Archive for the ‘reputation’ Category

#SocialMedia And The Rise Of Self Censorship

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Google logoSo Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has come out and warned that young people will be entitled one day to change their names so that they can escape online and social media activity that’s been recorded and could hinder their future.

The fact that young people or anybody else might need to change their name is not in my opinion what is shocking, but that society would prejudge people based on what they might have got-up to during their youth.

It’s an astonishing claim from Google, given the amount of data that they cache.

Danny Dover’s recent SEOmoz.org blog post - The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google’s User Data Collection - gives you an idea of what search engines such as Google have stored.  I would recommend that you read his post to get a clear understanding of how vulnerable reputations have become.  And why are they so vulnerable?  Well, the fact that people are sharing information makes the net a great place for data mining for investigative journalists.

censorshipLet’s remember the case of Stuart MacLennan, a prospective Labour candidate, who before seeking nomination to stand for Labour in Moray referred to pensioners as “coffin dodgers”, the common’s speaker John Bercow as a “opportunist little twat” and referring to Fairtrade he demanded a “slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified” banana.  Of course he didn’t say this in person, but Tweeted it to his followers some time before he sought the Labour party’s nomination.  Needless to say that it was a journalist who unveiled his comments, which led to the then Prime Minster Gordon Brown to sack him.  So, should he change his name?  Possibly not because in politics nearly everything is forgiven.

With social networking having taken a front seat in the way in which we communicate the watchword for managing a reputation is something that would have sounded odious some time ago.  That word is self-censorship, something that in ‘pluralistic’ countries happens just to conform to the expectations of the wider community.

The big question is my opinion is whether social media will makes us more tolerant or more authoritarian?

And for those who might be using lawyers to get libellous content removed from a web-site, while lawyers can enforce an order on the hosting company, getting the cache-trail cleaned up is a different question all together.

Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” election gaffe

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Gordon Brown with head in hands after "bigoted woman" gaffe.

Last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown said about the election during the #leadersdebate that, “if it was all about style and PR, count me out.” The fact is that after his walkabout meeting with Rochdale pensioner Gillian Duffy it is PR, or lack of it, that highlights that he is stumbling along the election stump.

The chance encounter with Gillian Duffy was a meeting that Labour insiders were hoping for – a meeting with real and ordinary voters. The problem arose not during the robust questioning by Duffy, which in my opinion turned out positive, but how he perceived the meeting went. It was comments that he made in his car and which were picked up by a live microphone that might have derailed the Labour Party’s efforts during this general election.

Media channels and the online community on Twitter wasted no time in making the most out of the comments from a lady who at the end of his meeting with Brown described herself as a life-long Labour voter that would vote for the Prime Minister. After she heard the comments, he decision changed.

While PR gaffes like this do happen, in such situations they can be critical. It would be interesting to see how Gordon’s spin-doctors try to turn this around. I say this as Lord Mandelson is on the BBC News Channel giving his view on the event as part of a “damage limitation” exercise.

Of course, you can judge for yourself how he fared up and until he got in his car on the Channel 4 footage below.

UPDATE: News reaches us that after his BBC Radio 2 interview with Jeremy Vine, Brown jumped in the car and returned to Rochdale to apologise to Gillian Duffy.  We should remember that after learning how Gillian had been described by the Prime Minister she said to journalists that she did not want to see or meet him again.  That decision though has been taken away from her as Brown has been at her house for over 30 minutes.

#newsrw: how is journalism developing?

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries.  Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture.  In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry.  But how wrong they appeared to have been.

If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job.  The fact is that while the decline in advertising has decimated newspapers and magazine, publishers have been fighting back, restructuring and getting their journalists to use social media and networking platforms not just for promoting content but for reaching out, developing contacts and finding great stories.

Professor George Brock opened the day with a series of seminal questions, is there such a thing as news, is authority in the crowd or the expert, does news stay in bundles and how do we [journalists] tell what is true?

Brock challenged the news model and gave examples of how outlets in the US are re-establishing themselves.  In his keynote speech he encouraged those present to not look at technology as the saviour of journalism, but to look backward and remember traditional journalism.

Using the 2009 Iranian election protests as an example Brock cited that while Twitter and video were important during the uprising, “it’s a less well known that one of the most effective ways of opposition ideas was slogans stamped on banknotes.”  He added that opposition messages were, “now stamped on so many banknotes that the governor or the Iranian Central Bank – not very sympathetic to the authorities – is in an argument with the authorities who want them removed from circulation.  Of course, in an economy you can’t just withdraw large numbers of banknotes [as] you will trigger an economic crisis.  So the message remains in circulation!”

Technology and social media platforms are tools that support communications.  They support journalism and public relations. BBC College of Journalism Editor Kevin Marsh highlighted how the BBC Newsroom had adopted web-centric journalism skills that allow engagement with its audience.  Something that I’ve written about before.

Kevin Marsh at news:rewired 2010 from BBC College of Journalism on Vimeo.

Marsh confirmed that new skills and platforms are just that, new.  They are there to back up traditional newsgathering skills such as organising an outside broadcast, gathering information from a court case or persuading people to talk and go on the record.

Seminars that took place confirmed that journalists have to learn and adapt to how people are moving online.  Journalists needed to pick up new skills on how multimedia newsrooms work, the power of social media for journalists, crowd-sourcing and data-mashing.

Content and stories are online and it’s a journalist’s job is to find and report them depending on their beat.  To use content to back up what contacts can provide.

