This post provides five tips on how to respond to a social activist attack on your brand or company social media presences.

Protesting has changed

Organisations’ social presences, be they on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter or elsewhere, are quickly becoming primary targets for activist organisations attempting to change company policy or build awareness of questionable business practices. Of course this is not to say the days of the old ‘hey-hey ho-ho’ chants, signed petitions and pickets are over, but there is a definite rise in activist activity on the internet and organisations need to be prepared to address and respond to these instances when they occur.

How best to respond to an attack by an activist organisation

• Pre-attack create escalation procedures - Ensure comment traffic system and escalation procedures are in place across all social presences so that negative comments are quickly escalated to the PR and corp affairs team where additional escalation can be made quickly.

• Investigate the source of the activity and engage – My mother always said treat the problem, not the symptoms. Identify the source or sources that are convincing people to come to your social presence and engage with them directly. Your engagement efforts with the activist influencers will be more effective that engaging with every single individual on the page. In my experience this engagement will be welcome and shows a willingness to address their concerns.

• Don’t stick your head in the sand – Be transparent with your community on the channels they are attacking you on and make commitments to investigate their concerns and provide more information.

• Be timely – an hour is a long time in the social media world. Get responses and information to your community as quickly as possible. Delayed silence will suggest you are trying to spin the situation.

• Listen and respond – There is no magic number of negative comments that denotes when a company should change its policy, but any considerable number of negative comments should be taken seriously. Comments on Facebook and other social presences are like a barometer on your customers’ feelings towards your brand and products. Only a fool doesn’t listen to their customers.

Do you have any other tips you would add? Do you agree with what I have listed?

Image credit – Gaelx

This post was first published on the Edelman Australia Blog.

The Trust Barometer findings presents interesting implications for businesses in the area of social media. Below are four aspects of the report that we thought are worth highlighting that should help justify an increased spend in the area of social for your business or organisation.

Listening to customer needs and feedback

As the above graphic highlights, listening to customer needs and providing feedback is the best way to build trust among the general public in Australia. Social media is one of the most effective ways to do this. If you are not listening and responding to the conversations occurring in the social space around your brand you may be missing one of the most effective ways to grow your brand’s or organisation’s trust.

CEOs are least trusted company spokespeople

Trust in CEOs as a company spokesperson has fallen, whilst ‘a person like me’ has risen. This is an ongoing trend that the Trust Barometer has been highlighting for some years. Community managers and normal employees speaking on behalf of organisations in social media are an effective way of building trust in your brand, especially in times of crisis.

Limiting your spokespeople to handful of very senior people is not the most effective way to build trust.  The days of control communication are over. Open up your communication channels so a wide range of ordinary employees can speak on behalf of your your brand within social media. Of course that is not to say training and governance for people commenting on your brand/organisation in social media is not necessary.

Trust in social media as a credible source of information has doubled

Social media as a trusted source of information about a company has consistently risen over recent years. The 13% above are people that listed the fact they trust information they find about a company on social media ‘a great deal’. It does not mean that 87% of people don’t trust information they read about a company within social media.

If you haven’t already the time to take the jump is here. People are on social media researching your company and are trusting what they read. If you aren’t present you are missing an opportunity to influence and grow trust.

Repetition overcomes skepticism 

Australians need to be exposed to the same message multiple times before they will trust the information. If you are simply relying on traditional channels you are missing opportunities to repeat your message.

Social media is one of the most cost effective means of communicating frequently. Take advantage of it.

What are your thoughts?

Does the above make sense, does it align with your experience of implementing social media and growing trust within your organisation?

The following post is an essay I wrote as part of Edelman Consumer Marketing’s 12on12, a compilation of essays from some of Edelman’s consumer marketing leaders around the globe. This is the third in a series of essays from the compilation. To read more essays from the 12on12 series, visit the Edelman Scribd Channel.

Introduction

Now, more than ever before, there are opportunities for brands and organizations to create meaningful relationships directly with their target audience through compelling content. However, there are historical lessons to consider in determining what comprises compelling content.

Creating branded content is not a new concept. For a long time, brands and organizations have developed content, but it has been firmly in the province of marketing. The content that brands have traditionally created is short form; be that a television commercial (TVC), a print ad, or radio commercial. In order to engage audiences today, and to create the type of content that will be shared by consumers, simply extending the traditional marketing style content into a longer form will not work.

Today we are seeing brands like Red Bull through their creation of sports properties, KFC restaurants in Indonesia that host live music performances, and McDonald’s in the U.S. and Quiksilver France launching their own TV networks, creating the kind of quality content that, traditionally, we have associated with traditional media players. They have done this by focusing on what the audience wants first, and how they can benefit as a brand second.

To understand the opportunity for brands and organizations with regard to content, it is worth spending some time looking at what content consumers have traditionally engaged with, and looks at the evolution of content up to today.

