Over the past eight days, I have been to Calgary, Toronto and Tampa for meetings. I am used to travel – AHA clients are all over North America and while we work easily day-to-day using technology, meeting face to face is always a good thing.
I can work just about anywhere – airports, hotel lobbies, coffee shops and even busy sushi restaurants, if I have to. One of the things that always strikes me when I travel is the importance of being prepared, organized, flexible and still hitting our marks and our deadlines. As communicators, that’s who and what we have to be every day, no matter where we are – in our office or in an airport.
A good communicator always has a “plan b” and often a “plan c” in place. And, because our lives are so driven by deadlines, I think most of us arrive early (whether it’s for a meeting, a lunch, an event or a flight) so that we can make sure we are prepared and organized. That way, we can be flexible.
At our Vancouver PR firm and, indeed, with our crew across the country, we pride ourselves on being prepared, organized and efficient. Perhaps it’s because we’re all travellers at heart. Or perhaps it’s because we are communicators and the skill set necessary to do our work translates well to travel.
As I sit in the Tampa airport waiting for my flight, I think I will take a little break from work and have a coffee and people-watch for a while. Hope you have a prepared, organized, flexible day that works for you.
At AHA, we’re big fans of Danny Brown. He has a great blog post that lists 52 Cool Facts About Social Media. We don’t want to steal Danny’s thunder – and we do want you to check out his blog…but below are just a few of the cool facts:
There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.
Is your organization on Facebook? Should your organization be on Facebook? Have you looked at the challenges and opportunities for your organization on Facebook?
Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.
There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.
Are you monitoring Twitter, even if you aren’t actively tweeting? Is Twitter of value for your organization? Are employees of your organization on Twitter in a personal or professional way?
There are more than 70 million users worldwide on LinkedIn.
80% of companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.
LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day.
How can your organization benefit from using LinkedIn?
Danny tells us more about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as a few other stats and facts that are very interesting. This post helps put social media use into perspective…it’s worth a read.
There are many discussions online and, I am sure, in offices all over the world, about what BP is doing regarding its crisis communications. It has been a very hot topic in the AHA office as well.
One of the key points in our discussions is how much the world has changed because of social media. Technology and the online conversations happening all over the world mean that, as communicators, we have to evolve how we deal with an issue or a crisis.
There are many articles and blog posts out there about the crisis and people are weighing in with their opinions. Check Twitter and search BP or @BP or #oilspill and you can see how much information is out there, how many opinions are given and just what people are thinking.
An article in Ad Age discusses whether the firm doing BP’s crisis communications is doing it well. I think there have been a lot of mistakes made, not necessarily by the agency – but overall. Let me clearly say that unless you are behind those closed doors and a part of the strategy discussions, it’s hard to know why a strategy was developed or why certain decisions were made.
Time Magazine has a great piece on the crisis and it goes into why there is now a lack of trust between almost any stakeholder (which is really anyone who cares about the environment, the ocean, the fish and animals who live on Gulf Coast) and BP. Once you lose that credibility, it is almost impossible to get it back. And, whether it is all accurate or not, BP is getting slammed in traditional media and online (and I would bet at water coolers, in pubs and coffee shops around the world) for almost everything that they do. The thing is, right now, it doesn’t matter whether the information is accurate or not, it’s out there and perception is everything.
The Onion also has a good, in-your-face piece entitled Massive Flow of Bull Sh*t Continues to Gush From BP Headquarters.
This is a huge environmental crisis and one that people care deeply about. I have searched to find answers – and I can’t find them anywhere – for the most basic questions that everyone wants to know. Without answers to these basic questions, how do they expect to maintain any credibility?
How this could have happened?
Why there wasn’t an operational plan in place – one that they KNOW would work – to fix an oil leak if there was one?
As for the credibility and trust crisis facing BP, their reputation is severely damaged. Rumours that they are using Search Engine Optimization so that when you type in oil spill, you also get their side of the story haven’t been substantiated yet, but it’s something I would recommend to a client. The thing is, no matter how you get your information out, you have to have a credible story that shows your stakeholders that the crisis is important to you and that you are doing everything possible.
I don’t think that any tools or tactics, whether their traditional or social media-based, can do anything for an organization that isn’t ready to be transparent, admit their mistakes and do whatever it takes to make it right. Social media has changed everything because we can now share information globally in a matter of seconds. If the worst-case scenario happens, like it has in the Gulf oil disaster, it is only a matter of minutes before your organization will begin to lose credibility. Without the trust and support of your stakeholders, what do you have?
I am heading into the home stretch in executing a social media campaign for Tourism New Zealand. This is the second year for the TRENZblog campaign and things are different from last year. There is a deeper interactive engagement this year. Last year, we had a similar number of overall views, but this year, our target community is more active on Twitter and in commenting on the blog. And there is a buzz at Tourism Industry Rendezvous New Zealand (TRENZ) about the blog.
It takes time for industries to adapt to change and the use of social media is a big change. There are some very interesting organizations using different components of social media and I think that next year, we will see even more innovative and creative ways for companies to connect and engage in conversations with their target markets.
Tourism is an interesting case study when it comes to social media. Consumers have jumped into the pool using sites like Trip Advisor, Cruise Critic and other review sites to share the good, the bad and the ugly. I think it is going to take some time for a lot of organizations to realize that, used well, social media starts a conversation. It is about building relationships and creating connections, not just pushing out information.
While my time here in New Zealand is drawing to a close, I think that my work in supporting Tourism New Zealand and in sharing the wonders of this beautiful country with the world through an interactive conversation is just beginning.
We don’t normally discuss client work here on the blog, but this week has been so incredible, we thought we would share a little about what has been happening at AHA.
Working with our client, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ), we had two high profile projects that certainly had our office hopping this week. Our phones were ringing, emails arriving, and requests were coming in nonstop.