But why is this so important to public relations professionals?  Why should this shift matter to those who build and shape brands and reputations?

In my opinion it matters a lot.  It matters because journalists are using citizens as an extension of their profession.  And citizens that are happy to contribute.  They are happy to be the eyes and ears on the ground.

During the crowd sourcing session tempers nearly got the better of some who objected to the term ‘citizen-journalists.’  Some attendees coined the term ‘eye-witness-journalists’ as professionals found it objectionable that people with no training described themselves as ‘journalists’.  While it was a very well argued point, the fact is that while many people can contribute to a story it is a trained journalist that can filter out the coal from the diamonds.

All this matters to PRs because people that unhappy customers can be found very easily.  Technology has herded people into online pens and it is the job of a good journalist to find them and work them into a story.

The same people want to receive their content through their social media platforms, online and on their mobiles.  The same devices that can now capture any bit of breaking news.

Of course journalists are learning on the go as the news and publishing industry moved online.  A channel where readers and viewers are less faithful.  Loyalty will depend on the speed at which content is updated.

Award-winning videojournalist and Southbank artist-in-residence David Dunkley Gyimah shows us what can be done and possibly what journalists should be.  Watching David confirmed that journalists might have to be multi-disciplined.

A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Journalism is evolving and the new technology that for so long had been blamed for its potential demise might in fact be its saviour.  And that is important for everybody, not just journalists, and not just PRs.

The Changing Business Culture – Reacting To Consumers And Social Media

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

It has been an interesting year for public relations.  The recession has affected how businesses communicate.  Reputation and issues management have been the watchwords as companies throughout the world battled to safeguard their image and reputation during what could be described as the first major downturn in this globalised era.  And it has taken no prisoners as it spread across sectors and continents, highlighting how interconnected we all are today.

What’s been interesting is that while the recession was causing havoc around the world, consumers became better connected.  Issues that once might have only affected reputations in a small geographic region spread like wild fire thanks to social media and networking.  Media outlets across the world wasted no time in reporting issues that were trending online.

While this was happening companies continued in their monologue culture, dictating at consumers while they engaged and networked online – sharing feedback and their experiences through websites, blogs and real-time platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

And that is the point.  Social media and networking has empowered consumers.  It has given them a platform through which they can share knowledge and experience.  It has also raised their expectations with regards to what they want and how they want it.  They expect good service and that expectation crosses sectors.  Today, if you have outstanding service when buying a car, you expect the same level of service when dealing with your bank or utility company.  Social media has unified the expectations of people and it is now up to companies to realise this.

The fear that the business community has is that it isn’t able to control the conversation.  Entering into a conversation with current or potential consumers on a digital platform “entails considerable risk” as the Accenture report says.  Risk because if your levels of service do not meet the expectations of your empowered audience, said stakeholders will amplify their displeasure and share it with others, may others.  In fact, the Accenture says that “one-quarter of respondents have used these channels [digital] to relate their negative experiences to others.”  In fact, nearly nine in 10 consumers globally told the people around them about their bad experiences.  And this is not what businesses want during an economic recovery.

You just have to look at how Eurostar created a rod for its own back by behaving in such as detached way from what was affecting their customers.  A lack of empathy and the use of corporate language only helped turn an issue into a crisis.  Such was the reaction to horrendous customer service that customers turned to Facebook and other online sites to vent their anger at how they were treated.

And let’s not forget how Rage Against The Machine became the UK’s Christmas Number 1.  Tired of being fed ‘pop-tastic’ fodder, people joined a Facebook group that attracted over 1 million supporters who wanted to break the monopoly of X-Factor.  People power at it’s best.

So, what should businesses do in order to meet the ever-increasing expectations of consumers?  Accenture rightly says that companies should dump the ‘one-size-fits-all’ customer service model and “embrace a service model that provides differentiated service experiences based on the expectations and requirements of individual—and closely understood—customer segments.”

Businesses in the so-called emerging markets have become more vulnerable to the power of people.  One could argue that it’s because consumers are keener on making the most of their new found wealth, while customers in mature markets are more patient and will only as a last resort take their business elsewhere.

For quite some time consumers have had customer service that’s been designed for them rather than with them.  With the speed at which the public can create a backlash it is going to be essential that businesses learn to listen and start developing models that can be customised by customers.  Collaboration and prompt attention and the understanding that each consumer is unique will help businesses succeed as the economy climbs out of recession.  This culture and philosophy will work to turn consumers into advocates, turn people into an invisible word-of-mouth and online sales force.

I believe that 2010 will be a year where public relations forces businesses to take note of what customers want.  A year where cultures will need to change, because if they don’t and consumers ever increasing expectations are not met reputations will suffer.  Businesses will start noticing that their customers are now critics that will make their opinions known not just through word-of-mouth but online, to a much wider audience.

In 2010 consumers that share their positive or negative thoughts and experiences will attract cult following.  Of course on issues such as banking we already have this with MoneySavingExpert.com’s Martin Lewis.  Just think of what he’s achieved and wonder what others could do in sectors in which they are customers.

We are witnessing a change and social media is the platform through which consumers will fight for the service that they expect.

But as Niccolo Machiavelli said, “whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”

About me

Hello. I'm Julio Romo, a London-based PR, communications and social media consultant. I am also a freelance journalist and advise clients across a range of sectors how to get their message across through traditional and digital media channels. 

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