Another term -- the final term -- has run its course. I hope this is not my last entry on this blog, but I will most likely not maintain such a regular schedule going forward. I hope readers have found the information enlightening, engaging and interesting. The value of effective, strategic communication should not be ignored; yet most people and companies take it for granted. I hope to help change that perspective.
I am thankful for the experience and opportunity I have received in retail merchandising execution field, but I am more than ready to return to the communications field. That being said, if there happen to be any companies in need of a professional communicator who has two decades of experiences to complement a Master's of Science degree in Strategic Communication, please feel free to leave me a note. I will respond quickly. Very quickly.
Emerging Media - Review and Discussion
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
What have you done for me lately?
A fundamental mistake. It is a mistake a lot of people make, especially in
the business world. Well-meaning, hard-working people do it all the time. I
am guilty of it, especially in the past with regards to my professional
communications experience.
People do not seek the credit for their work as much
as they should. “My work speaks for itself.” “They know what I do/contribute/add
to the business.”
While the importance was not as obvious when I
started out in the communications field, I see it much clearer today in the
retail world. If you want people to acknowledge your contributions or give
yourself ammunition for a pay raise/promotion, you have to make sure they know
what you have done and how that contribution benefits the entire company.
You cannot just let your work speak for itself.
In the communications field, that means making use
of research and evaluation tools to not only show the impact of a particular
program, but to also put it into context of the overall goal/mission of the
organization you are working for – justify the resources you have used and the
ones you will need in the future.
Before you start a communications campaign of any
kind, you need to understand where you currently stand. What is the perception
of your company? Who are the people or audiences you are trying to reach? If
you cannot clearly identify your starting point, you will be unable to
determine how far you have “moved the needle” toward your overall goal. How do
you increase favorable impressions of customers by 25% if you do not have any idea
where you stand at the beginning of your campaign?
It may seem obvious and pure common sense to
establish a starting point, but there is always pressure to begin delivering
results as soon as you can – in any job. Any practitioner is going to want to
demonstrate their worth and justify the faith their employer has shown by
giving them a job. But there needs to be a measured, methodical process through
which not only is a starting point identified, but a means of measuring the
impact of any effort made as part of a strategic communication program.
While most of what I have covered to this point is
in reference to hard, tangible numbers, a strategic communicator needs to weave
in the intangible aspects, too. You can tell a pretty straightforward story with
hard numbers, but identifying the intangibles helps to flesh out the context of
overall environment in which these hard numbers were achieved. An increase of
new donors to a foundation by X% is great, but the ability to achieve that
during an economic downturn while closing 15% your company’s manufacturing
facilities puts it into a slightly more impressive context.
I noted in one of my course assignments that as
communicators, we are essentially storytellers. We weave a particular tale
(hopefully nonfiction!) for particular audiences with a desired outcome as a
goal. If our story is told to the wrong group, we fail. If our story is boring
and no one cares, we fail. If our story is just the bare bones facts, we will
not be as successful as the storyteller who can paint a rich, full, vibrant
story that not only captures the imaginations of those we are hoping to
influence (sales, regulators, etc.) but also inspires others who hear our story
to reach further/try more/invest themselves (employees, supporters, etc.).
Have I lost you yet? What I’m saying is that we – as
strategic communicators – need to use formative research to define the scope
and goals of any communication program or campaign. We need to include process
research to gauge the implementation success of any campaign or program. And
finally, we need to use summaritive research to measure the outcomes of a
program/campaign.
The final step is to put that information in the
hands of our employers/supervisors as a means of demonstrating what the impact
of a strategic communications program has been able to achieve: celebrate the
runaway wins, identify the opportunities to improve, and make recommendations
for new efforts in the future or new directions to pursue with additional
resources.
Some will recognize your work. Most are too busy
trying to achieve their own goals, they may not fully understand the
contributions you or your team has made unless you clearly point it out to
them. This is the step people fail to make. Pride may be one of the Seven
Deadly Sins, it is not just “pride” when you are announce the contributions
your efforts as a communicator have made toward the overall success of your
organization is not a sin – it’s a necessity in a business environment that
takes more of “what have you done for me lately” view of those who consume
resources.
