Busy, busy dissertation time

                                                                                      (image from: Destination360)

Hi everybody. My apologies to all readers of this blog for not updating it for so long. It's not because I am indulging in summertime's pleasures, but I'm quite busy writing a dissertataion about the reputation of Public Relations in one of the Eastern European countries.

So far I've interviewed the top class of PR practitioners, journalists and academics in PR field, to get a 360 degree perspective from the most reputable sources.

I promise the work will unveil many interesting mechanisms of 'making communications' in that specific part of the world and will serve as an aid and guaidlines for those willing to enter their business in that particular region.

Viral video social media campaign – how to get it right

Step 1. Determining our aims and objectives:

-        to raise awareness, interest

-        to engage people to take action

-        to change perceptions

-        to build a community round

-        to create feedback

-        to build relationships

-        to create conversations

Step 2. The BIG IDEA - things in the story:

-        message/soundbite

-        call to action

-        problem->solution

-        visual/sensory ->emotional

Step 4. Strategy: what we need to use:

Youtube	Facebook	Twitter
video	page	account
Comments Views Likes/dislikes Description Tags Link it (URL) Title Thumbnail	Images Applications Videos Images Wall posts Polls, surveys Secret content Links to other media Games Events Groups Message everyone	Tweets Links Follow people Followers Lists Retweets Mentions Avatar background

Step 5. Creative idea for a viral video:

-        humor

-        shock

-        surprise

-        exclusive content

-        mystery

-        new information

-        beauty/awe

-        common interest

-        emotions

-        problem-solution

-        feel good

Watch my viral video:
 

Step 6. What an action could be:

-        sign-in, opt-in

-        download

-        donate

-        join in

-        poll/survey

-        upload/share

-        twibbon

Step 7. Evaluation:

I.     Engagement: a number of:

-        Blog: comments, uploads

-        Facebook: likes, comments, uploads, discussions

-        Twitter: tweets, retweets, mentions

-        Youtube: comments, thumbs, subscriptions, embeds

II.     Reach: a number of:

-        Blog: visits, quality of comments/ conversations

-        Facebook: fans, quality of comments/discussions/ wall posts

-        Twitter: followers

-        Youtube: views

III.     Tone and sentiment:

-        If the feedback is positive, negative or neutral

IV.     Message resonation:

-        Blog: the position in the Google rank, links to blog embedded

-        Facebook: likes, members, comments, uploads, discussions

-        Twitter: retweets, mentions

-        Youtube: embeds, remixing

Step 8. Rinse and repeat:

             check if you get results, if not, try to fix what is wrong and start again. 

Pitch document for social media campaign

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Social media campaign presentation

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Churnalism and social media

The journalists’ fast-paced style of work, reduction in journalistic teams and more and more advertising space to fill, make journalists more susceptible to use PR materials without any criticism. There was even a new term coined for such an automatic copy-paste articles making from PR press releases - churnalism. Recently a charity the Media Standards Trust has created a website where anyone can check how much of a genuine press article was copied from a publicity text.

That's how a 'churn engine' works

The director of the trust said for Guardian that “journalists often have a valid reason for using press releases, and will often need to copy and paste significant chunks, such as official statements and quotes. But on many occasions reporters appear to be lifting press release text verbatim and adding little or no additional material.”

In the book Flat Earth News, which reveals secrets of hacks and flacks’ work, there is mentioned a study of Cardiff University researchers’ team, titled: Quality and Independence of British Journalism. Tracking the changes over 20 years, which reveals that in British quality press 80% of stories derives from PR materials and only 12% of stories are written by reporters.

See how easy is to sell a fake story to the press:



Guardian’s media and technology specialists comment on that situation: “This is not the journalism of the Libyan revolution, the WikiLeaks cables, or the New Zealand earthquake, but it is a market for news that the public relations industry has spotted. This is the terrain of the unnecessary "sponsored" survey, where "brunettes make the best wives" according to a survey of men on behalf of Philips sensual massagers, and where Asda kindly concludes that "families are £13 a week worse off".”

