Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review. This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.
Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed. It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with. And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.
Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with. They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.
BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content. The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform. Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.
Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward. In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.
Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.
One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television. Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.
Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population. Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.
Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic. Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.
Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer. For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it. Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example. Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?
So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself. The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it. Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.
I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy? Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe? Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity. The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.
Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings. The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.
If proof was needed that social media empowers people and fuels revolutions then you should look at the unfolding situations in #Tunisia, #Egypt and countries in the middle-east. Facebook, Twitter and Egypt’s own Masrawy have connected people and empowered them to share their thoughts and opinions on how their states are governed.
The adoption of social networking in Arabic-speaking states has gone relatively unnoticed. Yet according to web research firm Alexa the top sites in Tunisia and Egypt are Facebook, Twitter and search company Google.
Anger and resentment at their respective Governments has found a nerve on people online, which has spread to citizens in respective countries.
Tunisia’s Secretary of State for Communication Sami Zaoui admitted at this week’s 2011 World Economic Forum (#WEF) about the impact that social networking had in the overthrowing of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Speaking to YouTube’s Uncultured Project Shawn Ahmed, Secretary Zaoui said, “Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have had great contribution to that [the revolution], in addition to, of course, all the demonstrators that have been in the field.” Secretary Zaoui also highlighted the fact that 40 per cent of the population being connected online to the success of the ‘Jasmine Revolution.’
But the demands from the population for work, food and democracy has spread through the region with Egyptian citizens taking to streets to demand an end of President Moubarak’s regime. Using the same sites as well as mobiles, demonstrators gathered to protest. Twitter, which is now blocked in Egypt saw a serve in use with people communicating and sharing messages using the #jan25 hashtag.
The outcome from the revolution in Tunisa unnerved the Egyptian regime, which took unprecedented action and blocked Internet services and mobile networks in the hope of quashing the uprisings. Demonstrators though quickly bypassed the authority’s firewalls and accessed the web through alternative means including the old dial-up system. Such a crackdown on communication brought condemnation from the international community.
Authorities in Egypt also started to censor and block news output, with Qatar’s Al-Jazeera having to broadcasting through alternative satellite frequencies after they were taken of air.
What social media has done is empower people. It has taught them how to overcome barriers and it’s enabled people to find a base where they can share their view and opinions. Opaque regimes have come under greater scrutiny with citizens wanting transparency and accountability. It’s enabled them to take action.
Social media and networking channels have during the past year established themselves as the preferred method of communication amongst the varied publics that we interact with. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have become part of the mainstream.
Those who at the beginning of 2010 doubted the power of these channels are now active users, even evangelists. Last year social media was about discovery. It was about people building up their communities online. It was about real-time engagement.
This year in 2011 we‘ll see less experimenting and an increase in engagement. The knowledge that we have as individuals will be pooled and shared within our communities and this in it self will create challenges and opportunities for companies and individuals that we in public relations will be working with.
Communities: engaged and empowered
2010 was about Wikileaks. Partnering with news outlets around the world including The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel Wikileaks and it’s community focused on releasing classified material to the media and public. While the aim of the site when it was set-up in 2006 was to expose ‘oppressive regimes … (and) be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations’ Assange and his associates focused on uncovering political machinations around the world.
What Wikileaks did in 2010 was to light a fuse that will see in the coming year more people consider and question the ethics and values of their employer. We’ve already had the case of former Julius Bär employee Rudolf Elmer who worked for the bank for over 20 years until his dismissal in 2002. In a very public press conference at London’s Frontline club Elmer handed over to Wikileaks Julian Assange secret documents detailing the activities of his former employer in the Cayman Island and alleged tax evasion.
Sites such as Wikileaks, Openleaks andTradeleaks will prosper and be a contact point for investigative journalists and campaigning organisations wishing to question the transparency of members of the business community.
We can’t dismiss Wikileaks or what it stands for. In fact, the publicity generated and the way in which it’s core values have been promoted will have made people, employees in sensitive positions in the corporate and private sector, more willing to leak confidential information. For many, and not just the hacktivists, Wikileaks is the raison-d’etre it needed.
Last year News International started putting its main titles behind a pay-wall, something that other news outlets are watching with hope. Murdoch is one of the only publishers that can invest in this experiment. If it works though, and many editors are hoping that it does, then the pay-walls will be going around other titles.
Quality journalism costs money. It shouldn’t be free. But getting readers to spend money during a recession will be difficult and it’s because of this that in 2011 we shall see more news outlets releasing apps for mobile devices. Those that are free will switch to a paid for subscription service. Paying for content through apps will be a precursor to getting people to pay for quality content online. The content that is currently free.
Mobile
Mobile is everywhere. It is the channel that personalises everything we do. It allows us to update our status, our community, our location, our likes and dislikes. All this data allows brands to tailor their offerings for more personal approaches.
Why is mobile so important? Well, over a third of Facebook’s users now access the site through a mobile device. Twitter meanwhile has also seen a rise of people accessing it through a mobile, with also more than a third of users accessing Twitter via their mobile phone. Expect this to rise.
Mobile is not just about phones, but also about tablet PCs and the ubiquitous iPad. Consumers today want content, updated, on demand wherever they are. Keeping your audiences up to date and up to speed will be central to the work of public relations professionals. And with the news-cycle crunching down even further reaction times will shorten even further.
Crises only became so when people accessed their desktops at work or home, but with the increase use of mobiles, people will be able to react to issues quicker than ever before. Listening and engaging will be central to the job of those working in communications.
Of course as the use of smartphones continues to grow and establish itself so will geo-location services like Facebook Places and Foursquare start to take-off. And with the recession, business will look to use every opportunity available to them to help people part with their hard earned cash.
Content accessible through mobiles will become a must for established organisations and brands.
This year of 2011 will be a key a seminal year in the integration of social media into communications. It will be a year of communities and engagement.
The Adverting Standards Authority (ASA) siloed approach to regulating social media highlights this regulatory body’s lack of understanding of real-time communication channels.
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.
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.
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.
Let’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.
Hello. I'm Julio Romo. I'm a London-based independent PR, communications consultant and digital strategist. I am also a freelance journalist and trainer, providing insight and consultancy on how to secure better engagement through the changing media and digital landscape.
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Facebook, Mobile And Convergence are subjects that dominate FT Digital Media Conference
Monday, March 14th, 2011BBC DG Mark Thompson
Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review. This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.
Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed. It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with. And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.
Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with. They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.
BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content. The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform. Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.
Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward. In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.
Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.
One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television. Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.
Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population. Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.
Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic. Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.
Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer. For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it. Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example. Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?
So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself. The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it. Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.
I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy? Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe? Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity. The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.
Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings. The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.
Tags: #ftmedia11, apple, bbc, facebook, ft, media, news, online, pr, public relations, social media, social networking, web2.0
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