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping almost fifteen year-old son and twin five and a half year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field and six years of professional merchandising experience with the world's largest home improvement retailer. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He holds a Bachelor degree from Michigan State University and has just completed his Masters program in Strategic Communication at Troy University. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
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Sunday, February 23, 2014
Social Media: Double-edged sword for communicators during a crisis
Twit1:
My brother is a cop in Atlanta. Just busted
Home Depot CEO. DUI
Twit2:
Just made huge donation to MADD, right?
Twit1:
Man of the Year #HomeDepot
Twit3:
Sister works there. Big on values and do
the right thing
Twit2:
Only applies to the little people
Twit1:
Even used handcuffs #resisted
Twit4:
Handcuffs? Resisted arrest? #HomeDepot
Twit
5: Home depot CEO resisted arrest for
DUI? #HomeDepot
Twit1:
My bad-busted someone in front of Home
Depot CEO’s house #doublecheck
While
the exchange above is completely fictitious and created only for the purposes
of this blog entry, it demonstrates how a story can begin on social media and
become a public relations practitioner’s worst nightmare in less than 90
seconds.
While
television is still the top source for people finding out about breaking news
stories, social
media has become the third top source of breaking news, virtually tied with
newspapers and surpassing radio and all other print publications.
The
article touches on, and the exchange above demonstrates, that while social
media has become a major source of breaking news information, the accuracy is
not always as good as it could be. A
number of people were wrongly identified after the Boston Marathon bombing,
initially identified on social media and then broadcast to an even wider
audience via traditional broadcast media.
In his 2011
thesis paper, Daniel A. Landau noted:
“Partly due to social media’s constant news cycle, this study found that nonstories can become big stories very easily and these stories can last longer then (sic) they would without social media. This finding is indicative of how social media has made crisis communication more difficult for organizations. At the same time though, in some instances, organizations can bypass traditional media entirely and manage a crisis completely with social media. Thus social media has also made crisis communication somewhat easier for crisis communicators.” (pg. 60)
Social
media networks – depending on the strategic planning and implementation of a
comprehensive communication plan – can be a huge help or an amazing thorn in
the side of public relations practitioners.
Stories
can appear from nowhere and go viral, completely beyond the control of the PR
practitioner(s) if there is no system or process of monitoring various social
media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare,
Pheed, Tumblr, are just a few of the many social media networks connected to
the internet. Citizen journalist blogs, activists’ blogs, websites – the list
goes on and on. How can one practitioner or a even two hope to successfully
monitor and build those relationships and connections via social media?
The
opportunity lies in leveraging one of the biggest assets any company already has:
its own workforce. A strategic communication professional knows one of the
biggest and influential audience a company can have is it’s own employees.
Their ability to spread information via word-of-mouth and “the grapevine” has
only been enhanced by recent communication technology and the internet. Why not
use that to the advantage of the company?
One
of the goals of any strategic communication program is to improve and enhance
the internal communication systems among the primary stakeholders: employees,
shareholders and retirees. How is that accomplished? By keeping them informed,
part of the planning process and engaged. They can serve as de-facto watchdogs among
the various social media networks.
Encourage
employees to participate on the company’s Facebook page, for example, is a
great way to keep them not only engaged, but they will can also serve as a
early warning system for communicators if there is an issue that pops up on the
page. They may be able to actually address issues in real-time before a
communicator even gets involved. The key is to keep employees aware and
informed about new initiatives, how their role figures into the overall vision
and mission of the company, etc., which is the goal of any internal communication
program.
The
same can be done with all the major social media networks, utilizing an
existing network of stakeholders to ensure issues are identified early, addressed
and resolved quickly, hopefully without damage to the company’s name,
reputation or bottom line.
As
Mr. Landau noted in his thesis, the internet and social media may have made control of a crisis situation
impossible, but it has the potential for making it easier to manage providing the strategic
communicator makes use of all the tools available to him or
her.
About
the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping
fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of
professional communication experience, working in the public relations field.