Apart from the copy-paste activity, there is also another, bigger problem, in the modern journalism, which considers a phenomenon of infotainment (information + entertainment). In pursuit of interesting, funny end wacky stories, hacks more often then ever search for them on the Internet and rarely check their sources. Once a material appears on the Internet and is picked up by one traditional media channel, it spreads all over the news.

The fact of such an activity has been for several times proved by Chris Atkins, an independent film director, who have had many media titles, not only tabloids. His documentary Starsuckers, shows how easy it is to create a false history about celebrity and sell it to the press. In one of his interviews Atkins says: “If u want to do something true in the media all you have to do is put it on the internet.” and his four tips on how to sell a story to the press: “1. It needs to by funny. 2. Not too nasty. 3. You should have a name for it. 4. Telephone number to the journalist.”

Chris Atkins on how to make a fake story for the media:

Communication during the crisis



Chinese saying: crisis may be either a danger or an opportunity

Crisis - coming from nowhere can destroy even the most renowned brands and undermine trust for a long, long time. However, if it happens it doesn’t need to be an end, on the contrary, if managed well it can even strengthen the reputation.

Today organizations are more prone to crises than whenever before. It is in majority caused by (information by Pam Williams):

•        More knowledge

•        Ever higher scrutiny - 24/7 global media

•        Greater demands for transparency

•        Zero tolerance of risk

•        Decrease in trust (in companies, government, science… everyone)

•        Science has lost its impartial and reliable image

•        NGO proliferation and growth in anti-business activism

•        Growth in victim and litigation culture

•        Power of the individual to effect change

•        The internet + UGC + social media 





Communication is a key

At the core of skilful crisis management process stays communication with all of the organisation’s internal and external stakeholders, but the critical group are the media. The five core rules a spokeperson should applied when talking to the media are: 

                                                (Tench, Yeomas; 2006)

1.    Show a true concern about what has happened.

2.    Give a detailed data – what was said at the outset will be repeated throughout the next hours and days.

3.    Take control over the messages, environment and the venue.

4.    Demonstrate confidence, but not arrogance.

5.    Demonstrate competence and say how the organisation will handle the problem.

On the onset spokesperson should be also well prepared for an encounter with  journalists inconvenient questions, which typically are as follow (information by Pam Williams):

•        Details – who, what, when, where?

•        Who is at fault?

•        When will they be punished?

•        When did the organisation know about the problem?

•        How is it responding?

•        Will there be compensation?

•        Has it happened before?

•        Could it happen again?

The worst move is to stay quiet, ignoring the media. Then everyone thinks the organisation is guilty:

• The company chooses to say: 'No comment.'
• The media say: 'The company was unwilling to take part in this programme.'
• Consumers think: 'No smoke without fire.'  'They are hiding something.' 'Guilty!'

                                                     

References:

1.     Langford, M., Crisis public relations management. in: Tench, R., Yeomans, L., (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

2.     Williams, P., MA Public Relations Course Leader at University of Westminster

Award winning;) Social Media webcast

Hello! This is a webcast I created to explain in simple and engaging way what is social media, what are its benefits and how to use it.

I hope that you will enjoy it and your feedback is very welcome :)

Update: Lots of thanks to everyone for good words about this video!

[It was done in Windows Movie Maker.]

If your presentation sucks wear red!

The key to successful communication lies in good recognition of the context we operate in. The context consists of: characteristics of people we are talking to (what is the environment they live in, what are their beliefs, attitudes and motivations) and the situational factors within we communicate.

While we can’t do much about other people’s believes and attitudes, we can however take a partial control upon their perceptions during the communicational process. Our perceptions of others strongly depend on type of the medium we communicate through.

The most famous example of that is a case of American presidential debate in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard N. Nixon. The debate was broadcasted by both television and radio. After the debate it turned out that between the radio and TV audience there are remarkable differences in the candidates’ appraisal.

