The web in the hands of nutjobs: dangerous?

I heard today that the Internet is dangerous because it’s accessible to anyone, including “crazy demagogues who can manipulate naive people” (I quote) while TV and radio are hard to get onto and are thus safer.

What a load of tosh. Surely the opposite is true? Hitler used radio pretty darn well. However, no one could respond, no one could question, comment or start a counter-campaign. On the other hand, the web is accessible to anyone, meaning that for every nutjob, you get a thousand others countering.

So are we not better off in the Internet Age? Or am I missing something? Is the web indeed a threat?

Tracing eFluentials and what to do about it

An eFluential is an online influential (or influencer) i.e. someone who matters online, someone people read and respect, and who can drive and influence an issue’s trajectory online.

For obvious reasons, communicators are often eager to identify eFluentials within their sector or issue. That’s all very well. Unfortunately, plenty of  communicators then think it’s OK to pester them, assuming that of course they’ll be willing to spread a story and use their networks to promote anything from a take on an issue to a product launch. Think again. It barely works with traditional media, even less so online.

So as a communicator, what should you do? First, do identify these people. That’s not a crime. How? The basic tools work: look up keywords (brand, issue, legislation, organisation etc.) on Twitter search and Google blog search. Don’t forget blogrolls: finding bloggers via other bloggers works well. You can be even more sly. Look up your keywords on delicious, flickr, digg, reddit and check out if someone is tagging lots of good quality material. Google their names and see if they write blogs or where else they turn up (LinkedIn perhaps?)

OK so what do you now? DO NOT spam these people. Follow them, see what they have to say, learn from them, use them to gain an understanding of what’s driving your issue online. Then, if you’re really keen to build relationships with them, start engaging in their space  e.g. go on Twitter or start blogging (or rather, advise your client to do so) and provide interesting and insightful material that they too will be interested in – and only then try to hook up with them. If they share your interests and you build a mutually beneficial relationship, they might, just might, refer to you at some point, follow you on Twitter or put you in their blogroll (but only because they really want to.) If at any point, however, it becomes clear that you’re trying to plug a product or promote a position, you’ll lose all credibility and you’ll need to start from scratch. Be warned.

As a side-note, I’d highlight that eInfluentials are not necessarily the people with most followers on Twitter or whose blogs are most read in your sector: “pitching social media creators who are influential but who are not really customer evangelists for a brand are the wrong people to target” (from a post by John Cass.) This is relevant for issues as well. If you’re engaging in online advocacy and want to, say, build relationships with bloggers in the hope that they might help you spread the word, focus on those who really share your interests and are most likely to join forces with you: if they have a huge following but only ever write about certain elements of your sector/issue which don’t involve you, that’ll remain the case no matter how many scoops you throw at them. Remember, online isn’t like traditional media. Getting an article in the FT will always be more valuable than getting a far better one into a small trade publication. Online, that’s not always the case. Via search, people can find anything that is relevant, while good quality content even on a low-profile site or blog can spread like wildfire if it captures the imagination.

A community without first building community spirit? Won’t work

Lots of clients want an online community, and in some cases I’d agree that it’s a good idea (see previous posts here and here.) Makes sense. A good online community can be the focal point for an organisation’s fans, customers, employees and so on, allowing them to engage with the company/sector/issue in question and as a result grow even more passionate than before and give them a launch pad for bringing others onboard.

However, if you don’t already have a very big, active and passionate offline community, your online community won’t work. Sure, you might get 50 people, and if that’s OK with you, fine, but in most cases it won’t be, especially if you’re trying to prove ROI (hard with social media in any case – impossible with 50 people.)

So what do you do? You build momentum towards community. You first pinpoint stakeholders and potential supporters online and engage with them nice and slow, instead of trying to force a community on them. If your issue is important and you make yourself a well respected thought-leader on it, community may then eventually happen organically, but as the result of human interaction and not of a tool that’s been provided. And please note that community in this case might not even mean an online community, say a Ning. It could just be people connected via Twitter, who engage on one very popular blog, or a Facebook group. Remember, it’s not the tool that is going to make people suddenly want to be in a community, it’s the story around it.

How do you start though? How do you bring people together, engage, create this momentum that will eventually lead to a community of mobilisers for your cause?! Why, you follow the 4-pillar approach to online engagement.

