Public Relations and Social Media

Instructor: Richard Bailey

About this talk 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

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 revisited

Grunig: Functions of PR

A messaging, publicity, informational, media-relations function?◦ Publications, news, communication campaigns, media

contacts. A marketing function?

◦ Support for marketing through media publicity? A strategic management function?

◦ Active participant in decision making?◦ Research-based, organizational listening and learning?◦ Building relationships for other functions, including

marketing?

Theoretical Paradigms

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

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 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 2.0-based social media.’ Macnamara 2010

21st century mediascape Macnamara 2010 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 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

One-to-many (broadcast)TV, video, news, celebrity Tweet

One-to-one (conversation)IM, email, DM, Skype

Many-to-manyTwitter, forums, comments on popular blogs, Facebook groups

Many-to-oneRSS, aggregators

One-to-several (network)Blog, Facebook, Twitter, group email

‘The distinction between broadcast and communications used to be clear.’ Shirky 2008

Consumer mindset 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’?

‘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 Downsize or die? Consider the rise of open source projects

(Linux, Wikipedia) What’s happening to command-and-control?

‘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

Dom-inant

coalition

Traditional ‘command and control’ management

Changing organizational structure

Dom-inant

coalition

Networked communication

Based on Phillips and Young 2009

Social technographics ladder

The conversation prism

Brian Solis

Organisation

Investors

Suppliers Customers

EmployeesCornelissen 2008 p39

Input-output model

Organisation

Investors

Suppliers Customers

Employees

Cornelissen 2008 p39

Political groups

Communities

Cornelissen 2008 p39

Trade associations

Organisation

Governments

Stakeholder model

Transparency ‘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) 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 Information has always leaked out of

organisations, but it’s so much easier today 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 ‘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

d

eb

A small network of five members has ten connections.

A ten member network has 45connections; a 15 member network has 105.

‘A group’s complexity grows faster than its size’.

Shirky 2008

2. Setting objective

s

1. Audit

5. Results and evaluation

3. Strategy and plan

Where do we need

to be?

How do we get there?

How did we do?

Where are we now?

Source: Watson and Noble

4. Ongoing measurement

Are we getting there?

Planning Research & Evaluation

1: Audit 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 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 ‘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 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

Increa

sed lik

elihood

of ris

k

Busin

ess c

ompl

exity

Technical complexity

Phillips and Young 2009

Risk and opportunities

Increa

sed im

pact o

f risk

Busin

ess c

ritica

lity

Campaign size

Phillips and Young 2009

Known unknowns What could go wrong that can be anticipated? Risk analysis should be an ongoing process

Unknown unknowns 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 ‘There are very good indicators that can

measure the public relations footprint of an organization.’ Trends monitoring:

Website/blog visitor numbers Referrals (where the traffic is coming from) Inbound links Subscriptions (RSS)

Keyword monitoring News monitoring and reporting

eg Cymfony, Radian6

Recommended reading 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