The fact is, stories are being told about your organization all the time. Whether the stories are good or bad, they are being told by clients or customers, by service providers, employees and contractors (and their families and friends), by competitors, your board members, government officials and by the media.

When we start working with a client, we often do a little bit of research and find some of the stories that are being told about the organization. There is a great deal of information that can be found online, in blogs, in media coverage, on social media networking sites and on consumer review sites. We also often develop and execute communication audits that ask a range of stakeholder groups for their confidential feedback. Focus groups, both more formal and informal, can also help to inform us of what your story is “on the street.”

Once you have a sense of the story that others are telling about you, it helps to understand what type of story you should be telling at this point. Are the stories that are being told by stakeholders positive or negative? Are they accurate or do they contain errors or misinformation? What is the theme of the stories?

You can learn a great deal from what is being said about your organization now. Understanding this component is the first step in developing your organization’s story on your terms and, when you share it, having your stakeholder groups connect to it and retell it – the way it should be told.

Next week – step two and three.

Step 1: Clearly identify your stakeholder groups.

This blog post isn’t about what to do should your organization be faced with an issue or a crisis. It is about what you can do today, proactively, even if there isn’t the slightest evidence that there might be a challenge in your future. (A word of warning: A small mistake by someone in your organization could get a lot of interest online and turn into a huge crisis. Don’t think a crisis would never happen to you. It can. And at some point, it likely will.)

Back to today’s post…

We are often asked to develop issues and crisis communications plans for clients. One of the components that we include focuses on what the organization is doing now, at this moment, when there isn’t a challenge looming on the horizon. We find that there are a lot of organizations that aren’t proactively building relationships with their stakeholder groups. Not only is that dangerous, but it’s bad business. (Marketing and sales information doesn’t count as relationship building material, just for the record. And from what I have seen on some Twitter and Facebook pages, there are organizations out there that don’t realize that.)

Using Groupon or promoting a product or service through advertising, direct marketing or other channels is fine, but if that is the only connection you have with your stakeholder group, then you aren’t building relationships—you are setting up transactions. Transactions don’t necessarily create loyalty, encourage your customers or clients to tell others about your organization, and they won’t come to your defence if you are facing an issue or crisis.

We have clients in diverse industry sectors. At first glance, some seem to have more sizzle than others; their stories are easy to identify. For others, it takes a bit of digging to see what would be of interest. However, in all the years that I have been a story chaser, both as a journalist for Maclean’s and as a communicator, I have not yet found one industry or organization that didn’t have a compelling story to tell to their stakeholder group. And that’s the thing to remember—the whole world doesn’t have to be engaged, just your stakeholder group.

The first step to proactively building relationships with your stakeholders is to clearly identify each of your stakeholder groups. Who are they? What is the relationship to your organization and to each other? What do they want to know about your organization? (Not what you want to tell them, but what do they want to know?) How do they want to learn about you? (Facebook, Twitter, your website, a blog, etc.) What traditional media do they read, watch or listen to? Spend some time really getting to know who your stakeholders are. You might be surprised at what you learn.

For our clients, we spend time understanding their stakeholders. Depending on the project, we often create stakeholder character profiles complete with visuals, personalities, likes and dislikes. It’s a creative exercise that gets us thinking about how we need to share information.

Stay tuned for my next blog post on how to identify your organization’s interesting and compelling story.

The Organization Blog

This blog is a little less about the person writing it than it is about the organization as a whole. Often there will be several writers who cover a range of topics and areas regarding the organization. It might be that different departments or division heads each write one blog post a week about news, events and interesting points relevant to their area.

In this style, it is more like local news and opinion coverage, with a little thought-leadership, than the more personal column style of the CEO or President’s blog.

There is more organization and focus needed here to make sure that there is a flow of subjects and that writers don’t duplicate efforts or put out conflicting information – which we all know can happen when there are multiple voices. Often, the communications team would act as the news editor and review all the information before it is posted to ensure that overall consistency in style and tone is reflected.

The Employee Blog

These can be the most engaging – if you have the right employee(s) writing the blog posts. It has been our experience that organizations have some incredible people working on the front lines who are great at blogging. It’s these people who have engaging, interesting, amazing stories that showcase the product or services that you offer – and the heart and soul of your organization: the people.

There are, of course, challenges here. Not everyone on the front lines understands what should and should not be shared publicly. Training and coaching can be helpful here. The other side of this is that sometimes, as communicators, we get caught up in positioning, messaging and talking points. Having someone who lives the brand every day write the blog posts can bring us back to a reality that is important. There are times when it’s okay to say things are challenging and when it’s okay to talk about an issue and how it was resolved. Most people want to know about the heart of an organization – not just what your product or service does for them. They want to know how you act when there is an issue; they want to know what the day is like for someone who works there – to understand the challenges that you face and how you deal with them.