He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a
state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and
their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two
years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid
reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using
recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
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Sunday, February 16, 2014
What is the message?
The answer to this question can vary: a new version of the
Bible by Eugene Peterson; a text message sent via mobile phone, or; a greeting
enclosed in Voyager 1 and 2 by NASA and sent to the furthest reaches of space.
For our purposes as strategic communicators, the message is
the content of the communication process.
But to be effective, that message has to be sent and
received with a minimal level of ambiguity, or “noise,” between the sender and
receiver. Breaking a message down, as communicators do, we look for the three
elements of rhetoric to determine if the message was persuasive: logos, ethos
and pathos.
However, as audiences have become more and more sophisticated
receptors of the deluge of messages aimed at them every day, the strategic
communicator needs to develop a comprehensive plan for not only message development,
but also placement of those messages.
Cacioppo and Petty conducted research looking at the Effects of Message Repetition and Position
on Cognitive Response, Recall, and Persuasion (1979) and while repetition
influences learning, the more exposure to the message over time showed an initial
increase in persuasive result of the message, over time, that persuasiveness actually
decreased (pg 105).
What does that mean? Get your message out there, but do not
over do it? Or does it point to the need for messages to be a little more
covert and not quite so obvious. The hero in the latest summer blockbuster
movie sports a retro type of Ray-Ban sunglasses and always asks for a
Coca-Cola. Is that message linking the hero with those products subtle enough
to increase learning and liking and, thereby, drive sales for Coke and Ray-Ban?
Was the message successful?
When I was Director of Communications for Boysville of
Michigan, I was put in charge of developing a statewide billboard campaign,
celebrating the agency’s 50th anniversary providing successful child
care and family reunification services in the State of Michigan.
Despite being a part of the social services industry in the
state for five decades, knowledge of what the agency actually did was fairly
limited to those who worked in the various state court systems who placed
adjudicated children with Boysville. The average citizen may have had a
positive associated with the name, but no real knowledge of what the agency
actually did.
Determining what the goal of a statewide billboard campaign,
at first, seemed elusive as everyone had their own idea of what information
needed to be included on the billboards. At the time, the state was poised to
open up placements to for-profit companies who had no track record with the
various court systems. But the Boysville management team felt it was critical
to use the billboard campaign to let everyone know how our agency helped
children and families.
With the aid of a PR firm, I convinced the management team that
the billboards should merely celebrate the 50 years of service (without
specifically noting what service) and raise the level of awareness among
Michigan citizens that we helped children and families. The longevity of the
agency spoke to its expertise: an organization won’t be around for 50 years if
they do not know what they are doing. And building on the positive name
recognition that we do good work (help children and families) would help to
position Boysville ahead of the newly-come-to-town for-profit companies who had
zero track record with the citizens of the state.
We educated subtly. We raised awareness subtly. We appeared
everywhere.
The billboard campaign, considered a success, was not the
magic bullet that would solve all the organizations issues with new
competition, but it allowed us to frame the context in terms of who was already
in place, who had a proven track-record and even more subtly, we did it as a
faith-based organization, based on our mission, not just in the pursuit of profits
like the companies looking to move into the state that were essentially the
same companies who ran prisons. In fact, we got all the billboards donated for
the campaign, leaving the only expense on the creative design side and printing
(yes, this was back in the day of actual paper sheet billboards, not the newer
one-piece mylar material used today).
One of my favorite public relations practitioners, Leland K.
Bassett, would often tell his team of new communication counselors and managers (including
me), that the art of persuasion was often in concealing the art. That adage
hold true today. The message does not have to be so ridiculously blunt and
obvious to be successful. It needs to be present where people will
see/hear/receive it, it needs to be consistent and it needs to be measured
(before and after) to determine its success.
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Vision, leadership and......football?
As I near the end
of my Master's degree program at Troy University, I do find myself
contemplating the future, both personally and professionally. The email from
Dr. Padgett acknowledging my successful navigation of the capstone
comprehensive exam actually triggered a number of items for me: relief,
confidence, uncertainty, and accomplishment.
