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MEDIA RELATIONS 2.0 AND THE ART OF E-MAILING IT IN

MEDIA RELATIONS 2.0 AND THE ART OF E-MAILING IT IN

Next time you open your paper or surf the news online, count the number of times that stories concerning the Harper government carry e-mailed comments attributed to government or party spokespersons. Then count the number of times that such comments do not come with the e-mail qualifier.

I counted at least half a dozen news stories last week alone where a government spokesperson provided comment by way of e-mailed media lines. If you add Twitter to the mix, the majority of official replies to direct queries or emerging stories now come in digital format.

Live, on the record (or even on background) conversations between a reporter and a media relations officer or spokesperson are now the exception. E-mailing replies to media queries has become the standard operating procedure in federal media relations shops across the country.

Much has been said about the current government’s centralized message-control that would spur this robotic approach to media relations. What’s worrisome is that the practice is becoming more prevalent in other organizations, private and nonprofit alike.

Whenever an organization is now pressed by a reporter on a fast-breaking story with problematic undertones, the default response is to e-mail talking points that more often than not have only a vague familial connection to the questions being asked or the issue.

This is one of the subtle unintended consequences of the rise of digital communications: the convergence of enabling technology (digital messaging), long-standing suspicion (and fear) of the media, and dwindling resources and growing time-pressures in traditional newsrooms–call it media relations 2.0.

So, what does media relations 2.0 mean for corporate communications?

Deflecting or bridging are well known media relations techniques, and there was a time when media lines were crafted to help spokespeople deflect and bridge their way to a particular corporate take on an issue.

The difference is that in the past, these lines were used as part of the two-way dynamic of interviews and question and answer sessions that tested their validity and often overtook them. In media relations 2.0, talking points have become take-it-or-leave propositions.

But just because organizations are getting away with this, and everybody seems to be doing it, doesn’t make it a good communication practice.

For one thing, this new approach to media relations only contributes to suspicion and mistrust on both sides of the hack and flack divide.

It is a sign of an organization that can’t see the strategic forest for the tactical trees when talking points grudgingly inserted by reporters like non-sequiturs in news stories are viewed as more valuable than developing relations of trust with those same journalists.

Basically, in the media relations 2.0 paradigm, marking each and every story with unadulterated corporate DNA is more important than ensuring you have the reputational capital to carry the day when an e-mailed or Tweeted reply just won’t be enough.

Media relations 2.0 is also fundamentally unimaginative and reactive.

At its core is a mistrust of the mainstream media and a lack of understanding of its role and importance in framing public perceptions, and more fundamentally, of how it works.

As a result, great corporate stories remain untold or are poorly told, or are told by someone else.

The upside is that unlike the old-fashioned media relations I engaged in as a government flack in the late 90s, media relations 2.0 is safe–there’s no danger of being misquoted or losing control of an interview.  The problem is, it’s like  standing on the sidelines at your high school formal: you didn’t get turned down, but neither did you dance.

 

ELECTIONS 2.0, SAYING GOODBYE TO PLEASANTVILLE

ELECTIONS 2.0, SAYING GOODBYE TO PLEASANTVILLE

Recently, a number of Quebec commentators mused about the extensive use of social media before and during the current Quebec election campaign with several calling it the province’s first election 2.0. In an op ed in yesterday’s L’actualité Chantal Hebert waded into the discussion with a thoughtful piece on the true value of social media in election campaigns, arguing that online discussions tend to be far removed from voters’ mainstreet concerns.

Hebert says that while there are good tactical reasons for using social media in election campaigns, it would be a mistake to assume that the conversations populating the various online platforms are the ones that resonate with ordinary voters.

The key problem is that  (in Quebec and in Canada) political parties have yet to embrace the social paradigm that actually drives engagement and digital sharing.  We can see it in the content that they generate. Complex issues are dumbed down to a few simple talking points. Individuals and personalities become (in some cases, literally) black and white cardboard cutouts.

This content is based on what Andrew Coyne calls “the totalitarian assumptions that inform most advertising, and its close cousin, politics” He adds, “in the world inhabited by this brand or that party, nothing bad ever happens, nothing ever goes wrong, no one ever is unhappy”.

It’s what I call the Pleasantville school of advertising. Pleasantville was the 1998 indie film where two teenagers are transported into the black and white world of a 50s sitcom.  And it’s a view of the world that still dominates Canadian politics.

A good example can be seen in negative ads (its not a coincidence that these are often in black and white). Once the exception, these have now become the staple of election campaigns.  More interesting though, is their use between elections where political parties traditionally do not engage in large media buys and rely on earned and social media.

A quick look at the YouTube channel of both the NDP and CPC shows that neither of their most recent negative ads went viral.  The NDP ad generated some 68,000 hits while the CPC anti-Mulcair ad generated a little over 30,000 views. And a large number of those were views not from social platforms, but from the online pages of mainstream media outlets.  Hardly game changing stuff.

This traditional advertising and political marketing paradigm is well-suited to large traditional media buys as ways to frame consumer perceptions, but not social engagement.  It works when you can buy eyeballs and multiple views. It fails miserably when your audience is your medium.

Why?

Because effective digital engagement requires content that is sharable. That means content that members of diverse online communities will feel comfortable sharing among their peers. It means content that is real.  Anything else misses the point.

Let’s look at one politician who got it.  We don’t have to go far, right here in Canada, Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi went from long shot to mayor, largely thanks to smart, funny and personal social-media engagement.

Three things distinguished his use of social media from that of our federal parties in the last  election: content, tone and genuine engagement. Mr. Nenshi was able to use social media to engage with a growing audience because, from day one, his message was positive, fresh and, most important, sharable. His commitment to dialogue built political capital and most importantly, trust. And while municipal elections don’t have the partisan trapping of their federal or provincial cousins, Nemshi succeeded by avoiding shrill personal attacks and focusing instead on positive and optimistic messaging. Ultimately, his approach translated into boots on the ground, contributions to the campaign and votes.

In the last federal election, social media was used largely as a one-way bulletin board and echo chamber for partisan talking points and videos. Absent, for the most part, was any genuine engagement or content with broad non-partisan appeal.

Unfortunately, what we see in Quebec and in the rest-of-Canada today suggests that parties will continue to use social media as a tactical tool to energize their base, raise funds and generate traditional media coverage. And so doing they will fail to capitalize on its true transformative potential: Its capacity to amplify messages a million-fold and to mobilize thousands.

But capitalizing on that potential would require acknowledging the world is not black and white and the bad guys can sometimes be good guys. It would mean saying goodbye to Pleasantville.