Social Media: Short Foot or Long Inch

Japan is undergoing the worst crisis after World War II.

In this heart-breaking disaster, social media has been playing an active role in the communication process, be it disseminating relevant real-time information (sometimes rumors), reconnecting victims with loved ones, or calling for donations, while some names are conveniently mentioned more.

The nonprofit Explore.org offered to contribute $1 for each Facebook “Like” of its “Dog Bless You” Facebook fundraising page.It was received quite well except for a few complaints. At the time of writing, 144,842 people have liked the page.

That tactic didn’t seem too applicable to profitable companies though. On12 March Microsoft offered on its Bing search engine Twitter account to donate up to $100,000 for earthquake victims as long as users would retweet the message, one retweet leading to one dollar more donation.

This idea was not welcomed but regarded as ‘crass markeing attempt’. Comedian Michael Ian Black in front of his 1.6 million Twitter followers told Microsoft to “stop using tragedy as a f***ing marketing opportunity.” Wise enough for the company, on the very same day it withdrew the deal and promised instead to simply donate the $100K.

Social media makes it much easier to reach target audience for social good, but due to its trait as wild fire, it more easily invites backfire as well. Luckily，the instant feedback of social media showed Microsoft the attitude of the audience and the company was able to withdrew the offer based on people’s reactions before things got worse. Their timely apology was also helpful. In this case, social media helped Microsoft to identify and manage an issue at an early stage before it upgraded to a crisis. What was significant was that the two-way communication actually led to a change, which I as a future PR practitioner was very happy to see. Although the change may not be too significant at the moment, organizations will learn gradually that what beneficial communication should be like.

For more information about Microsoft’s approach in Japan’s earthquake, please go to http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2033671/bing-apologizes-supportjapan-tweet

Reference: http://mashable.com/2011/03/13/apple-microsoft-japan/

My Public Relations Career Plan

Before I came to University of Westminster to study public relations, I worked for four-month as fulltime intern at a multinational PR agency to get a taste of what the PR world like, which proved extremely helpful for me to make sense about a lot of things I learnt later and getting me a internship opportunity.


Currently I am interning part-time with a company that specializes in Sino-UK communication. Right now my role mostly involves translation, researching and facilitating and coordinating communications among different parties.


As the lectures ends and the task of dissertation approaches, I am aiming to continue the part-time internship until the end of May. Then I plan to ask for a two-month break to focus on my dissertation while consolidating my theoretical knowledge about this industry.


After I finish my dissertation, if possible I hope to work as a fulltime employee in the current company I am interning with for one year or two to become a effective communicator in both Chinese and English contexts. During this period, my primary goal is to
1.became very fluent and confident in communicating with native English speakers, both in written and oral forms, on informal and formal occasions.
2.have a thorough understanding of UK media landscape as well as a better understanding of UK political, economic and cultural contexts.
3.begin to build my professional network.


I am still open to the step after that. I may go on to stay in the company. But it is also likely that I will go back to my country to work as either an in-house preferably or an agency PR professional to accumulate enough experience before I can switch to in-house team.
In terms of sectors and industries I want to work in, at first I would like to experience working for as many as possible industries. Then I will probably focus on corporate communication and finally third sector .


Here's an interesting and helpful video about tips on career planning. Enjoy!

Coca Cola’s CSR Initiative with a Twist

As the world's largest beverage company, in 2009 Coca Cola developed a set of goals and targets to achieve by the year 2020 – known as "Commitment 2020" in five key areas.

Coca Cola’s launch of an eco-friendly lightweight bottle for its drinking water brand, Ice Dew.

The new bottle is the lightest of its size on the Chinese beverage market, and reduces the carbon footprint by 35%. What’s more interesting, the bottle is designed to be easily twisted and compressed after consumption, thereby saving more than 70% of the space needed while the bottle makes it way to recycling.(Similar concept as shown in the above video.)

A fun video was played to explain how the new design exactly helps the environment. Then an exciting competition between the brands ambassador-the world famous hurdler -- Liu Xiang and three volunteers was held to see who can twist more bottles in a certain time.

After the launch, media had access to interview both the ambassador as well as marketing director and product development manager of the company.

I was really impressed by this CSR initiative of Coca Cola, as it is truly embedded into various aspect of its business and integral to the future success of the business. It is ‘part of the mix which includes Strategy, Product Development, Marketing, Finance, etc.’ the company positions commitment to sustainability as a long-term strategy and develop products under this principle. It helps to better market the product as eco-friendly, as well as to reduces cost of production by decreasing packaging usage. Then the PR professionals devise lively and effective communication activities to communicate the messages to media and then the public.

