As relationship managers, public relations professionals should always be alert to times an places where the personal and the emotional intrude on the public and the factual. Nowhere is this more obvious that in Social Media.
For instance, at this time of year colleagues will often open a brief corridor conversation with, “Did you enjoy your holiday?” Regardless of the immutable facts, if they ask on a Monday, they are more likely to get a positive answer.
Yes, Monday… I’ve just reread a yellowing copy of the front page of NZ Herald, 24 Aug.’09, which says a mathematically significant number of people are happier on Mondays than later in the week. The point of interest was that researchers had analysed happy and sad words in Blogs and Tweets for the Journal of Happiness Studies. They rated words like ‘affection, pillow and sex’ as happy, and words like ‘betray, seasick and ulcer’ as unhappy.
What the Herald article reminds us that Tweets and Blogs often express personal feelings, and yet are open to others to read, analyse, or laugh-out-loud at.
The intimate, yet unmanaged, nature of the Web is what makes it such a potent catalyst of relationships. Users can create good vibes and destroy them at the speed of light. Our expertise and focus on relationships is why public relations communicators are the best-placed professionals to manage the risks and inconsistencies of web-based communication.
Another recent discovery was Rob Brown’s book (see below) which is a highly readable introduction to Web 2.0 by an experienced public relations practitioner. His numerous descriptions of social media applications and related internet developments bristle with opportunities for relationship-building.
Brown is particularly clear on user generated content (UGC). This can be a marvellous phenomenon for positive word-of-mouth, the essence of public relations. It can also be a frightening forum for crisis communication.
I guess we all know that, but Brown’s liberal sprinkling of apt anecdotes, online tools and relevant sites is eye-opening and keyboard-activating. I simply wish I had the time to test/visit them all.
Anyway, Brown’s book is ideal for commuters who are serious about their practice of public relations in the changing media landscape.
P.S. When I was in the Business Faculty, I would joke that public relations was actually word-of-mouth-marketing. To my horror, Brown’s book told me that Richard Edelman helped craft the code of ethics for the Word of Mouth Advertising Association. Posted by Joseph Peart
Reference:
Brown, Rob. (2009) Public relations and the social web. London: Kogan Page
In a simultaneous release to cinema and web, American University (10-12 Dec) is releasing a film http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/internationalfilm on the experiences of South African documentary filmmakers with copyright. The film finds that copyright laws in South Africa and in many other countries allow for the use of such material as music, still images, news footage or even images from commercial films by filmmakers and others to create new expressive works.
*******I picked up this piece of news in my emails on my return from a meeting with David Wood, legal counsel for the European-based Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (ICOMP) on issues associated with trust, safety and competition online. Representatives from AUT University, PRINZ, Microsoft, University of Auckland, advertisers and book publishers joined me to discuss with David anti-trust and consumer protection laws that might control search-engine domination of the internet. Even by writing this I could bring about repercussions that could make this almost invisible blog even less visible, as it would be easy for such search-engines to make us disappear.I suppose the question is whether the apparent removal from search engines of shopping sites and other aggregates that compete with search engines was accidental. Certainly, ICOMP’s David Wood, who works from Brussels regards such incidents as a cause for concern. *******Very like the Oceania Centre for Social Media, ICOMP sponsors conferences and media events, issues research papers, and advocates a more competitive, transparent and secure online environment. So any interference or censoring and copyright limitations are major issues for internet publishers, whether of academic websites or creative works: Especially as Microsoft (Bing) and News Corp. are now joining together to introduce pay-walls for news.The irony is that, while that is happening, universities and individual scholars are moving in the opposite direction -- increasingly towards open source publication, including course content, research results and written articles. In the spirit of such sharing, I refer you to http://www.hewlett.org/oer. and creativecommons.org, both of which are mentioned in the centerforsocialmedia.org paper on open course-ware (OCW) materials. The authors of a new code of practice for OCW note that, like South African documentary films, OCW materials often integrate third-party materials. Sometimes this means that those producing OCW will be required to secure permission from copyright owners and “clear the rights” in order to proceed with the intended use. *******As I and my fellow editors found when writing the just-published Public relations and communication management: an Aotearoa/New Zealand perspective (2009), the process of securing permissions or licenses from copyright owners is rarely an easy, inexpensive, certain, or straightforward enterprise. Gary Mersham, Petra Theunissen and I are most grateful to Pearson Education for doing most of this work. Fortunately, there are instances under copyright law where rights clearance is not necessary. Fair use is one such instance. