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

Third sector PR in recession

The below sarcastic cartoon on the Economist has reflected some thoughts that during recession firms’ suffering has bolstered the public-relations business. The article illustrated by the cartoon argues that the recession has increased corporate demand for PR and enhanced the industry’s status.

Is it the same case for public relations working for the third sector?

According to The Times, charities have felt the financial squeeze.

Economists predicted in 2009 that organizations that rely on corporate funding will need to ‘brace themselves’ for a drop in donation over the next two years at least.

Birdsong’s Charity Pulse 2010 Sector-wide Staff Survey Report also revealed a fall in charity staff satisfaction. Responses to 58% of the questions have dropped since 2009. 42% are on a par with last year. No areas have improved.

Although the scenario seems grave at the moment for the whole sector, for the sector that’ breathes PR, eats PR, sleeps PR’, I am quietly optimistic for the role and status of PR in this sector during a tough time.

In the time that resources are becoming more limited, effective public relations is even more vital to make the organization’s voice heard and carefully manage relationship with stakeholders to seek support, in aspects from finance to government policy.  Compared with advertising and marketing, public relations is relatively cheaper when the influence can be enormous via right channels to reach audience such as media outlets and key opinion leaders. The rise of the Internet and social media has also given n third PR a big boost, a platform with easy access to reach and interact with targeted audience in an engaging way.

Public Relations and NGO sector in UK

View more presentations from Gunjan W

Reference:

http://www.economist.com/node/15276746?story_id=15276746

http://www.csg.org.uk/PDF/Charity%20Pulse%202010%20Report%20-%20Recession%20Bites.pdf

Birth Defect of Spin Doctor

Spin-doctors are almost equaled to public relations practitioners, especially who work for political communications, by journalists.

Although some PR practitioners argue that journalists should be the owner of the honorable title rather than themselves, sadly we have to admit that PR professionals had a congenital disadvantage that PR guys work for a certain interest group. When it comes to political communicators, they are even more susceptible to being accused of spinning for the simple and natural reason that they only speak for a small group of people instead of for the common good. While journalists, the king without crown, are considered to be representing interests of more general publics.

That is why we can see the innovative separated two posts of Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson and Director of Communications. We then ‘have somebody who does the Civil Service bit and who is preeminent and then you have somebody who does the political bit that the civil servant cannot do’.

This is new to me as someone from a mono-party autocracy. And the civil servant Director of Communications is almost like a judge in the court, making final judgment while spokespersons representing their own client (political party in this case) make their own statements.

And yet even the ‘judge’ is still referred to as Spin Doctor. So the profession (if I can call it a profession) is desperate in getting rid of the honorable crown (oh we have a crown too!)? Or is it just that it is too convenient weapon for journalists?

Never mind then. After all, media have their defect too as being partisan, which also amazes me. The reputation gap is even larger when they are expected to be more objective when they are not necessarily like that.

Plan for the Worst

There is one thing that organizations should always prepare for but never want it to come: Crisis.

Researches tend to show that organizations that get themselves ready for potential crisis will lessen the damage of a crisis. On the other hand, when organizations only passively respond to crises, potential opportunities may be over-shadowed by damage of the crisis. (Nudell and Antokol,  1988)

Proactive planning may include mechanisms for determining possible crises and analyzing situation, procedures to follow (checklist) during a crisis, appointment of a crisis management team, development of a communication plan, and policies for evaluating and revising the plan.

Communication strategy to deliver accurate information available in time is top priority in a crisis. To prepare,key steps include developing a communication policy, assigning and training spokespersons, identifying key audiences and key messages, and agreeing on appropriate communication methods before a crisis occurs. Pre-draft and approved messages and templates including statements by top management, news releases, etc. are also strongly recommended to save time, which is extremely scarce in crises.

One thing to note is that not all problems deserve equal attentions. In crisis planning, it is important to have a alert state and triggering response system to assess different level of threats to mobilize managers at different levels accordingly to focus on things most relevant to them. Do not mobilize resources that far exceed a requirement, as this will quickly fatigue the crisis management responses. Burnett’s Crisis Classification Matrix is a tool to improve decision making by revealing and prioritizing various crisis situations that an organization may need to confront, allowing for the proper allocation of resources.

