Corporate Communication in the Digital Context - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Corporate Communication in the Digital Context

Dr Bianca Wright

Socialnomics

2015 by Erik

Qualcomm

(

http://

www.socialnomics.net

)

(Intersection Consulting 2009)

http

://www.intersectionconsulting.com/2009/social-media-roi

/

Media

In the current media context, the forms of media used by

organisations

to communicate with publics is changing.

Fundamentally, though, they are still:

Owned Media

Paid Media

Earned Media

Interestingly, social media can fall into all three categories…

Changing Landscape

Media consumption has increased, but it is fundamentally different.

Consumption habits have evolved from “pre-defined” and “mass appeal” – where audiences made appointments to watch their favourite shows on TV – to include “pre-selected” and “long tail or niche content” – on-demand options that allow media to be consumed anytime, anywhere.

In the last decade, media consumption by 8-18 year olds increased by almost 80 minutes to 458 per day. Television viewing is up slightly, but teenagers are simultaneously texting to friends, updating their Facebook status, and tweeting.

This continuous partial attention – more places, more sources, more social – is a “

glocal

” (global and local) phenomenon.

The proliferation of this new social aspect of media means that every kind of media has a role to play. It is no longer the story of “or” – meaning, which channel to use - but is the story of “and” – which combination of channels to use.

The average person is consuming six to eight sources of information daily and needs to hear or read something three to five times in different places from various sources before believing it.

Edelman 2010

Some Trends

The crisis of attention requires

that brands

create more

compelling content

to engage their audiences.

An offline

collaborative culture

will gain

momentum through online

social media

channels with people

sharing information

, goods, and services.

Traditionally

, social media relied

on a

reach and frequency model. Today,

action is

key as engagement and

amplification of

authentic ideas are at the forefront.

While

the lure of innovations will

become stronger

as new devices and

apps proliferate

, people will eventually

want to

escape the clutter, “turn off”

devices, and

revert to more human connections

.

Gillmor,

Heiferman

,

Ostrow

,

Rubel

and

Dubner

(2010)

Why is social media appealing?

Reach

Immediacy

Control

Surveillance/ Monitoring/ User research

Expectation

The Social Media Ecosystem

7 functional building blocks

Study by

Kietzmann

,

Hermkens

, McCarthy and Silvestre (2011)

Identity

, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups

7 functional building blocks of Social Media (

Kietzmann

et al 2011)

Risk and Reputation in Social Media

Social media audiences are outspoken, quick to react, and most likely to highlight negatives

E.g.

tweetjacking

of McDonalds’ Twitter campaign #

McDStories

Engagement Media

Complement paid and earned media strategies by embracing engagement media.

Employ a multi-media approach that starts with the creation of compelling content that is available to people where they are – Web, magazines, mobile, or slate; providing opportunities for consumers to repurpose content and amplify the discussion on other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Reach out to new media with the convening credibility of expert voices (there is a growing power of niche blogs –

TechCrunch

, Politico, The Huffington Post, and others).

Utilize social networks as essential spaces for company digital embassies, serving as aggregators for discussion and connection points for members.

Understand that every company can become a media company via an owned channel, driving people to substantive and visually alluring material.

Is Social Media the ideal?

The 2-way symmetrical model casts public relations in the role of mediator versus persuader. Under that model, PR pros listen to the concerns of both clients and key publics and help them adapt to one

another (

Sledzik

2008)

Social media is about “conversation”, “engagement”, “participation”

Two-way symmetrical communication is the essence of social media. It may have been created as a personal communications tool, but social media now provides a way for companies to interact with customers and other stakeholders on a real-time basis. Such initiatives are all about starting and sustaining communications with customers in ways that can increase their loyalty, satisfaction, and commitment to your product or brand

. (

Marcomm

Musings 2010)

Is Social Media the ideal?

The two-way symmetrical communications model for public relations relies on honest and open two-way communication and mutual give-and-take. It requires organizations be willing to make adjustments in how they operate, to accommodate their publics

.

(

Marcomm

Musings 2010)

“Although

the attention being paid to the new digital media may be the latest fad in public relations, these new media have the potential to make the profession more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical, and socially responsible. However, many practitioners are using the new media in the same ways they used the old—as a means of dumping messages on the general population rather than as a strategic means of interacting with publics and bringing information from the environment into organizational decision-making. For public relations to fully use digital media, practitioners and scholars must

reinstitutionalise

public relations as a behavioural, strategic management paradigm rather than as a symbolic, interpretive paradigm

.” (

Grunig

2010)

Why it’s not

Information

across social media

follows these stages

:

Stage

1: Organisation publishes message

Stage 2: Message is viewed by their direct online audience (followers, likes,

etc

)

Stage 3: Message is duplicated by publics (causes some messages to adapt)

Stage 4: Some publics communication back to the organisation based upon their interpretations of the message (varying in accuracy)

Based

upon these stages of online communication there are three reasons why two-way symmetrical communication isn’t true:

Reason

1: It would be impossible for the organisation to reply to each user.

Reason 2: The user response outweighs the organisation’s message quantity.

Reason 3: Organisation response may purpose to adjust a user’s interpretation of the original message (

ie

, regaining narrative) / Response may simply be for the purpose of small talk

.

(White 2011)