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances—especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. However, the question of whether “Fair Use” applies or not is too often left to lawyers and librarians, who take a more cautious view than academics and can stifle the entire learning process by demanding that permission be obtained before teaching and learning materials are made available to students. Again our colleagues in the United States have the benefit of more resources to direct at these questions and for their wisdom, you can consult the document “Yes, You Can!” centerforsocialmedia.org/files/pdf/free_use.pdf and Cornell Copyright Center http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm.Incidentally, a the tope of the Cornell site was a computer generated question whether I wanted to run the add-on “2007 Microsoft Office component”, whatever that is. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Have a great Christmas and flying start to the New Year. Joseph Peart
How telling that I should be alerted to Joseph's main blog on trust issues from his microblog on twitter! To the question - “Do social media in business breach or build trust?” - Like any communication platform, surely it has the potential to do both. While the recent Edelman study points to greater credibility given to company websites compared to social networking channels, their research in March http://www.tinyurl.com/c7s5j3 suggests that social media sites are critical agents of checks. Organisations’ websites are only credible when trust is maintained. But how would an organisation know if they have breached faith with their publics? With the complex nature of online communication, can the Public Relations practitioners exercise control over and manage the information received, evaluate the success of their communication and status of their relationships? Can they afford not to engage and test the boundaries of social media? In an online survey of over 2,000 small business owners http://www.bit.ly/2rdh16 , 45% registered their presence on facebook or twitter. While the motive is to save on marketing and advertising costs which these companies deem to be ‘a luxury’, 75% report monitoring online reviews of their businesses. This investment of time and manpower by such a large number of small businesses is indicative of the value to be had from establishing an online presence and developing new business relationships. As for reservations over the damage potential of social media, should we dwell on this at the expense of its benefits? ‘New media’ is some 20 years old and it’s not letting up. If it’s a fad, it has an incredibly long life-span. Even the hardest critic of social media must concede that it’s a growing vehicle for communication today and a driver of social change. It’s been hyped as the biggest shift since the industrial revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8 and if number crunching facts are anything to go by, there are grounds for this. But like all communication channels, social media is the instrument of messages and we, its participants. The question is not if it breaches or builds trust but if WE do. Are we venturing where angels fear to tread? I say …tread gently by tread all the same :) Posted by Khairiah
How many of you now regard Facebook as a hobby – and alternative to reading and watching TV? I see students in AUT University's media laboratories logged in to Facebook when I used to think they would be working on assignments. In the same manner, some of my family members gravitate to our home computer for a quick ‘fix’ of Facebook when they come to visit. (We have placed the laptop in a corner of the living room to socialise the addicts.) Some organisations block access to Facebook, Twitter, and even Trade Me at all times or all day except during the lunch hour. For employers, it is a tough decision. One hears of staff being fired for spending too much time on social media sites. It can simply get out of hand. Other research tells us that the internet has increased productivity, so organisations leave all sites open to staff.
I was interested to read the strategies adopted by more experienced users of social media in an article by Cindy Krischer Goodman in the Miami Herald[email protected] Some of their ideas sounded quite familiar. For instance, like me, one user would reply promptly to some messages and comments that needed a response, and wait until the end of the day to respond to the others. In my case ‘the end of the day’ can be 48 hours later.In the Miami Herald article: Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group, recommends that we set our own goals for social media so it becomes a tool, not a distraction; Niala Boodhoo of Poked blog suggests a Mozilla Firefox plug-in called Leechblock. This allows you to set a time limit for a site, or block access for a set period; Alex de Carvalho uses two screens, one for work and one for personal contact and uses his iPhone when he is on the move or waiting for an appointment. He doesn’t separate his time between business and leisure.Furthermore, ideas are being promoted every day for using social media as part of a business’s marketing mix. But they are more than that: They are alternative media to mainstream news and vital tools for building relationships which mingle friendship with custom and service. Social media also provide forums for reputations to be built and destroyed. That is why they have been claimed so strongly by public relations practitioners and why they have attracted the attention of researchers including the Public Relations Society of America. In a recent, highly readable ‘2009 Digital Readiness Report’ http://www.ipressroom.com/readiness the authors warn that some organizational communicators seem somewhat bedazzled by social media. They appear to see social networking, micro-blogging and blogging as more important than actively managing the content at their own corporate website.
