The Adverting Standards Authority (ASA) siloed approach to regulating social media highlights this regulatory body’s lack of understanding of real-time communication channels.
On 1st September the ASA announced that the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) had empowered it to police ‘marketing communications online, including the rules relating to misleading advertising, social responsibility and the protection of children.’ The statement from the ASA added that, ‘the remit will apply to all sectors and all businesses and organisations regardless of size.’
It all sounded very well, apart from one specific paragraph, which stated, that journalistic and editorial content and material related to causes and ideas – except those that are direct solicitations of donations for fund-raising – were to be excluded from the remit.
And here lie the problem. The guidelines and regulations that the ASA wishes to apply to social media and networking channels appear to have been written from a 20th centaury perspective, where marketing disciplines where siloed – advertising was the big beast, direct marketing was direct marketing and public relations was, well, media relations. There appears to have been little understanding of the fact that social media and networking crosses all these marketing disciplines. In fact, it brings them together and maximises message penetration.
You would have therefore thought that the ASA would have consulted widely before announcing that it was to regulate social media channels. Well, its statement said that the regulations that it would be enforcing were formed as a result of ‘formal recommendations from a wide cross-section of UK industry.’ Very odd thing to say given that the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and it’s Social Media Advisory Board, which I should declare that I sit on, had been omitted from any consultation even though numerous requests were made.
Without a doubt social media has to a certain extent be regulated – best practice needs to promoted. The CIPR is currently reviewing its social media guidelines and has uploaded these to a wiki where people can register and share their thoughts.
Online and social media has changed the way that companies, brands and consumers interact with each other. Transparency has a higher value than ever before, especially in a world where the old ‘broadcast communications model’ is taking a back seat to a ‘conversational’ one where consumers and stakeholders can cross examine business.
The ASA is right, there is a need to regulate. But before doing so there needs to be a clear understanding of what one are trying to regulate, and why. Marketing communications is changing. Six months, the time until 1 March – when the regulations are currently due to come into force, is a long time in social media terms.
Engagement, dialogue and understanding comes through dialogue. So lets start here.
PR and Wikipedia: Working Towards a Transparent Relationship
Saturday, January 7th, 2012The issue at hand was not that they tried to edit Wikipedia pages for clients, more that they failed to declare a conflict of interest in these edits.
Wikipedia, the free, collaborative and multilingual online encyclopaedia, is seen as a first port of call for accurate information and description because it is built on 3 key pillars – 1, contributors and editors must have a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest; 2, content must be verifiable; 3, articles must not contain new analysis or synthesis.
Today, Wikipedia has over 20 million articles – over 3.8 million in English, is available in over 280 languages and is edited and monitored by over 10,000 active editors around the world. The fact is that anybody anywhere can access and edit nearly any Wikipedia page – some are controversially protected and can only be edited by Wikipedia’s own system administrators, is one of it’s key strengths.
Let’s be honest, managing and editing reputations on Wikipedia is not an action confined to individuals working in the global public relations industry – the internet has connected millions of people around the world. Vandalism and trolling are a growing issue that has affected and will continue to affect this platform, though Wikipedia’s own systems, based on the power of the community, has thankfully enabled it to so far keep it in check.
The issue is about transparency, or lack of by certain communicators who fail to declare they are representing the individual or brand they are editing. This not just damages the reputation of the brand they are working for, but that of our own profession.
Everybody has the right to a voice and to a reputation. That reputation though is based on the actions of a client and not the image that a PR might subsequently provide. Social networking has educated the wider audience to believe what members of their trusted community say and while PRs continue to hide behind a cloak of secrecy this profession will find it harder in it’s primary mission, which is to ‘help establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between public, private and not-for-profit organisations and their various audiences.’ I ask this, knowing how connected the world is and how communities work, was it strategically wise to try to edit out Stella Artois from the page in question? Total control is no longer an option in today’s connected world.
The Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR), the UK’s professional body for PR, issued a statement yesterday (6 January 2011) stating it’s commitment to put together clear guidance for the profession on using and editing Wikipedia by working with representatives of Wikimedia UK. The CIPR already has in place social media guidelines that were developed by the institute’s own social media advisory board, which I sit on. Before being adopted the guidelines were put out on a wiki for comment and debate to the UK PR community.
While here in the UK the CIPR has taken the first step in seeking and securing a partnership for the specific creation of dedicated guidelines for PRs we should remember that the issue, like our profession, is global. Public relations is a profession and industry in the rest of Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Wikipedia and it’s community should use this opportunity to work with PRs around the world so that these guidelines can be adopted globally. Groups are already coming together to encourage a dialogue and understanding of what PRs do. I personally do not expect everybody to be won over. In fact I wouldn’t want this. Debate is healthy and fuels change. But I do hope that we can demystify what PRs around the world do and and contribute.
After all, we live in a globally connected world filled with different cultures and jurisdictions that is unifying and shaping us and our opinions. Our views are shaped by those we know and trust within our networks. It is time that public relations professionals improved the PR for themselves.
Tags: bell pottinger, bureau for investigative journalism, chartered institute of public relations, cipr, communications, community, inBev, portland communications, pr, public relations, stella artois, uk, vandalism, wikipedia
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