A model: four pillars of online engagement

I think I should start blogging. Twitter looks interesting. Think a Facebook fanpage will work wonders. Videos on YouTube  are just up our alley. And so on. These are the kinds of things going through the minds of plenty of communicators at any sort of organisation in Brussels (and elsewhere for that matter) who work on issues and policy areas in which they want to exert some influence. And for good reason. The tools are cheap and cheerful, they’ve been proved to work, they fit an age of public relations in which engagement and humility are the order of the day, and what’s more, they’re fun.

However, as enticing as the tools may seem and as easy as you may think it will be to just try, test and see, I’d stress that rather than dive in and use the tools from the off,  it’s imperative to have a long-term online engagement plan and to take a step-by-step approach that will help maximise the potential of your efforts.

Being good old friendly me, I’ve gone ahead and developed a 4-pillar model which can be applied to a lot of organisations seeking to engage online. By no means am I introducing any brand new concepts, but I think the model is handy in that it puts the various elements of engagement in the order in which they should go if an organisation starting anew wants to make the best of the opportunities on offer. Here goes.

1. Making sense of what’s out there: web as hub

This involves two bits: first, the listening piece (one of the prime social media clichés but oh so necessary), and second, making the listening set-up public via aggregation or hyperlinking.

The listening bit simply means that you perform a thorough analysis of what offline stakeholders are up to to online, as well as find online players who might not have an offline profile. You set up a dashboard so you can follow what they are communicating on a daily basis, and once you feel that you have a really good idea of how the issue is unfolding online, who the key content creators and influencers are, you make that knowledge public i.e. you “counter the fragmentation” and become the player that makes sense of the issue online and isn’t afraid of showcasing other stakeholders who might not tow the exact same line.

2. Start communicating: “show me, not trust me”

This is when you actually start communicating yourself in this new space; where you start showcasing action rather than staying quiet and hoping that people will trust you – hence “show me, not trust me”.

By performing step 1, you’ve got a good understanding of who the players are and what’s expected, you have some goodwill, and you’re unlikely to make any dumb mistakes. So you’re well placed to develop a strategy to communicate using social media within this space to showcase yourself, your take on your issue, and your people via, say, blogging or video (choice of tools is secondary, it largely depends on where the activity is, what your sector is etc.) In addition, you should use the space to show your third-party advocates, and remember, always remain respectful and honest.

3. Stakeholder dialogue

Steps 3 and 4 are the organic evolution of steps 1 and 2: they rely largely on the involvement of the online community which you can not control, so it’s about creating the right circumstances for that community to thrive rather than introducing a new set of tools.

By bringing information together and beginning to engage using the tools yourself, you should hopefully have begun a process by which an online conversation has taken off in which you are an important contributor. To get to this next level, where real dialogue is taking place, you need to carry on what you’re doing i.e. communicating a message that resonates and to make sure you are constantly feeding the conversation by replying to people’s questions and comments, and remember to always respond to community concerns and interests rather than spouting key messages.

Assuming you are doing all of this well, you have a fantastic opportunity to be leading and shaping “stakeholder dialogue” and thus take a thought leadership position on your issue.

4. Community and mobilisation

This is the holy grail of online communications. If steps 1-3 are successful, you may have created a community of people who mobilise on your behalf: these are people who support your position and spread your message for you without you actually being involved. In practice, this can involve anything from people simply sending your material to others, urging others to follow you on Twitter or sign a petition, to actively approaching legislators themselves.

As a benchmark on a huge scale for “community and mobilisation” I’d cite the Obama presidential campaign. It wasn’t the millions of Facebook followers who got Obama’s message directly in their Inboxes who were the root of the success, but the core supporters who mobilised on his behalf, whether by sending newsletters, arranging events or knocking on doors and so on.

Sure, Obama is Obama and we’re talking about a US presidential campaign, but on a smaller scale, the model is still relevant. By engaging with people, getting them excited about your issue, and giving them the right tools and content, you too can turn your supporters into ambassadors.

I’ll be following up on this post in the coming weeks to expand a little more on the 4 pillars. Would appreciate feedback.

Digital adoption by Brussels agencies

From a post on the “Behind the Spin” blog:

PR agencies currently fall into three distinct camps: consultancies that are embracing and actively creating the digital PR future by retooling their businesses; consultancies that believe digital calls for traditional techniques to be transposed to bloggers and via networks such as Twitter; and those that are standing still.