But it also brought
two nagging questions: Now what? How am I going to move from this new level of
accomplishment in my education to a new level of challenge and effort in my
professional life? Egads, I'm reliving undergraduate college graduation all
over again.
What it means for me professionally is an easier topic to
tackle. I graduated in the mid 80s with my bachelor's degree and couldn't wait
to get into the field of public relations. I was hired shortly after graduation
and just nine months later, I was let go after the firm I worked for lost 2-3
large clients at the same time. It was my introduction into the fickle business
world and how the field of communication is viewed differently in theory and in
practice. All the books we read for our classes stress how critical
communication is at every level of any organization.
Last week, we
learned Chester Barnard noted in 1938 that the first executive function is to
develop and maintain some type of communication system, yet it is routinely one
of the first places within an organization where cuts are made or
eliminated when faced with economic adversity. A lesson I have learned
personally four times during my professional 20-year career in communications.
I provide this background as a means of context for where
my vision is derived from, moving forward into the next chapter of my
professional life. The information and knowledge I have gained from the Master’s
program at Troy University is only a starting point. It will be up to me to not
only continue my education, but to use my training and experiences to develop
the ability to develop a vision for my future; short-, intermediate-, and
long-term.
What I failed to
realize earlier in my career is that education is not finite. Just because I
finished my bachelor's degree, I was not finished learning. As I put my skills
and abilities into practice, I was not paying heed to the changing nature of
critical parts of my daily job.
For instance,
traditional media was changing in front of my eyes with the rise of the
internet and I failed to see it, plan for it and champion ways in which the
organization I was working for could leverage those changes to better meet the overall
goals of the agency.
It wasn't until my third year away from the field,
working in retail, that I fully realized my true miscalculation was neglecting
to keep an eye on the horizon. It was one of the reasons I was drawn to the
program at Troy University.
Troy's leaders did
not fall asleep at the wheel. They did
study and research the current fields of Journalism and Communications and
planned for the future. By working in the field, I know the value communication
can bring to a company. However, if I can not translate that impact into
clearly defined results -- results that will at some point be assessed by
bean-counters who will eventually put me into a "cost" or
"asset" column – I may find myself holding yet another pink slip. My
vision is to not experience that again.
I would offer the
distinction between “management” and “leadership” as one of the reasons
companies thrive or falter. In an article by John Kotter (2013) in the Harvard Business Review, the author
makes a simple declaration: management and leadership are not the same. He
notes that management is the nuts and bolts operation of common processes most
people are familiar with – planning, staffing, budgeting, production goals,
etc.
But leadership, he
contends, is more about leading an organization into the future, capitalizing
on opportunities as they present themselves, helping others within the company
not only see the vision but to buy in and become advocates for the vision put
forward by the leadership of the company. And this leadership isn’t always
found in the c-level offices. It needs to be at all levels of the organization.
I am not a fan of
sports analogies, generally, but this seems like a pretty straightforward
representation of the difference between leadership and management. There are
32 teams in the National Football League and every season there are coaches who
get fired. Many of the coaches become head coaches after putting in time as a
coach of the defense, the offense, or the special teams. They are experts in a
specific aspect of the game – scoring points, preventing points, etc. They are “managing”
a particular process of the team. The head coach role, however, is not
restricted to a particular process. It is weaving them all together to achieve a
longer-term vision of getting the team not only to win the next game, but
enable them to have the tools in place to win a majority of the games to ensure
a playoff spot and, ultimately, the Super Bowl. It’s about “leading” and motivating
all members of the team, all members of management, to buy into a singular
vision that the team can successfully win against any other team they face.
And every winning
football team has “leaders” on the field. A quarterback, a linebacker, a
safety, etc. They are not a coach. They are just “line staff” members who
understand the vision of the head coach, and help to get the other members of
the team to buy into that vision. The leaders are not always on the coaching
staff.
Interestingly, many
of the coaches who get fired from head coach positions do not leave the game.
Instead, they return to the “management” positions they held before, where they
excelled. They may not have the vision or leadership skills to be a head coach,
but they are still experts in the particular processes that make up a
successful team.