This may indicate a fundamental gap in judgement with respect to online communication planning – particularly when other research shows that people find company websites more credible than social media channels: For instance, he ‘2009 Edelman Trust Barometer’ http://www.edelman.com/trust/2009/ notes that, as a source of company information, a company’s own website is seen as more credible than business blogs, personal blogs, social networking sites and advertising.
And trust is the gold standard of successful public relations.
Technology clearly not only provides the chisel for carving our creativity but it also seems to be increasingly carving our political decision making process. It is fascinating to read that after a concerted facebook campaign (5,654 members within a few days) Aaron Bhatnager and John banks have buckled and withdrawn the proposal to close suburban pubs at 11.00pm in Auckland. Banks announced quite pragmatically that it would have been political suicide to proceed. Surely there is a process that they should have followed before so casually rescinding the proposed policy. This is an excellent example of two way (thinking Grunig here) communication, but how symmetrical is this consultation process when the group that responded to the social media campaign were all (judging by their photos) aged between 18 and 25. Don't the rest of us get a say My Mayor?
Blog 09 09 09
I had to write something today: Not because the date is auspicious for marriage, but because the dreaded, unreal technological 'millennium bug' was associated with an unusual date.
That thought brings to mind our still uneasy relationship with the technology which carries this comment to you so instantly.
A short while ago, I read in the Economist about the ‘cloud’. This term describes the great mass of stored information and open-source software that is being added daily to the internet.
Storage capacity will be the new bottle-neck. Providers are building huge ‘server farms’ near hydro-electricity sources and in colder climates. We will be able to buy capacity (or rent it) as we need it and do away with having our own larger and larger servers. (The reason for the locations of choice for these facilities is that apparently one of their greatest costs will be keeping them cool.)
The articles on the ‘cloud’ of computer capacity and information storage made the point that it is not the hardware, but the applications that will determine the role of software and hardware suppliers. Soon software as a service will be challenged by the growing host of free applications that we can download (or use without downloading).
I heard it again from an Apple marketing director who was offering free software and I-phones on loan to AUT students who were willing to think up new applications that would make the product more attractive to users. This I recognised as an effort to activate marketplace ‘pull’, rather than product sales ‘push’.
I remembered that I had heard all this much earlier. Was it ‘the knowledge wave’? No, it was the ‘imagination economy’: And it was not Helen Clark, but Geoff Colvin in Fortune magazine, who wrote that ‘the very basis of value creation is shifting from the disciplines of logic and linear thinking to the intuitive processes of creativity and imagination. Tech advances will cease to confer much competitive advantage…’(Fortune, July 10, 2006 p.33)
I kept the clipping from Fortune to support my own bromide that ideas, not words, are the ultimate software. Technology may provide the chisel for carving our creativity and the stone on which it can be writ, but the imagination is what guides the hand.
Posted by Joseph Peart
A reader has pointed out the irony of online popularity which can generate a 'flash-mob' of customers one minute and a vicious back-lash from the 'flash-mob' which doesn't get instant satisfaction. We refer to the online riot over 2degrees, which was inundated by a flood of subscribers, who were then frustrated by the inability of the company to cope with the demand.
An article published in the Herald Online http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10590762 quotes a customer talking about 'day 8' of the outage. Others are suggesting that 2degrees fires its website managers or builders.
Among the views expressed in the Herald feedback from readers is one which suggests that we all re-do our maths. It is not sent by a Vodafone spokesperson, but Vodafone has placed an Ad. right in the middle of readers' views. Some of those views are supportive of 2degrees and some are extremely critical, so the Ad. seems a well-positioned and transparent way of weighing into the controversy.
Problems with 2degrees are almost, but not yet like, Jetstar's experience of unexpected enthusiasm for what seemed to be the best deal around at the time. Interestingly, both companies used a Web-based intermix of e-marketing and social media to attract customers and communicate with them about their service. But it wasn't the internet that failed them, it was their unpreparedness for the demand and their inability to live up to customers expectations.