The post refers mainly to PR agencies in London, but I wonder if the same is true for PA/PR agencies operating in the Brussels bubble? I work for an agency that operates online and have never been at a traditional agency, so this is speculation on my part, but I’d say it sounds about right.

I suspect the “standing still” camp may be a little bigger in Brussels than London however, due to the nature of PA more than anything else. Most PA professionals have political backgrounds and are sector experts, not communicators. I’m not saying it’s a problem per se, except that their expertise is often not aligned with that of communicators, as some agencies don’t integrate especially well to the extent that they maintain a PA and comms hierarchy where the two disciplines are actually kept quite distinct rather than being two fully integrated parts of the same communications toolkit.

In addition, for Brussels (perhaps London as well) I’d add one more group to the three above: consultancies that want to embrace the web, understand its importance and what it can do, are tip-toeing, but are not fully committed because they struggle with how they would adapt their business model (I’ve heard this a few times.)

Like I said, this is largely speculation on my part. I might be wide off the mark, so I’d be curious to hear what other agency people have to say about this.

Countering fragmentation in Brussels by integrating and aggregating

There’s too much fragmentation going on in Brussels. First there’s internal fragmentation of communications within organisations. Marketing are doing this, product guys doing that, issue specialists saying X, PR saying Y. Surely companies need to be better integrated. In particular, marketing and PA especially need to be telling the same story far more. Why? Because selling to consumers and legislators is a lot more similar than it was a few years ago. Marketing back then would have said: we’re cheaper and/or we’re better. PA would have said: we’re providing jobs and innovation. Now? They’re still saying that, but they’re both also saying “our company is a model citizen because of X, Y, and Z” and in this respect, there needs to be a lot more collaboration.

Beyond that, there’s what I’d call external fragmentation on issues, which is totally different, but is still about fragmentation, so I’ll put it in the same post. Call me lazy. What do I mean? That when looking at an issue for a client or prospect, everyone is always struck by the mess: multiple players at national level and pan-European level, public and private entities, associations and pressure groups, old media and bloggers. Even within the Commission say, DGs can have totally different priorities on an issue. People are talking about pharma this week: it’s now largely under DG Enterprise, but DG Sanco want it because surely Pharma is about health, they say. Whatever the outcome, fact of the matter is that their approach would be quite different.

In communications terms, what this fragmentation of players results is in turn a fragmentation of content and story which frankly makes an issue appear far more complex than you as an organisation want it to be. It’s hard to thrive within complexity because your story is one of a thousand; legislators might not have the time, the nous nor the willingness to really understand it well.

So what should you do about it? You create your own story that is tangible and relatively easy to digest of course. In addition, and more importantly, you should be the one player that makes sense of the fragmented landscape, and you can do it online. How? You become your issue’s portal by aggregating and hyperlinking content from all stakeholders in one online HQ available on your site – whether they’re private, public, competitors, pressure groups, media or bloggers.

What’s the point?

• You’re doing people a favour by making things easier. They’ll appreciate it.
• Making things easier will also enable people to understand your take on an issue more clearly, as well as understand it within the context of other stakeholders.
• The base assumption is that your argument is valid and that most of the content you bring in backs up your story. Assuming that’s the case, the outside content you bring in will give you the 3rd party credibility you crave.
• Becoming the focal point for web content will enable you to own the discussion online, naturally making you a key stakeholder rather than just one of many. Search comes into it too. By becoming an online hub, others will link to you and you’ll get better a search ranking on your key issues.
• You’ll showcase both sides of the argument (again, assuming your side is strong) and thus prove that you’re a fair and open player.
• You’ll have taken step one of the the four-step approach to online engagement. I’ll be building on this in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

The Berlusconi supporter checklist…

… is getting shorter! Being in and out of court for 20 years, changing the statute of limitations on crimes he was being prosecuted for, legalising false accounting when being charged for it, associates being convicted of bribery and mafia collusion, the gaffes, the conflicts of interest, and general ineptitude hadn’t made a difference before! A lawyer being convicted for taking a massive bribe from him a month ago? Nope, not a chance. But “consorting with minors”, flying showgirls to his house in official planes, photos of men in a “state of arousal” (the former Czech Prime-Minister no less) and half-naked women lounging about on his estate, and accusations that women were paid to attend his soirees seem to have finally made a dent in the Italian consciousness!