To have a look at a sample communication plan: 

http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/crisis-management-and-communications/

Reference:

Nudell,M., and Antokol,N.1988,The Handbook for Effective Emergency and Crisis Management, Toronto: Lexington Books.

Penrose,J. 2000, The role of perception in crisis planning, Public Relations Review.

Are the Publics Really Targeted?

PR practitioners have various tools to segment and analyze the publics, such as Grunig’s situational theory, Bernstein’s wheel, Broom and Dozier’s 9 ways to segment stakeholders,etc. The goal is to get across messages that organizations want to send out via segmented media channels to targeted audiences.

Public relations professionals are often the ones to suggest segmented media channels to reach segmented stakeholders, where

media proliferation driven technology has fragmented the market greatly.

Below is the photo showing how consumers choice for media has mushroomed until 2006, which is already significant when explosion of new media such as streamed broadcasting, podcasts, user-generated media hasn't been take into account.

PR practitioners, like many advertisers, often base their media decisions (whether in part or comprehensively) on differentiation claims of the media. But are media as targeted as they claim?

In Nelson-Field and Riebe’s (2011) journal on the impact of media fragmentation on audience targeting, they found that media are not successful in delivering the audience they claim they do because ‘audiences are not as segmented, nor are they as niche, as media owners suggest’. Their research suggests that media fragmentation just delivers smaller audiences instead of highly differentiated ones.

This is obviously not encouraging news for the industry. But it could be an implication for corporate that at the end of the day, we could be less bothered and distracted to target so loosely called niche media but focus on more trustworthiness of media channels, which are an all-time crucial.

Reference:Nelson-Field,K. and Riebe,K.,2011,The impact of media fragmentation on audience targeting:A generalization approach,Journal of Marketing Communication.

A World with Social Media

Ladies and gentlemen,please let me introduce to you 'social media' in a way that I try not to be too boring. Some video clips edited are from the Internet for creativity purpose. No copy rights infringement intended. Enjoy!

Embedded Journalism in War:a Necessary Evil?

US media’s performance in Iraq war has been notorious. Some critics have blamed Pentagon’s media-embedding program and considered it as one of those nasty tactics of war spin. How bad exactly was the embedding in terms of its influence on journalistic coverage of Iraq war? Is it such a heinous devil that we should completely get rid of it in the future war communication?

Michael Pfau et all compared embedded and non-embedded print coverage of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq to seek differences in overall tone toward the military, trust in military personnel, framing, and authoritativeness. The study revealed that newspaper coverage by embedded reporters was significantly more positive toward the military than those unilateral reporters and conveyed greater trust toward military personnel. In addition, reports of combat operations from embedded reporters depicted more episodic frames and were judged to be more authoritative than those of non-embedded reporters.

The findings confirmed concerns expressed on quality and objectivity of embedded journalism. Yet I am not convinced that the embedding policy is so evil that in the war communication it should be repelled and abandoned.

An objective overview of story requires narratives of different sides. Despite all its flaws, embedding does provide journalists with access, which otherwise will be hard to get, to tell the military side of firsthand vivid story while press’ safety are attempted to be ensured. What media organizations need to do is to maintain sufficient number of unilateral reporters to tell stories from the other side. “On the whole, embedding was a model for cooperation between the media and the military,” said CNN’s Jordan. As he noted, more than half of CNN’s forty-five reporters in the region were not embedded. “When you put all the reporting together, you can present a well- balanced picture,” Jordan said. For journalists to be embedded in the military units, incredibly difficult as it can be, they should be better trained and prepared to stay mentally independent and critical even they will be ‘living, eating, moving in combat with the unit that he journalists are attached to’. After all, this is what this profession is all about.

For more information about Michael Pfau et all's journal,please go to http://hij.sagepub.com/content/11/2/139.full.pdf+html