Mind you, unprecedented demand has happened in marketing long before social media. Experienced marketers always warn against over-hyping a new product before the early-adopters have entered the marketplace. They advise contingency planning for the dreamed of, but unexpected, massive demand that a good deal can attract.
A client of mine had to charter a Jumbo aircraft and fill it with supplies, after we launched a new product with simply public relations and no advertising in the introductory stage. (The client was delighted, and the campaign won an international award, but thank heavens for an available Jumbo Jet.)
It has not been so easy for 2degrees and Jetstar. The lesson they provide is social media can accelerate demand and provide a forum for widespread criticism that outpaces in a few minutes solutions which take a few hours or, worse still, days or weeks.
Posted by Joseph Peart
Every time I look, new information is appearing that raises further questions about how important social media are to public relations and marketing.
Although I have just joined Twitter in the wake of Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, apparently only 8% of advertisers and consumers think it is a very effective promotion tool, according to results from a LinkedIn (I also joined that) Research Network/Harris Poll.
The study also found that advertisers are more likely than consumers to know about Twitter and are more likely to believe in its power to promote products and services.
The research, which included surveys of both advertisers and the US public, showed that 45% of advertisers think Twitter will grow significantly over the next few years. In contrast, 21% believe Twitter will not move into the mainstream and it will remain something mostly media professionals (like me) and young people (like me?).
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Having found the wellspring of youth in Twitter, I searched further to find how much demand exists among PR clients for measurement of online communications. I found thatdemand has increased from 29% in 2008 to 41% in 2009, according to the online newsletter Marketing Charts. However, practitioners still cannot agree on how best to measure the media and their other work.
This research was carried out by Benchpoint for The Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication and the Institute for Public Relations. It found that 77% of the 520 PR professionals surveyed are tracking their programmes and clients are increasingly expecting this evaluation.
Clearly, we need to continue to look out for useful online measurement tools to add to the survey of what is available, completed by Catherine Arrow earlier this year. You’ll find it under the ‘Research’ tab on this site. Cathy notes that, while current in June ’09, tools such as Quantcast, Twitter Analyzer, Technorati’s Twitterati, Blogtracker, Newscred and even Google Trends could be superseded, as the speed of change is so rapid.
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As this website can only grow through your collaboration, please let us know if you come across anything similar to the ‘Engagement db’ study that shows there is a measurable correlation between higher levels of social engagement and superior financial performance. The study of the top 100 global brands found that Starbucks is the world’s #1 ‘most socially engaged brand’ and is reaping financial rewards as a result of its participation in social media.
Researchers calculated ‘engagement’ by measuring each brand’s presence in a range of channels and examined how deeply involved various departments and executives were with each channel.
Again, I am heartened that the time I am spending researching Facebook, Twitter, Beebo, Blinka and LinkedIn is not wasted, but represents ‘engagement’ by AUT University, which may lead to ‘superior financial performance’. (I wonder if I’ll get a raise?)
Posted by Joseph Peart
Colleague, Kristie Penwarden of Professional Public Relations points out a story on FoodWeek Online, which begins: ‘There's a new truck roaming the streets of LA - just in time for summer- and it's being followed by legions of devotees who track its whereabouts via Twitter...’
The story quotes ‘trend monitoring website Springwise.com’ in its report on Coolhaus, which sells handmade ice cream sandwiches from a pink and chrome converted postal service jeep.
While the idea may sound great to icecream fans in the streets of LA, THE cool thing for us is that the truck informs followers of its whereabouts via Twitter (@coolhaus).
This is one of many early end-user innovations that is happening, following the celebrity adoption of the service to feed their fans, and the appearance of the @ reply and ‘hashtag’ trend-following conventions.
Rest assured, advertisers have not been slow to see the opportunities offered by yet another way of reaching audiences direct, taking a leaf from the PR book of interpersonal, multi-modal communication.
Posted by Joseph Peart
We’ve just received a note, that for those who don't know – Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission. (also known as "opt-out").
This being the case, internet users are once again expected to protect their own property like ‘settlers on a frontier without borders’. Meanwhile, we have less than a fortnight to make submissions on New Zealand Government legislation which would place more power in the hands of internet service providers ( ‘warlords’ or ‘sheriffs’) .