Where We’ve Been

Traditionally, content was created by a few people. The delivery systems and the means of production were expensive. Only a few very wealthy individuals had access to the type of investment required to run huge print machines, or to buy the licenses and the studios required to deliver content via broadcast. This scenario meant that those who did create content had enormous power. The scarcity of content producers meant the content that was produced was highly valuable to the audience. There wasn’t much of it, so what was created was seen by many. This was the era of mass audiences, grouped together due to the scarcity of quality content.

What Changed in the Late ‘90s

Like the arrival of the printing press in the 1400s that dramatically changed access to printed content, the self-publishing phenomenon that arrived in the late ‘90s revolutionized content once more. No longer was content creation limited to the few with great means or great connections; now anyone could publish materials and gain an audience very cheaply and simply. The outcome of this was a mass fragmentation of the audience. No longer were audiences forced to watch a small amount of mass content, but could indulge in their favorite niches that were no longer controlled by geographical borders or high barriers to entry. There was, however, a yawning gap between the quality of content that was made for niche audiences, and those created for the masses. The mass audience content was still superior in quality and still attracted larger audiences.

Fast Forward to Today

Most of the formerly niche platforms have gone mainstream, and there are now very few discernible differences between the likes of the new-media Huffington Post and traditional media outlets in the U.S.; political opinion blogs like Crikey in Australia and traditional political publications and Rue89 in France share readers and media space. Further, the arrival of Facebook pages, branded YouTube channels, Google+ pages, and Twitter has meant that brands are doing more than merely creating content directly for their audience – they are talking with their audience like peers.

Traditionally brand content (or ads) was seen jammed between the bits of content we are really interested in. We watched them only through sufferance. They were a nuisance that paid for the stuff we were really interested in.

However, in order to gain traction in a world with more content and a fragmented audience, brands need to evolve their content. The content needs to be less about marketing messages and be truly entertaining, informative, or educational. In short, it needs to resemble much more the content that brands used to buy ad space around, and a lot less like the ads they have traditionally created.

Tips for Brands Wanting to Make Content Today:

At Edelman, we believe there are five simple tips that brands should keep in mind when planning and creating content. We call these the “Five Cs of Content.”

The 5Cs of Content

Creativity: Compelling storytelling is still the core component of all successful content. If we don’t care about the characters, aren’t interested in the story being told, or aren’t compelled to watch until the end, then it is unlikely the content will be successful.

Context: To create great content, you need to understand what your audience wants, needs, and desires. But you also need to take into account the platforms you audience uses to consume the content, be it print, video or audio; also, when they want it, and how often they are prepared to engage.

Connectivity: There is great value in creating content that connects members of your target audience together. By doing this, you create a mutually beneficial scenario that creates a virtuous circle of connectivity around your brand.

Continuity: There is a reason that soap operas like Neighbors, Derrick, Columbo, and The Bold and The Beautiful are successful. They have long-established audiences who know there will be a new episode on a regular basis. The same goes for content that brands create. There is great value provided by sustaining efforts over time, ensuring that an audience built around your content. Though remember, no audience will be built overnight.

Collaboration: Gone are the days of one-way communication with an audience. Today your audience is unlikely to want to sit idly by and consume the content you have created for them. They will want to be involved, have an impact on the direction of content, and be recognized for their contributions. What’s more, if they are involved, they are more likely to share their efforts – we all have egos, after all.

Image credit - Roadsidepictures

Today at work we launched the Trust Barometer data for Australia. This is a global piece of research Edelman has been undertaking for 12 years.

The report, released each year at Davos, by Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, is an amazing piece of IP that compares trust across business, NGOs government and media for 25 markets.

To announce the report we created a series of assets that were launched to media and clients at an event at The Mint in Sydney. Below is a repost of the content published today on the Edelman Australia Blog.

REPOST:

The 2012 Edelman Australian Trust Barometer was launched today at an event at Sydney’s Mint. The key findings:

• 60% of Australians do not trust government leaders to tell the truth
• Business, more trusted than government, has the opportunity to move from a license to operate to a license to lead
• Technology the most trusted industry sector in Australia, while trust in energy industry is low
• Trust in media increases; Social media increasingly trusted as a company information source amongst informed public
• Peer to peer trust is rising: 31% increase in ‘a person like myself’ and 17% increase in regular employees as credible company spokespeople

The report was launched by Michelle Hutton, CEO Edelman Australia and included a panel of stellar support speakers:

• Greg Baxter, Former Corporate Affairs Director, News Limited
• Professor Jim Macnamara, Professor of Public Communication, UTS
• Hailey Cavill, Founder + Director, Cavill + Co
• Laurence Evans, President International, StrategyOne

Excerpts from the event and the presentation can be seen embedded below on YouTube (available post event) and SlideShare.

The executive summary of the Australian data and the press release that summarises the findings can be viewed on Scribd via the hyper links.

Methodology:

This year’s survey is bigger than ever before, with 30,000 people questioned in 25 countries. For the first time in 2012, the Edelman Trust Barometer contrasts the views of the Australian general population with the survey’s traditional Trust respondent group of “informed publics” (high income, college-educate Australians who read or watch business/news media and follow public policy issues). The Australian sample was n=1,200 (1,000 general population plus 200 informed public). All informed publics met the following criteria: university-educated; household income in the top quartile for their age in their country; read or watch business/news media at least several times a week; follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week.