So much so that we can just about check the following off the aforementioned supporter list:

• Catholics who see him as the heir apparent to the Christian-Democrats (who don’t vote for their real heirs because they’re now a minority party.)
• Voters who like him because they think he is an honest, self-made man who speaks his mind, and is thus a little bit more like them than your archetypal politician.

That leaves us with:

• Right-wingers who will vote centre-right no matter what happens because the filthy Commie scourge will surely turn Italy into a pseudo-Stalinist state!
• Right-wingers who strongly support other factions of the centre-right and don’t see any other  option (some of these are the most reasonable people on this list; surely they can’t be happy – wish they’d kick up more a fuss.)
• Obsessive “Berlusconiani” who could witness him knife someone on live TV and still claim the Commies did it. They love Berlusconi because he’s unstatesmanlike, dodgy and a skirt-chaser, and the more trouble he gets into, the happier they’ll be.
• People who watch more than 3 hours of his TV channels daily and thus think he’s Mother Theresa, Albert Einstein, your superhero of choice and Don Giovanni rolled into one.
• Tax evaders who know a centre-right government under Berlusconi will turn a blind eye to their activities.
• People in the south who are told who to vote for.

That’s still about 90% of the Berlusconi electorate. Darnit. We haven’t got a hope in hell.

UPDATE: Not so sure about this one… but how about swarms of young Italian women who dream of being showgirls and hope Berlusconi might show up at their birthday party?! The now 18-year-old at the heart of the “minors” scandal said she’d either want to be in politics or be a showgirl on telly. Imagine that. Starry-eyed girls elsewhere in the world dream of being popstars or models, but in Italy, it’s getting your knorks out on telly while sleazy old men patronise you OR being in politics. Politics has been reduced to showbiz. Parties at the PM’s place. Laughs, cash and fancy cars. Unbelievable!

Substance beyond storytelling

An after-thought to a previous post – Storytelling over big budgets – which I’ve just re-read. I implied that companies need to tell a good story rather than just rely on facts and figures, but I want to stress that storytelling alone won’t do the trick. It might if you’re an organisation that is highly trusted by the public e.g. an NGO but not if you’re a corporate player, with trust in industry far lower than even back in the Enron heyday.

Ever looked at an old ad? First thing that comes to mind is often: “can’t believe people were so gullible back then.” Same holds true with PA/PR now. You look back 5-10 years (I was a student then, so this is an assumption!) and it’ll likely look hollow compared to what’s come to be expected now.

Which is what? That companies are real, open, honest and transparent. That their stories are rooted in action not spin, and that they engage closely with stakeholders and respond actively to their queries and concerns – hence the shift from Public relations to Public engagement. A large part of this engagement needs to take place online. It’s a natural fit: the web – social media in particular – represents a communications model that defines the new era of public engagement; one where companies are more decentralised, they inform the conversation rather than leading it, and they engage with stakeholders of all stripes (not just a chosen few.)

I’d stress thought that what’s required to keep this all together is a set-up that goes way beyond communications and right into the core of how a business operates. Communications alone can not turn a dud into a winner. Success requires real business commitment to “do the right thing” in anything from reducing carbon footrprints to keeping employees healthy. And if it’s being done half-heartedly, it won’t work; people are too smart.

What’s more, to make the the two parts come together and really work – the business and communications – further work is required. Silos need to come down; communicators need to tell business units how they shold operate in light of PR best practice anno 2009 while business units should be loud and proud of their initiatives, at least internally.

Blogging as literature

Short post. I was in a meeting recently talking about blogging. The client, a literature buff, digressed a little and said he thought blogging was all well but a blog could never be truly “great” because the nature of the medium is such that the writing is fragmented, or lacks structure and flow.

I agreed with him. Not that it’s an issue of concern of course – the nature of the medium might not be suited to fine works of literature – but it’s extremely well suited to much else.

However, my colleague Jesus last week told me of a project called Cómo cazar un dragón which he’s working on with a Spanish writer. It’s a work of literature written as a blog, with the writer posting a chapter a week. Here’s the really interesting bit. Each new entry is influenced by readers’ comments following the previous post: people who leave comments can even subsequently become characters in the story. Brilliant concept, I think, and one that will soon result in a masterpiece no doubt!