The Blend

Some of the best blogs we’ve helped develop and maintain are the ones that bring the CEO and the employees into the spotlight. The CEO might blog on Fridays, while a team of employee bloggers rotate through the other days. Some of the most popular blog posts have been where employees interview the CEO or the CEO speaks with employees and finds out about their role in the company.

The blend blog style allows for some great human interaction that showcases the people behind the product or service, something we’re all interested in knowing more about.

Does your organization have a blog? Who writes it?

Like any communications tool, blogging isn’t for everyone. It depends on the objectives, goals, overall strategy and, of course, the resources. It takes time and effort to produce a relevant, interesting and informative blog post on a regular basis.

A blog provides an opportunity to share relevant news and information, to educate and inform, to provide opinions and context within an industry and to clarify and correct any misunderstandings or factual errors, which could come from rumours or speculation. A blog can prove valuable during an issue or a crisis; and while it would be a positive to already have one up and running so that you have already created a community that reads the blog, starting one to share information during a challenging time that can provide reliable communications is appreciated – and read.

Depending on what the objective is, there are different types and styles of blogs. And some are a blend. Today we’re going to outline the CEO or President’s blog.

The CEO or President’s Blog

Typically this positions your CEO or President in a thought-leadership position within an industry or field. It also provides the opportunity to show the “human” side of your leader. These types of blogs work best with a CEO or President who is comfortable in the spotlight, who actively participates within your industry, likes to share her/his thoughts, opinions and ideas and who appreciates interaction and feedback. There are those who believe the CEO or President should write their own blog and, in a perfect world, we agree. However, most leaders don’t have the time it takes to do this. We have found that the most authentic and realistic way for this type of blog to succeed is to have regular meetings (which can be on the phone while the CEO drives to work) where she/he downloads ideas and key points and the post gets written in their personal style. The CEO reviews it to make sure that their thoughts and ideas are reflected.

There is some discussion about the authenticity of this approach, but in our experience it’s similar to having someone write a speech. It has to reflect the CEO or President’s thoughts, ideas and style, but it can be written for them. We always recommend that in the about section of the blog that this is explained or defined.

Think of this blog as your CEO or President having a column that is produced two or three times a week.
On Monday, we’ll visit the organization blog, the employee blog and a blended blog.

Of the five communications audits we have done in the past few months, four of the organizations are dealing with challenges in that their social media networking communities are not growing and there is little or no engagement or interaction.

One of the challenges of social media is that it is easy to lose perspective when it comes to content creation and social media. We see it quite often – there is great intent to share interesting, informative, engaging content. Unfortunately, it gets sideswiped when the content creator sees their role only as the publisher of information and not as a facilitator of conversation or content.

The traditional paradigm of providing information is to push it out. It’s a one-way approach where people are “told” – facts, information, stories and ideas. Social media allows us to do more. It allows us to actively participate, to put information out and to take information in. It gives us the opportunity for a conversation, for a two-way (or three-way or twenty-way…) approach. It encourages a community approach that inspires participation and interaction. Many organizations just aren’t there yet; they are defaulting to the more traditional way of doing things… putting information out through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

It is a cultural shift and it does take time for this approach to take hold – for it to become the standard of how you communicate. There are straightforward, simple ways to start to do this. Of course, the first step is recognizing that you aren’t encouraging interaction, but are using your social media networks as a megaphone to push out information.

Review the last month or so of your updates and outreach. How often did you ask for input from your community? How often did you respond to others asking for input, opinions or advice? How often did you link to ideas or conversations that were relevant – but didn’t directly benefit your organization – even though your community would be interested in the topic? How often did you recommend a blog, Twitter or Facebook follow that you felt would bring value to your followers? If it isn’t often, it’s time to shift a little.

For some organizations, this is a big paradigm shift. It can, in fact, be culture shifting. There is a perception with the fast-paced, 24/7 cycle of user-generated content online, that organizations have lost control of their “message.” When in fact, the social media era (in my humble opinion) should be seen as providing the most opportunity to let your target market (and others you haven’t even considered) in on the conversation about your brand, organization, and product or services.

Before social media, people went home, went to parties and pubs, went to coffee shops and restaurants, conferences and networking events and discussed what they were thinking with their family, friends, and colleagues. If they were frustrated or angry enough, they might send a letter to an organization, to the newspaper or to a consumer investigative reporter. And until you got a call from the media or happened to stand behind someone talking about you at the local coffee shop… you had no idea what was being said about your brand.