People who were watching debate in TV better rated Kennedy, whose appearance was simply better that his opponent’s. He was younger, more handsome, his behaviour was smooth. Nixon was acting unsteadily, he didn’t have make-up, couldn’t stand in one place, was sweating. However people who were listening to the debate on the radio, gave the higher ranks to Nixon, whose speech was more convincing for them than the Kennedy’s.

It is a clear proof that the observers’ perception is strongly connected to the medium of communication. It indicates that we should tune in our way of communicating to the medium – maybe if the debate was only transmitted by the radio, Nixon would have won the elections.

The differences which determine our perception on the type of the communication canal we can explain by the psychological theory (Petty and Cacioppo (1981) of two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral.

Persuasion is only effective when the receiver’s attention is respectively direct either to the power of arguments (verbal communication) or to so called peripheral indicators (non-verbal communication).

Directing the attention to the appropriate rout depends, in turn, on the conditions of message reception. When a person is focused on considering  the arguments – for example when is reading an article, then he focuses on the merits of the statement. But when his attention is distracted and he doesn’t recognise the substance and logics of the arguments (which most often happen during TV watching) then the person concentrate on superficial aspects and simple signs which in psychology are called as heuristics – for example if the person is attractive, if is an expert, or if others agree with his view. Drawing on this mechanism we can explain why in 1960’s debate for TV audience won Kennedy, and for radio listeners won Nixon.

So the next time if you don’t have time to prepare your presentation well, at least wear the best clothes you have, or put something red on. According to the central and peripheral theory of persuasion you will divert your audience’s attention from your arguments to the peripheral aspects of your appearance.

References:

Extracts from my BA dissertation (2010): 'Selected methods of building a personal image in the media’

Public Relations and Propaganda

PR is often charged with accusations of being propagandistic communication and media manipulation. It is very interesting issue, as by examining the literature of PR we can find out that even among theorists and academics of PR there is a considerable dispute on the problem of a genuine nature of PR.

Historically the ‘public relations’ and ‘propaganda’ were interchangeable terms and there was no difference in meaning. The concept of these phenomena was a mere response to the popular opinion makers (Gustave Le Bon, Walter Lipmann, Harold Laswell, Edward Bernays) and psychological discourses of that time, that the masses of people in a system of democracy are not able to think and act rationally and need to be guided by elites, as Edward Bernays wrote in Propaganda (1928), in the first chapter titled: Organising Chaos:



Edward Bernays - the father of PR

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

The attitude towards the word ‘propaganda’ had changed after the II World War when it got negative associations due to its use by hated regimes and consequently the term was permanently changed to ‘public relations’.

Many PR academics point out that actually many definitions of propaganda could cover definitions of public relations: “many basic definitions of propaganda could be equally well used to describe public relations.” (J. L’Etang, 2009).



Morris and Goldsworthy (2008) ask what if there was nothing what could differentiate PR from propaganda and they respond: “Our contention is that there are no real moral distinctions: both practices are essentially amoral, capable of serving any cause.” Authors however propone three ways of differencing PR from propaganda, although their nature is more connected to the context in which they operate (democracy vs. regime) and to the potentially available techniques, than to the moral capital:

1.  It [public relations] has far few levers of influence to pull on.

2.  It exists in conditions where many competing persuasive message are communicated.

3.  The public relations practitioner, unlike the propagandist, does not have effective powers of censorship or any lasting control over the media.

To get the bigger picture on how the discipline of public relations was born I recommend watching the documentary Century of the Self:


Bibliography:

1.     Fawkes, J., Public relations, propaganda and the psychology of persuasion. in: Tench, R., Yeomans, L., (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.



2.     L’Etang, J.,(2009). Public Relations: concepts, practice and critique. Sage Publications.



3.     L'Etang, J., Pieczka, M., (1996). Critical perspectives in Public Relations. International Thomson Business Press.



4.     Moloney, K., (2000). Rethinking Public Relations: The Spin and the Substance. London and New York: Routledge.



5.     Morris, T., Goldsworthy, S., (2008). PR - a persuasive industry? Spin, public relations, and the shaping of the modern media. Palgrave McMillan.



6.     Theaker, A., (2008). The Public Relations Handbook. 3nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.