Understanding social narratives: PR as narrative seminar

Public relations as narrative: Understanding social narratives

Ann Longley

Group Head of Social Media , Hays

September 2013

Social media has democratised publishing

Image source: Time Magazine, 2006

Changing the ways we tell stories

Today, no one narrative source can control a story

And with social media they can take on a life of their own….

As they are are now made up a plurality of voices

Expressed across a wide range of social formats and channels

Story telling may now be participatory

And it is spawning new narrative genres

It is changing our view of history

The Library of Congress is archiving Tweets to preserve history

http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/

Transforming traditional institutions

It is sometimes referred to as the 5th Estate – by offering transparency it can enable greater accountability.

And our relationship with traditional media

Some news stories may now break first on social media

In some situations it may capture truth, whilst in others, it may distort it

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/interactive/2011/dec/07/london-riots-twitter

One thing for sure, it is changing role of media

Source: https://witness.theguardian.com/

For brands, the way to overcome media fragmentation is with strong creativity

['The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.' Albert Einstein]

SO WHO IS DOING A GOOD JOB TELLING SOCIAL NARRATIVES?

RedBull excels at brand story-telling

http://www.youtube.com/user/redbull

The Australian government has reinvented PSAs

Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/DumbWays2Die

Whilst the department of Health effectively used video bloggers to engage a youth audience

What do these examples all have in common?

They leverage social graphs and encourage social sharing

http://www.touchgraph.com/navigator http://www.touchgraph.com/navigator

Source:http://www.touchgraph.com/navigator

One thing that hasn’t changed is the aim of storytelling - or its importance

How many people are talking about this = social proof.

THANK YOU

annlongley@gre.ac.uk

@annmargaret