As
noted by Kotter, leadership is not only at the top. It needs to be throughout
all levels of the organization (team). A strategic communicator needs to be a leader,
supporting the vision of the organization leadership as well as positioning
communication as a critical tool for accomplishing the goals of the
organization.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Internal & External: It's all communication
One of the main focuses of our readings this week in my Troy
University class was internal communication.
In many organizations, there is a clear distinction between internal and
external communications. Internal is usually seen as employee newsletters, and
packaging information for the executive suite to aid in the roll out of new
initiatives or programs. External is the “sexier” side, dealing with community
relations, media relations and a variety of publications designed for external
stakeholder groups.
Making an assumption the two “sides” operate independently
of each other or can be directed in a vacuum is a mindset the strategic
communicator must strive to change.
In 1996, I was hired to direct the internal communication
efforts of a faith-based child care and family reunification agency in
Michigan. Within three weeks of joining the company, I was thrust into the
forefront of a media relations maelstrom, pitting the agency and its clients against concerned
neighbors surrounding two different residential facilities where juveniles in
the care of our agency “escaped” and stole cars from residents.
While I was focused on learning the internal culture of the
agency, I was hardly prepared to serve as the spokesperson for the entire
agency about events I had little or no knowledge about the sites around the
state of Michigan. “Trial by fire” was the term used repeatedly by members of
the management staff and regional directors of the agency in the weeks that
followed.
That experience is when I learned how little the field of communication
is understood by management in general and how my role – regardless of whether
it was called “internal” or “external” needed to be comprehensive. In 1938,
Chester Barnard wrote in his book The
Functions of the Executive “The first executive function is to develop and
maintain a system of communication.” (page 226)
By 1996, that sage advice seemed to have been forgotten or
misunderstood. The strategic communicator of today needs to be keenly aware of
how all the components of an organization’s communication plan – marketing,
sales, community outreach, political action, etc. – fit into a strategic, comprehensive
program. Without that vision or knowledge, there is almost a guarantee for
wasted resources, counter-productive efforts and frustration at all levels of
an organization.
Internal communication is a key component for any company or
client because it is where management has the opportunity – no, the
responsibility – to keep one of their largest key publics (employees) informed
about the goals, direction, and status of the company for which they work. As
noted by Parsons and Urbanski (2012), the structure and internal culture of a
company will be a key factor in the effectiveness of internal communication efforts.
I served as Director of Communications – responsible for
both internal and external communication efforts – for the next 11 years, until
the overall economy began its decline in 2007, proving the findings by Garnett
(1997) and Sweetland (2008) that management tend to devalue communication’s
importance, resulting in early elimination of communication positions during budget
cuts or financial hardships.
Prior to joining the child care agency, I was the public
relations manager at a hospital in Metro Detroit, responsible for their
internal communications. One of the largest parts of my job at the hospital was
the production of a weekly newsletter, Friday,
designed to keep not only the employees at the hospital informed about the
programs, Mission and happenings at the main campus, but to also make the 23
ancillary facilities around the metropolitan area see themselves as part of the
team, not off-site step children. With the help of a very talented graphics
designer, I redesigned the publication and won Newsletter of the Year designation from the Michigan Hospital Communicators
Association (1995).
Specifically as it relates to public relations, there
continues to be a gap between public relations theories and public relations
practices (Cheng and de Gregario, 2008; Okay & Okay, 2008) that will not be
corrected until strategic communicators take direct, demonstrable efforts to show
the value of a comprehensive, strategic communications plan that not only
supports the goals of the company, but can stand on its own, with demonstrable
outcomes justifying the resources required to successfully operate such a
critical function of every executive.
Follow Up Note: The media relations fiasco noted above was
not only successfully managed, but helped to create two independent community
action groups made up of citizens, elected officials and agency management
persons to identify opportunities for improved safety as well as strengthen
community relations, an effort hailed by all involved as productive and
successful for the entire tenure of this communicator’s position with the
agency.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Social Media Networks: Get used to them
My post last week
about the diffusion of innovations offers a great gateway to my post today
about social media networks.