An infographic detailing Trust levels across the globe can be seen on SlideShare.

Follow the Twitter discussion at #Edeltrust2012

Check out the clever video below produced by Carlsberg featuring a cinema full of rough and scary looking bikies.

This type of stunt is not necessarily new, Heineken did something fairly similar not that long ago, which you can see at the bottom of this post.

Though just because it isn’t new doesn’t mean it isn’t successful or effective. For the fraction of the cost it would have taken to create an advertisement, not to mention the spend required to buy media, this clever stunt has generated in excess of 2.7 million views. It only went up a week ago, so this number will likely grow albeit at a slower pace! This number also doesn’t include the additional buzz traditional media and the blogosphere would have created. Check out a small snapshot of the additional buzz on Google.

Regardless of the fact that in retrospect coming up with an idea like this seems simple, I can guarantee it isn’t. Good work Carlsberg – a good fun and effective stunt.

Henieken’s similar stunt, which must be noted has only 900K views:

Keeping up with the scale of the internet and its associated stats and facts is a daunting task. In an attempt to simplify some of the data  OnlineSchools.org have prepared a pretty stunning infographic.

I love infographics generally, but this one is extra special special because it is interactive. Once loaded it will calculate how many new internet users there are in the world, the number of new websites being created and even how many dollars have been spent on e-commerce since the page was loaded last.

I have been banging on to colleagues and anyone else that will listen for some time now about the opportunity infographics represent for PRs. They are the ideal way to communicate complex information in a compelling and highly consumable way that is perfect for web consumption. In my opinion every survey or research media release should be accompanied by an infographic to bring the stats to life. There are additional thoughts and examples of infographics on the Edelman Digital blog.

Check out the interactive State of the Internet Infographic here, or simply marvel at its non interactive beauty below.

Hat tip to Digital Buzz Blog where I saw this first.

New business presentations, whether you agree with them or not, are very much a reality for just about every advertising, PR and media agency.

I reckon over the course of my career I have been involved in maybe 60 or more new business pitches and that numbers increases every single week.

Thankfully I have not won every pitch I have been involved in. I say thankfully because I have learnt something valuable from every single loss. So much so in fact that now I am in the fortunate position that I am winning more pitches than I lose.

In preparation for addressing a group of Newcastle University students this week, I developed a presentation focussing on what makes a good new business pitch. You can check it out below, but in case you don’t have the time to read it all below are my top tips.

Tips for winning new business

The most important point:

• Realise that the client will most likely buy the best new business performance, not the best agency

I have learnt this stuff because I have been privileged enough to work with some of the best in the business when it comes to winning new business. These people include:

• Michelle Hutton – CEO Edelman Australia
• Chris Savage – CEO STW
• Samantha Allen – Global MD Consumer Practice Ogilvy PR

I also learnt a tonne reading this book - Stop Bitching and Start Pitching by Marty Kellard and  Ian Elliot.

If you have additional suggestions for winning new business, or you disagree with any of my comments I would love to receive your feedback in the comment box.

Does the potential of a PR crisis played out in the modern social media environment keep you up at night? If so, this post and the presentation, created in conjunction with Edelman crisis management expert Grant Smith, at the bottom may provide some guidance.

Managing Crisis in the Digital Age

Last week I was invited to present on the topic of Managing crisis in the digital age at the PR and Communications’ the Future of Social Media Forum.

The event was a three day conference for people in the PR and marketing industries and  included presentations from the likes of Gavin Heaton (servant of Chaos), Ian Lyons (who I had never met before), Alexandra Kentman (who I sadly missed) and fellow PR agency staffer Dan Young.

The presentation in summary:

The context:

• Social media in and of itself is not the cause of crisis, it is merely a vehicle that people use to communicate about or learn of a crisis
• Social media has, however, changed fundamentally the speed of response required to get on top of a crisis at the early stages and requires constant responses throughout the crisis

• Organisations need a way to identify the differentiate between an issue and a crisis. An issue is unfortunate, a crisis prevents business as usual
• Crisis communication is part of the solution, but it isn’t the solution. An organisation’s (note I am not saying the PR person’s here) primary focus should be on finding the source of the crisis and fixing it

What do you think? Do you agree? Is there anything you would add to my advice?

Heineken’s Facebook Page has hit the 1 million member mark. In celebration of this milestone, the company sent out a team of Heineken Huggers onto the streets of Amsterdam. According to the YouTube video they hope to get to everybody eventually. I have just hit ‘Like’ on the page.

This is a great example of online driving, real world experiences, which in turn feed back into online buzz.

Nicely done Heineken.

I saw the video below on Lee Hopkin’s blog by Box HIll TAFE today and couldn’t resist sharing it here.

I love how videos like this can break down a bunch of stats into something entertaining. I am so not talented in this area. if I attempted to make something similar it would likely look like a series of moving PPT slides. If you can do this, and are looking for a start in agency land get in touch. I may some work for you.