Storytelling over big budgets

A tale heard many times in varying incarnations in Brussels:

• Big company X spends hundreds of thousands to get an independent report published by a reputable institution.
• Takes months, the report is finally published and the company is happy: the facts support its side of the story (e.g. product Y is not nearly as dangerous as some say or, for instance) and the report is truly independent, so case closed – or so they think.
• What’s the story? Company X publishes “independent report” which proves so and so? No, that’s not interesting enough. The story becomes company X publishes supposedly independent report but pressure group Z says it can’t be trusted as it’s industry sponsored. The report flops in PR terms.

This is another tale that’s been around the block a few times:

• Pressure group Z doesn’t have any budget but understands PR far better than industry behemoth X.
• It makes a mountain out a molehill by taking a nothing story and relating it to a day-to-day human experience e.g. the equivalent of say “paracetamol will kill you” without mentioning that you would have to take 100 tablets or whatever to do so (to be fair, plenty of NGOs and the like publish material that is much less controversial, but you get the gist.)
• Pressure group Z gets loads more press than Company X got for its crumby report.
• Company X responds to the story with a press release a week later rather than responding to it immediately using online crisis communications tactics that have more impact.

What are the lessons for corporate players in all of this? Each of these points could be a blog post in itself (if not something much longer), but in short:

• Re. the last point, clearly, your crisis communications requires an online element.
• Most of all though, don’t get caught up in trying to win hearts and minds through science and fact alone. Nobody cares about science, however spuriously, if their family’s health may be at risk.
• Don’t let business people, academics, engineers or scientists decide on your story. You need communicators on board.
• Don’t just make it about defensive communication and proving that you’re not as bad as they say. So your substance isn’t that harmful (or whatever) but is your organisation really doing good deeds in the long run? If not, it should.
• Treat pressure groups with respect, engage in dialogue, show them that you do good things, and they might even be nice to you. Or at least be less outrageous.
• And I have to say this considering my line of work… Go online and develop a super web presence to engage directly with the public and explain your story to them without intermediaries. Media relations is important, of course, but the press is likely to side with pressure groups more often than not, no matter what you say or do (and if you’re truly nasty, deservedly so!) Why? Because they’re the nice guys and readers like them more than you.

EP elections: parties get your acts together!

I’m not an expert on the minutiae of European politics – for more in-depth analysis of the elections I’d recommend proper Euroblogs like Julien Frisch, The European Citizen, Nosemonkey and Grahnlaw – but there’s one “layman’s” observation I would make.

Low turnouts and the success of a number of unsavoury fringe parties (as well as the failure of the centre-left to make up ground on the centre-right despite the financial crisis “gift”) is likely going to be blamed in some smug quarters on a cynical media and stupid and/or gullible voters. Or if not that, on the fact that voters have become too individualistic to care about serious politics and wider community matters.

But what about the failure of many mainstream parties – especially those on the centre-left – to offer voters a real sense that they offer a helping hand in trying times? I think that’s far more critical. Sure, the media may be a tad cynical, but have entire electorates suddenly gone dim-witted? Hardly. Have we all turned into materialistic egomaniacs? Maybe, but I doubt charity donations would be at an all time high if that were so. Perhaps it’s fair to say that it’s not an easy time to be a political party. People don’t vote along party lines like they used to (largely because social class does not matter much anymore in political terms) while there aren’t that many issues on which parties can really stand out seeing as they all pretty much straddle the middle ground.

Nonetheless, it’s certainly the case that plenty of Europeans feel utterly estranged from political parties . What should they do about it? For a start, try to be more representative and not appear so detached; be less dismissive and most of all to be more communicative. It means surveying constituents and acting on results. And as an advocate for all things online, I’d say more than anything it means members of parties communicating online directly with their constituents and making it an absolute priority to engage in daily dialogue even if it takes up a sizable chunk of working hours.

And if that fails? More proportional representation and direct democracy perhaps, but that opens up a whole new kettle of fish.

Event in Brussels: Organisations and online communications

Following on from an event at the IABC last week, ZN are hosting a follow-up event on June 18th. I’ll be there to give a brief introduction to an eBook on a model for online engagement which I’m currently working on (or to be fair, have very good intentions of starting ASAP.)

Details of the event here.