Today, you can engage. You can respectfully and authentically step forward and correct errors, help to clarify miscommunication and to participate in conversations with the people that use your services or product, that are a part of your community, and that support your brand.

There are great opportunities to build strong relationships, to share interesting aspects of who the people behind the brand are, what life is like in your organization, why you do the work that you do, etc. And, should your brand face an issue or crisis, you will be glad that you did. Most people understand that mistakes happen, that errors can be made – we just want to know how you are going to make it right, that you see what went wrong and why and what you will do to ensure it won’t happen again.

One of the most valuable (and effective tools) an organization has is to create interesting content. Monday’s post will talk about more about what the steps are to creating compelling content that will be watched or read, and shared.

I don’t hold the same political views as some of them. I have to admit, I have found some of the discussions and ideas put forward by a some of my “pals” a little worrisome. Especially when it comes to politics – specifically in the U.S. There are some very personal attacks on politicians happening these days – on both the Democratic and Republican sides. We’re seeing a little of it here in Canada but not to the degree that it happens in the U.S.

Disagreeing with a candidate’s platform and what they choose to support and not support is one thing, but there are some nasty, nasty rumours and lies that are put forward sometimes. I am not always comfortable seeing the opinions that appear on the status updates of people on my Facebook page. But I do realize that it is important to stay connected and to listen to viewpoints that are unlike your own, especially ones that you have a visceral reaction to. You don’t have to agree, understand or even respect the opinion, but I believe you should respect their right to have their own opinion. For me, it’s a good practice to be open to listening to a range of viewpoints and to try to understand why they might think or feel so differently than I do.

This morning, I saw an update that contained the content of an update about President Obama that was incredibly nasty. Among other things, it said that the President won’t let his dog Bo travel with him in Air Force One because of Muslim beliefs and that it was costing tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I could feel my blood pressure and anger rising as I read the update and was a little shocked that someone would put that up. The information is just plain ridiculous and—to me—so shockingly unbelievable that I don’t understand how anyone would think it is true. However, it is making the rounds out there online and people seem to believe it.

That made me think about the extreme factions – in this case, political ones. There is a very fine line between getting people all riled up and engaged and going too far and losing your credibility and support. I think that we have all “gone too far” at some point in either our professional or personal lives. Pushed our agenda too hard and with too much vigor so that we lose sight of the overall goal or objective. And I think it is a surprising fine line that we all need to be very aware of between being passionate and committed, and becoming a zealot where the truth no longer matters and the end justifies the means.

As communicators, it is our role to make sure that our outreach stays on this side of the line and is transparent, authentic and truthful. Without those, there can be no trust. And without trust, there can be no long-term success.

The CEO is a smart person. He is connected within his industry, he is well-liked and well respected, and there are interesting things going on at this organization. The CEO has his own Twitter account, which has been silent for several months now. There are a few hundred followers – not a huge amount by any standards, but the followers are relevant to this organization. They are representatives from government, journalists, others in the same field, and board members; there aren’t many clients or customers. The organization itself (the brand) has a Twitter account as well. It has more followers than the CEO, but has been pretty silent over the past few months. It is this account that focuses on their target market.

The challenge here was to get our client to embrace the fact that the number of followers is less important than the “value” of each follower. This is something we face quite often, especially with clients who aren’t fully immersed in social media (and even with some who are immersed, but who are driven by numbers rather than context). And, in the communications field, we have often have to deal with the challenge of defending a targeted pitch to one journalist, as opposed to an email news release blast that goes to 5,000 (mostly irrelevant) journalists. There is a misconception that more means more valuable, and in the context of relationships and communication, that isn’t necessarily accurate. Realizing that more isn’t necessarily better in this context is vital to successful communication. In this space, a small number of the right people is more valuable than a big number of random people.

The CEO’s Twitter account should grow organically. As we ramp up to create an editorial and engagement schedule, defining what would be of interest to his professional relationships, our approach is to help him create relevant content that is of interest, that will help build engaged followers. This includes identifying the people on Twitter that he should follow – people who will provide valuable information and news that is of interest to him and his role as CEO. This doesn’t mean that the target market (potential customers) wouldn’t follow him on Twitter or find him interesting and relevant; but, for the most part, they aren’t the target audience for this specific stream of conversation. The direct consumer connection comes through the brand Twitter account. The brand Twitter account should retweet interesting tweets from the CEO, and the CEO should guest tweet here, as well as retweet from the brand – but only when it is relevant to their specific Twitter followers.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a great example of how a small Twitter community can, and will, share a message when they feel that it is relevant. And how quickly it can spread if it resonates with people. It is incredibly powerful. There is a good example of this in an article on thinkprogress.org. It’s worth a read.

What do you think – is there criteria for a “good” follower? Do big numbers equal big connections?