Social media – defined
as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible
and scalable publishing techniques [and] web-based technologies to transform
and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues” by Wikipedia and these
networks are changing the communication landscape for communicators in all
areas.
Who has not heard
of Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? In one of my readings this week, dated 2013,
Facebook was credited with having more than 1 billion active users – there are
only 319 million people
in the United States! While I do not have a specific number for Facebook in
terms of United States users, I think it is probably safe to say we are past “Innovators,”
“Early Adopters,” and possibly through “Early Majority” to the “Late Majority” in
the Diffusion of Innovations classifications in terms of how Facebook alone has
permeated the United States daily life. Even my 71 year-old mother recently
asked my wife to help her “set up the Facebook” on her computer. And this
social media phenomenon is not going away any time soon.
But what does that
mean for strategic communicators? It means that these communicators have to
realize there are great opportunities as well as great risks through the use of
social media networks. The opportunity is to make personal, direct, real-time
connections – relationships – with a wide array of stakeholders: customers, stockholders,
employees, regulators, general public, detractors, and even competitors.
But opening those
gates of access can be akin to opening Pandora’s Box – though the use of social
media networks, there is the potential for tremendous harm. If a company is not
using social media networks – or at least monitoring them – there may be
complaints, negative information, videos, photos, etc. circulating on the
internet damaging the organization’s credibility and image without the company even
being aware of it. Granted, they may not be able to remove the information, but
if it circulates without even being addressed by the company, the silence could
be perceived as an admission the information is accurate.
In an article
by Soumitra Dutta that appeared in the Harvard
Business Review (2010), the author provides a great discussion of how
individuals can develop their own personal media strategy. Careful
consideration should be given to what the goals are of being on social media
networks, which networks are most appropriately suited for achieving the goals,
etc.
Veteran internet
marketer Adam DeGraide also wrote an insightful article
that appeared in the marketing trade journal Rough Notes (2013) about choosing what social media network(s) to
focus on, where spending time will result in the most ‘bang for the buck.”
A word or two of
caution, though. As with any component of an overall strategic communication plan,
careful consideration and investigation should be employed to determine not only
which social media networks to use, but what the goal of that use is. Some
social media networks may not be ones your particular stakeholders (customers,
shareholders, employees, regulators, etc.) utilize, so occasional monitoring
may be sufficient. Some networks like Facebook and Twitter may require active, daily
participation – both monitoring as well as posting/responding.
While it may seem
logical that this type of activity falls under the purview of the Senior
Communications Manager, there may be more benefit by having members of the
senior management team (President, Chairman, CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) maintain a
presence on the various social media networks.
A particular area
of concern for any company is photos and videos going viral on the internet.
Social media networks like YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr and Instragram are closely
linked with static images or photos and videos. For a time “planking” was all the
rage on YouTube, but when it started showing up on employees’ personal Facebook
accounts, demonstrating safety standards were being ignored, companies like The
Home Depot issued communiqués reminding employees purposely ignoring safety
standards and standard operating procedures was a major work rule violation and
could result in discipline up to and including termination of employment.
Kevin Allocca,
Trends Manager for YouTube said during a TEDYouth Talk video
that what makes a video go viral is usually a result of three things:
Tastemakers, Communities of Participation and Unexpectedness. Essentially, a
video can be posted today and receive no notice or views for months, but all it
takes is someone mentioning it, like a Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno, etc. to bring
attention to the video. That attention can turn into communities of participation
(people “sharing” the video) among all their friends, etc.
Again, what does
that mean for strategic communicators? That means that today’s harmless,
meant-to-be-funny video posted by an employee could turn into tomorrow’s crisis
media relations event because the video showcased workers ignoring safety
practices, or putting customers in harm’s way, or conveying an attitude, bias
or stereotype that is not consistent with the corporate public image.
The bottom line is
this: The traditional mediums of print (newspapers, magazines, brochures,
flyers) and broadcast (television, radio) are now competing with digital media
channels like websites, blogs, social media networks and podcasts. And it is
the savvy strategic communicator who incorporates all the various mediums to
work in concert to successfully achieve the communication goals for an
organization or client.
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.
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