I believe that a genuine CSR should not only be corporate giving to the society, that would only be hot air, as Stefan Stern describes. As the quote goes, the only business of business is business. A genuine CSR that can be sustainable should be something that creates mutual benefits and win-win situation. PR does not ,should not, and could not own CSR. If CSR is owned purely by PR, then it is not far away from green washing and being spotted and later ruining its own reputation.

Secrets of Changing for Good

Social marketing is defined by Kotler and Andreasen as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society."


Like commercial marketing, the planning process also addresses the marketing mix, which is often known as 4 Ps (Product,Price,Promotion,Place). This post is to share some interesting tips to improve the 4Ps in social marketing campaign planning that hopefully for lead to changes for good.


Product-Highlight the social norms.
Product of the social marketing is not always physical. It could be tangible (e.g.condoms,body check,healthy diet) and intangible ( equality and respect).People must first realize their problem to perceive the need for our product which in some cases can be effectively achieved by highlighting social norms.
Social norms are the group ‘rules’ that determine what is deemed ‘acceptable’ behaviour. Social norms can have a huge influence on our thoughts and behaviours. An experiment of hotel guests provides an illustration. Half the guests had signs in their bathrooms with a message about how reusing towels could benefit the environment. The other half had the same sign but with an extra message stating that most hotel guests reused their towels at least once during their stay. Guests exposed to the additional message were 26 per cent more likely to reuse their towels: a clear demonstration of the power of highlighting social norms and hence prompted actions.

Price- Make the behaviour seem easier to undertake than people perceive it to be.

"Price" refers to what the publics must do in order to get the product we are marketing. It could be monetary or intangible, such as time, effort. One human nature could be make good use of :We have a natural preference for the status quo (inertia). When faced with a difficult or complex choice, our tendency is to carry on doing what we’ve always done and avoid making a decision. A case in point is from 2012, all employers will have to automatically enrol their eligible employees into a good quality workplace pension scheme and provide a minimum contribution unless the employee chooses to opt out. By adjusting the ‘default setting’, it is believed that a positive change is coming.

Place-Media is just a tool,not the goal.

"Place" refers the way that the product reaches the consumer. It is easy to understand the tangibles. When it comes to intangibles, it can be channels through which consumers are reached with information or training such as media outlet. Remember, media coverage is only the path to the destination but not the destination yet. 

Promotion-I want it now.

Finally, promotion is about creating and sustaining demand for our product. Social psychology suggests that people tend to prioritise short-term reward over long-term benefit. More of us prefers to have more money now than to pay into a pension plan. This is an important implication for government communicators, as they often try to persuade people to make choices that bring a long-term benefit but little immediate gain.

References:

http://coi.gov.uk/documents/commongood/commongood-behaviourchange.pdf

http://www.social-marketing.com/Whatis.html

why China is not too ugly in its political communication

Simon Lewis, the former director of communications for 10 Downing Street Simon Lewis, once was reported to hold the belief that corporate sector had gone further than either political parties or the news media to embrace transparency and his hunch was that the British people would have more influence on politics.


But my belief is that political communication will never catch up with corporate sector anywhere in the world for the reason that politics is simply too complicated to be transparent.


Take China as an example, whose political communication is quite notorious. It is of course very easy to criticize its Great Fire Wall, 50cent Party, and what happen to the human right fighter Ai Weiwei(I am reluctant to consider him as an artist).


I am certainly not at all proud of the above. But if you wear the hat of governor of a vast country with the world’s third largest territory and world’s largest population comprising of 56 ethnic groups, with relatively low and uneven economy and education level, and sharing borders of 14 countries (most in the world along with Russia and that doesn’t include Japan and south Korea which are also important neighbors), and realize there are still more international hostile forces to wrestle with, you will probably feel a bit need to put down pointing fingers and more need to provide helpful suggestions.


It is far from whether politicians are willing to be transparent in communication but rather how to survive from tussling among numerous interest groups, both domestically and internationally. It then not only determines fates of tens, hundreds or thousands of people from several companies, but millions or even billions in China’s case of human beings. There is no political ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but immortal ‘interests’ only.


For background information about 50cent Party and Ai Weiwei:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7783640.stm