

The Internet is evolving! It is no longer a source of solely information gathering or communicating via email. Web 1.0 that’s the past, the future is all in Web 2.0 now. Brain Solis acknowledges that ‘social media has democratized influence, forever changing the way businesses communicate with customers and the way customers affect the decisions of their peers’.

So obviously I whole-heartedly agree with both Ashleigh Smith and Ashleigh McLennan, that public relations has become PR 2.0 and the communication approaches have developed from a one-way approach to audiences transforming into two-way symmetrical models. No longer do we depend upon direct means of communication mediums rather it is a social interactive and integration system.

It is quiet evident that in modern society public relations practitioners are utilising platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and many more different types of social networking sites, as a tool to more efficiently interact with their publics. Facebook, blogs, Twitter and customer reviews are considered the most effective tactics for mobilizing consumers to talk up products online (Etailing survey of 117 companies, September 2009) used by 78% of company respondents.

However, with advances and convergence in technologies and widespread integration of communication, are we really listening to what consumers want or are we just flooding the ‘market’ or ‘community’ with public relation practices and content?

Social media has enabled companies to directly market to their publics, as they never have been able to before, bypassing all traditional filters previously put in place to regulate quantity and quality of material pushed into society, for instance editors for newspapers. Talk about power!

This break down in filters has ‘open the flood gates’ as they say for everything and anything to infiltrate the digital public arena. If I may, I would like to use RealWire’s metaphor of environmental pollution. They associate ‘online pollution’ as irrelevance, aka CLUTTER! This clutter wastes time and money and causes MAJOR frustration for audiences.

In all the clutter it is nearly near impossible to disseminate the information in a timely and effectively manager to find the ‘good stories’ tailored to our needs, hence our message is lost in the clutter, with three out of four people receiving press releases that they are irrelevant to and half of these have taken action in blocking these unwanted emails.

Public Relations industries are one of many who are the causing of this pollution. This ‘pollution’ is damaging public relations influence on their audience through social media because people are now, just like paid TV, blocking them out.

They think we are junk? Are we just too intrusive? Old public relations communication was about networking within the industry through journalists or editors. However, online public relations have taken a 360 turn approaching publics with a ‘hands on’ mentality. Public relations is all about establishing and sustaining influence. Online this is achieved through;

• Listening
• Being accepted on the audience’s terms
• Having relevant and quality content
• Engaging people and building relationships
  

So if we are indeed listening and not just ‘polluting’ our virtual environment, should we be giving the public what they want? Are people just ‘bitching and moaning’ about anything and everything for no purpose at all? Or if we assume they know what they want, there is a big difference between what customer says they want and what they really need/want. Also, if we give them what they want, then will it end up backfiring? As the wise proverb goes be careful what you wish for, or in this case ask for.

In saying that, it must be noted that it is not wise to solely listen to what the customer wants, but to integrate the needs of the organization and research conducted and gathered to develop a successful public relations campaign.

BY JESSICA HODGES