Aggregation in practice: 3 issues dashboards

I’m always writing about aggreration and aggregators i.e. “a web application which aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing (Wikipedia)”

Aggregation can be extremely valuable in two respects in particular:

• As a learning tool: you’re being fed content from a wide array of sources – issue, market, sector or personal interest news – constantly and with little effort; great for keeping on top of developments
• As part of your content strategy: add third party content to your own sites, enriching your content without actually producing any yourself and increasing credibility via third-party association

At ZN, we’ve created what we call “issues dashboards” on energy, food and environment, bringing in feeds from a number of sources as well as via keywords from search engines. Here they are:

• Environment
• Food
• Energy

If you have other sources to recommend please let us know.

MEP trends survey: some more thoughts

I wrote about the EP Digital Trends survey the other day - a godsend to people like me who often face the inevitable comment “yeah, but MEPs don’t use the web” – as it highlights that they in fact do indeed use it,  primarily for search, but even to (shock horror) read blogs. James, whose team published the survey, has written a post describing what the results actually mean to PA practitioners, essentially detailing how they must make sure that they combine their advoacy and media relations with a sound online search and content strategy.

I wholeheartedly agree. I’d also add that beyond ensuring that their content is found, there’s a lot they can do to ensure that the content might actually influence an MEP’s view of an issue. MEPs are accountable to their constituents, so even if your content is top-tier and convincing, you still need to prove to them that voters are on your side (or at least a good portion of them.) To do so I think you need to match content and search strategies with a broader engagement strategy. Here’s a few first thoughts (not all applicable to all issues and organisations, but it’s a start):

• Adopt a portal approach: don’t just showcase your own content but bring in good-quality third-party material that backs up your case and gives you credibility by association. If you really trust your sources, you can automate the process via aggregation.
• Similar sort of thing: make stakeholders your “ambassadors” by showcasing them on your site directly, ideally using video. Bite-sized interviews and preferably basic production standards, and you’ve got something a lot more powerful than a written “key message.”
• Appeal to potential supporters (assuming you have some) by adopting a really personalised approach. Don’t just have good, sober content but also one or more personal blogs or vlogs which show the real you. This then becomes a mechanism for stakeholder dialogue, where people can comment and you can personally engage with them.
• Use multiple channels if you have the resources and feel your audiences are scattered - social networks, Twitter etc. - but stay on message and lead people back to your main site. The latter point is key: always ensure that everything you do is showcased in your main “hub” i.e. via one URL.
• Make your online platform a “community” rather than a mere site (you’re already half-way there if you’ve taken some of the steps above.) Not meaning that you recreate Facebook on your €20,000 site; but rather that you make it a place where plenty of people, within your organisation or not, are featured and engage in some way. These people will then be more likely to mobilise on your behalf and help spread your message; a sort of Obama effect in miniature.

And here’s the bonus. If done well, you haven’t just put mechanisms in motion that will help convince MEPs directly if they find your content online. You’ve also got yourself a fully fledged eCampaign that could spread online (again, scope really depends on the issue and organisation in question!) and influence the wider debate. And eventually your MEPs might not just hear about you via you own channels; they might even hear indirectly via their constituents or traditional media that’s picked up the story. It’s come full circle, and that should really be your end-goal.

Why is Berlusconi acceptable?

I recently hinted that I would not write about Berlusconi quite so much anymore, but given the week’s events, I couldn’t help myself.

With the incessant run-ins with the law, using office to stave off prosecution, the gaffes, the showgirls, the conflicts of interest, meddling with the press, and convictions of his closest associates for mafia collusion and bribery, some people (outside of Italy especially) might ask themselves how Italians deem him an acceptable Prime-Minister.

Just this week we’ve had the following: the report of the conviction of David Mills, a British lawyer, was published, showing in no uncertain terms that he’d been bribed by Silvio Berlusconi; calls by Berlusconi (for the umpteenth time) to reduce Parliament’s powers and to increase his own; and an attempt to appoint firm supporters to all top posts at the national broadcaster, RAI. Not to mention his stating that no Italian could be guaranteed a fair trial because left-wing extremists run the magistrature. Or telling the head of the Italian Employers’ Federation (a big deal in Italy) who had just implored his government to actually bring about serious reform, that she could be a showgirl..! There’s actually more (the ongoing saga of the 18 year old’s birthday bash, estrangement from his wife over the same 18 year old and selecting showgirls to run for the European elections, as well as continual furious claims that the centre-left press is leading a sickening and immoral campaign against him…) and that’s just this week!

