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
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Media consumption has increased, but it is fundamentally different.
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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.
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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.
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Gillmor, Heiferman, Ostrow, Rubel and Dubner (2010)
Why is social media appealing?
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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?
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The two-way symmetrical communications model for public relations
relies on honest and open two-way communication and mutual giveand-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
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Information across social media follows these stages:
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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.
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(White 2011)