Social Media

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I find it interesting that social media is still such a big, overwhelming topic for many people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for business. I think that as much as it has revolutionized how we communicate – and for those of us who are professional communicators, it has changed how we do our work – it is still just a tool. A very interesting, challenging and addictive tool, but a tool nonetheless.

I think that the perception of how complex, complicated and vast social media is – is a challenge. When I present to groups or lead brainstorming and planning sessions with clients, I hear how overwhelming it feels to them. Now, we’re a PR firm that provides social media services, so I think we have a different perspective on it than a social media marketer or an online community developer might, but at the core of it, social media is only a component of your communications plan or your overall marketing plan. When you take a step back and see that you need to develop a strategy first, it takes a bit of the stress off. Once you understand your strategy, then you can research which tools – whether traditional or social media focused – are the right ones.

We are often asked to come and speak to fairly large organizations to lead them through PR and social media planning. I think sometimes they are surprised to learn that we are just a small Vancouver PR agency with a specific approach to the use of social media.

Personally, I think social media is the best thing to happen to PR in a long time. It moves forward into a business (and personal) world of transparency, showcasing doing the right thing and owning up to mistakes if/when they are made.

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There is a great blog post on Social Media Philippines that touches on the actions that will create a failure, when it comes to social media. It’s worth a read.

Last week I attended and participated in a presentation given by our friend and colleague Della Smith of Q Workshops. This presentation was focused on how you include social media in your overall communications strategy. What I like about this presentation is that it provides a roadmap of what you should do, as well as showcases what not to do. Della and I present a specialized workshop for organizations where we walk clients through developing or updating their communications plan to include social media. Our approach is always to work with our client to design a proactive plan that includes reactive components, blending traditional communications with social media.

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There are many sides to what we do as PR people… one of the areas that has come out of social media is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t get me wrong, we are a Vancouver PR agency – not SEO specialists. We have taken the time to learn about SEO and how it relates to what we do for our clients, but theory and practice are two different things. We’re always trying to upgrade our knowledge and skill sets and with this in mind, we thought that we would try a small experiment with SEO. And we hope that you will indulge us.

AHA Creative Strategies is a Vancouver PR agency with clients throughout North America. Currently when you Google “AHA” or “AHA Creative” – you find us pretty easily. When you search Vancouver PR agency, we’re not in the first few links that you see and we would like to be. As a PR agency, we spend a great deal of time developing news releases, news briefs, web articles and other online content that are written with SEO in mind. For AHA, our outreach consists mainly with this blog and our AHA Twitter and Facebook accounts. So – how do we move ourselves up the Google and Bing search rankings under “Vancouver PR agency?”

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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?

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There is an excellent piece about media relations and the Web 2.0 world on socialmediatoday.com. In it, writer Sally Falkow speaks about the changing world of journalism and how we, as communicators, need to change how we pitch media.

Things are changing drastically. The Washington Post has Newsweek up for sale. Who would have thought we’d see that happen?

There is a blurring of lines between print and broadcast. Print reporters now provide content for their website and often that means video. Broadcast reporters also have to provide content for their website and that can mean written articles to accompany video.

As communicators, it is our role to provide journalists with information in whatever medium they need – quotes, information on your senior executive, video (we used to call it “b-roll” and now it’s just video), stats and facts, etc. And they need to find it ASAP. A good newsroom on a website has this information and it is updated regularly.

Falkow’s article is worth a read. It’s also worth reviewing your website. Does it deliver what journalists need?

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