UPDATE: Good article in the FT on Berlusconi.

The question is, why is he acceptable to so many Italian voters, who are otherwise decent, law-abiding citizens? Probably a mishmash of the following:

1. They don’t care

In some cases, it’s about values. Plenty of Italians simply couldn’t care less that he’s shady or that he denigrates parliament, the magistrates, the press and so forth, because broader societal values such as the sacrosanct nature of democracy, the rule of law and freedom of the press simply aren’t as strong in Italy as in other democracies. Individual, family and close-community values are on the other hand much stronger, so in some ways Berlusconi is just doing what’s normal – looking out for his lot – the natural order of things. In this respect he is actually more at risk of losing support because he’s getting divorced and fools around with young girls than anything else.

Could people not care because they think he’s competent, and that this is far more important than any pesky legal trouble or some ill-timed jokes?! Yes, some people think he’s done a great job, and would have done an even better job if only the left had let him(!) In their view, he keeps immigrants off the streets, a couple of education reforms have been deemed decent by some, he got piles of rubbish cleared off the streets of Naples, and he responded somewhat well to the disaster in l’Aquila. There’s a few more. And a lot of promises which people still hope he’ll carry out. You may ask yourself if this is enough given his two massive mandates, but each to his own.

MEPs online: survey

Fleishman-Hillard published the results of their EP Digital Trends Survey earlier this week, exploring European Parliamentarians’ use of the web from two perspectives: first, their own actual outgoing communications; and second, their use of the web as a research and learning tool.

The figure which most stood out for me is that 93% of MEPs use search engines every day. That many of these then go on to claim they do not read blogs doesn’t really matter. I doubt many would discard a good blog that appears top of the search rankings (maybe they wouldn’t even identify it as a blog..?) Further proof (as if any were needed) that organisations should make good quality online content (and a search strategy) core elements of their communications.

Some observations on other findings in the report:

• “62% of MEPs have either never heard of Twitter or have no plans to use it” – Wonder if any respondents both said they’d never heard of it AND thus wouldn’t dream of using it. Hope not.
• “80% of MEPs believe websites to be either very effective or effective in communicating to voters, making websites as effective as one-on-one meetings” – So 1 in 5 still don’t think websites work? Not surprising, but I had hoped this might have been more like 1 in 20. I’ll always remember the MEP who last year told me that he “didn’t believe in the Internet” but I thought the Obama effect would have changed that sort of attitude to a greater extent.
• “51% of MEPs believe blogging or micro-blogging to be very effective or effective in communicating to voters” – Considering how alien blogging still is to many, this is a good figure. Hope it’ll be more like 90% come 2014. Communicating in you own voice directly to your constituents, for free, whenever you want and wherever you have an Internet connection? What’s not to love?

Relating to customers: Belgium vs. the UK

This isn’t a diatribe, just a quick observation. I recently arrived in Brussels from the UK and noticed this sticker in my taxi from the airport. The fact that it refers to the customer’s convenience as well as the cab firm’s own security is key. An equivalent UK sticker would have said “for your convenience” only. They’d never dream of adding the latter bit, because frankly, what’s the point – you’re trying to demonstrate to customers that you’re looking out for them. Do they really care that you feel more secure? 

A reflection of a far more egalitarian relationship between customer and service provider in Belgium than in the UK: it’s not about sucking up to the customer, but from the off, a tit-for-tat relationship. More honest I suppose.

Shaping the debate: 1999 vs. 2009

Who says the web is new, odd and different? I’ve just read a memo from 1999 which outlines recommendations to a contentious chemicals company (client related so won’t reveal) on how to engage positively so as to improve its standing with the general public and in turn regulators i.e. what actions it should take to try to “shape the debate” within the sector in which it operated.

The cornerstones of the memo were in line with best practice in communications, urging the company to provide better content, and to educate and engage the public. Specifically, the four main points were as follows:

• Showcase scientsists.
• Try to push for “informed decision” i.e. educate people; let them come to their own conclusions instead of preaching to them.
• Form coalitions and showcase strong centralised action to further outreach and credibility.
• Promote dialogue amongst stakeholders.