The viral email advises Facebook users to click on ‘Settings’ up at the top where you see the Log out link. Select ‘Privacy’. Then select ‘Newsfeeds’ and ‘Wall’. Next, select the tab that reads ‘Facebook Ads’. There is a drop-down box, select ‘No One’. Then SAVE your changes.
This action may help defend your privacy in this single instance, but the need for this message adds fuel to the ongoing debate over the protection of copyright as intellectual property on the internet. It is especially significant in social media, where so much sharing occurs spontaneously.
Whether you regard your images as your private property or your intellectual property is a moot point. The problem that both issues highlight is that the internationalisation of web-based media is difficulty of enforcing one country’s law outside its own borders. That leaves the major internet site owners, software suppliers and internet service providers as the arbiters, not just of ethics, but of justice on the frontiers of Web 2.0.
Whether they act as ‘warlords’ or ‘sheriffs’ is the question we must ask ourselves.
Facebook’s seemingly unilateral exposure of our private lives comes partly as result of users’ naivety, and partly as a deliberate hands-off policy, of (US-based) Facebook not wanting to act as sheriff in disputes over ‘borrowed’ images.
The rule has to be: If it’s on Facebook, it is already public.
This is important now because, although the majority of the New Zealand Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 No 27 came into force on 31 October 2008 http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2008/0027/latest/DLM1122643.html,
Section 92A (relating to ISP liability) was delayed because of the power it would place in the hands of internet service providers (sheriffs and warlords). Submissions are still being sought on the proposed policy to address repeat copyright infringement in the digital environment. We are invited to send our comments to [email protected] by Friday 7 August 2009.
New Zealand legislators should think about times when a ‘sheriff’ looks more like a ‘warlord’. Such an instance was recorded a couple of weeks ago by Canadian blogger, Jesse Hirsch. Hirsch received a ‘take down’ notice from YouTube regarding a video, posted three years earlier, from RoBTV which has since been rebranded as BNN. He added that he was not the only one, and that Jason Crocker from the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights also had some RoBTV/BNN videos pulled from YouTube.
Jesse notes: “Jason also did some digging to find that there were dozens of videos from BNN on YouTube and it was just the ones around the copyright issue that had been forcibly removed.”
Jesse Hirsh is an internet strategist, researcher, and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada.
His views are somewhat balanced by those of Sharon Housley, who manages marketing for the website, FeedForAll. She says that, in the USA, offering a feed for syndication does not in fact grant any legal rights to anyone to reuse the feeds content beyond what the copyright laws grant as ‘fair use’. (Commentators suggest that interpretations of ‘fair use’ in a New Zealand business context may differ greatly from those in the US.)
Housley writes: “In practice, while your feed might legally be protected, you could literally spend weeks attempting to protect the contents of your feed. Legal gray areas are introduced with search engines indexing feeds and RSS Feed Directories including copywritten [copyright protected?] feeds, in their categorized directories.”
She asks: “How do you distinguish between a legitimate search engine, RSS directory and someone simply reproducing the contents of a feed for personal gain?
Housley recommends that appropriate credit is given, and that site managers include links back to their website in the item description field, or use teaser copy in the RSS feed's Item description field, linking back to the home website which contains the full contents of the post.
In the UK, the debate has been at least partly guided by the HM Treasury-sponsored Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, published in 2006. In that report, Andrew Gowers argues that in the modern world, the UK's economic competitiveness is increasingly driven by knowledge-based industries, innovation and creativity. Therefore, said Gowers: “Intellectual Property (IP) - protecting and promoting innovation - has never been more important.”
To ensure the correct balance in IP rights the Gower Review recommends:
· Ensuring the IP system only proscribes genuinely illegitimate activity, allowing some 'private copying' – E.G. The right of an individual to legally transfer music from CD to their MP3 player;
Enabling access to content for libraries and education establishments,
and
Recommending that the European Commission retains the 50-year-term of copyright protection for sound recordings and related performers' rights.
, here in New Zealand, submissions on Section 92A (relating to ISP liability) of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 No 27 must be made to [email protected] by Friday 7 August 2009. So move quickly if you feel strongly about this.
by Joseph Peart. 27 July, 2009.
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