So what’s the big deal? Just that when people think “online communications” they often focus on what’s different in communications terms. Social media is different because it gives everyone a voice. Online crisis management is different because it needs to be more immediate. Online advertising is different because pay-per-click is more targeted.

This is all true, but people often lose track of the fact that the web is just a set of tools that can improve, expand or speed up existing communications strategies. Just look at the examples above. I won’t go into detail, but the scope for improving all four elements are immense:

• Showcase scientists? Use multimedia to improve the user experience and hyperlink to show relevant content at source.
• Informed decision? Again, multimedia. Or use aggregation to bring in third party material automatically. Blog to showcase more regular, less formal information. Use search tactics so that people who are looking for information on your subject matter come to you.
• Form coalitions? Adopt the “web as a hub” approach and bring it all together in one online space to ensure better integration of activities and joint action in one place, rather than having it scattered about.
• Dialogue? Duh.

Moral of the story? Don’t look at the web as something far removed from what came before (or as merely technology for that matter.) Instead, view it as a set of tools that makes reaching your communications objectives that little bit easier.

How this blog isn’t a blogging benchmark

I suppose I am an expert on how organisations and individuals who wish to write about their sector or core expertise should approach blogging; and I often post about blogging. However, there are plenty of things I don’t do right. So if you want to succeed as a blogger and/or follow blog etiquette, here’s a few things you should do which I always/usually don’t:

• Write about your core expertise and avoid other topics. You want to become a resource by adding value in the area you know best, not by waffling about things you know little about. My utter revulsion for Berlusconi, everything he stands for and what he’s doing to a wonderful country should NOT be the subject of a blog post per month.
• Don’t become too personal. Again, my Berlusconi posts are a case in point. It’s off-putting. I should only write about him if it’s in the context of communications i.e. the confluence of politics and communications, one of the core themes of my blog. Same with you. If you’re an expert on origami don’t suddenly write a post about Greco-Roman wrestling unless there’s a really good reason.
• Engage with other bloggers. I read 10s of posts on other blogs every day but I don’t often enough quote them on my own blog and give my take on their musings. I should. It’s a way of building relationships and it’ll drive traffic via trackbacks and other bloggers taking notice.
• Don’t be too lengthy. A good, long analytical post once in a while is good. Mostly long posts is less good. Average 3-4 paragraphs but don’t worry if one post is just a picture and the next is 10 paragraphs.
• Always credit photos. I find mine by Googling a key term then don’t give credit where credit is due. It’s probably illegal. It’s certainly bad etiquette.
• Reply to all comments (unless you’re a top-tier blogger and get 10+ per day.) I read all comments (there aren’t that many..) And I appreciate all comments. Then I sometimes forget to respond and once I remember it’s too late to bother. Not good. Just saying “thanks for your comment” is often good enough.
• Follow up on key posts. I write about blogging a lot. But I often write one post on another topic which requires follow up a week or month later, but then end up not doing it and writing about Berlusconi instead.

There may very well be more. Feel free to let me know if you think of any, I’m pretty thick-skinned.

Communications is progressing: idea laundering then and now

I’ve come across the term “idea laundering” a few times recently. It’s the practice of obtaining third-party endorsements by covert means so as to gain credibility by association. It can be done by suggesting that a person or organisation who supports the idea launderer’s position but has an association with it is actually independent. It can even go as far setting up a supposedly independent organisation that supports that same position.

Whatever the method may be, idea laundering is growing  increasingly obsolete, despite the fact that people trust companies and the media less and less, meaning that independent third-party endorsement is more important than ever.

So why, despite this, is idea laundering passé?

Three reasons I can think of:

1. I may be naive, but I actually believe that more organisations want to do the right thing by being honest and transparent, and think idea laundering is unethical.

2. The prevalence of the web has meant that there is far more public content available. Chances are that there is credible, independent material out there already, available via a simple hyperlink. You’ve also got content aggregation, which is these days an extremely popular way for organisations to showcase external content on their own sites. Using RSS, the process is automated so that content is automatically published on an organisation’s site. More credibility with pretty much zero effort.

3. The PR risk is now far greater so it’s really not worth it. A faux pas is far more likely to emerge online. What’s more, it’s far more likely to spread, and once it’s out it can not be controlled. And to cap it all off, it’ll stay on Google forever.