Set those Trojan Mice running

Shirley Ayres recently recommended a book on Twitter – Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do – by Euan Semple. It’s excellent, split into succinct chapters in a readable style.

From my first read-through (I love rereading books), ten points have jumped out at me:

• we’re seeing a cultural change, not a technological one
• create “Trojan Mice” – small, nimble projects – and watch where they go
• “Sharing what you know doesn’t diminish its worth but instead increases its value.”
• the more you blog the better you get at it – but writing an effective post is a skill
• stand up for your opinions and don’t be afraid of criticism
• if it turns out that you don’t know what you’re talking about, embrace it as a learning opportunity
• help people in your network and it will always be reciprocated
• digital natives will expect access to social media at work – and links to their professional networks will help them do their job
• crowdsource social media (and other) guidelines and make them enabling, not simply “Thou shalt not”
• social tools can come into their own during a disaster or crisis – but you need to build your network in advance if it’s going to be effective.

Photo: Mouse by Anifan via Flickr

Students from two colleges spoke to each of us in turn for five minutes. The group was mainly women – two thirds of practitioners are according to the CIPR’s State of the PR profession survey -  and, when I asked which sector they were thinking of going into, a high proportion said: “fashion PR”. As far as I can remember, not one mentioned any kind of public sector PR.

I’ve pondered for a long time about why this might be.  When you’re in local government, you realise just how fast-paced and varied public relations is. No day is the same as the next. The media want to and will engage with you. You’re dealing with a range of services, specialists and communities. Politics – local and national – is fascinating. You can help make a real difference to people’s lives. There are some remarkable things going on, especially with digital, and it’s a sector where people want to share and do.

I know that local government PR isn’t all rosy, that the nature of some of our services mean that when things go wrong they go seriously and life-threateningly wrong. That you generally have a budget of nil to work with and need to counter general negativity towards councils; but I do believe that the pros outweigh the cons.

If I know this, and others in similar jobs know it too, why didn’t these students know? Why hadn’t we told them? Why did their eyes invariably glaze over when I told them where I worked?

I can take a stab that plenty of 18-21 year olds probably aren’t that engaged with councils and neither know nor care what we do – I know I didn’t . Perhaps we’re guilty of not offering enough entry-level positions like Solihull Council’s graduate internship. If we gave more people their first break, we might be more visible on career radar.

And while I understand that fashion PR probably sounds a lot more glamorous than working at a town hall – where it’s more brew than Bolly – it seemed a crying shame that these students as a whole were missing the vast potential of exciting jobs they could be taking on. Perhaps our branch of PR needs some PR.

Photo: SewingMachine-0281 by University of Derby Teaching & Learning via Flickr

It’s a shoddy practice, and while not a purely online phenomenon, is no doubt compounded by the explosion in user generated content and the option to remain anonymous or hide behind a pseudonym afforded to online commentary.

For some people and organisations, the temptation to use social media to pose as independent commentators to post positive opinions about themselves or their products (known as sockpuppetry)  - or post negative comments about competitors - appears to have proved too strong to resist.

Alex Wade wrote about astroturfing last month in The Guardian, citing an eminent history professor caught out posting critical reviews on Amazon about rival historian’s work. Wade also states that: “In the travel sector especially, the problem has grown to epidemic proportions. Allegations of dirty tricks abound on quality review websites as hotel and restaurants use the sites to attack rivals or boost their own ratings by posting fake reviews.”

Wade statement was prescient. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) adjudicated yesterday that the website TripAdvisor’s claims that it carried ”Reviews you can trust” and “Reviews from real travellers” are misleading. The ASA has told TripAdvisor not to claim or imply that all the reviews that appeared on the website were from real travellers, or were honest, real or trusted.

Addressing astroturfing in Public Relations and the Social Web, Rob Brown states: ”Apart from being unethical … it is likely that you will be found out. This will create significant damage for your brand or organisation.”

And if that wasn’t enough, exposed astroturfers may also find themselves prosecuted under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

The message is clear: keep off the fake grass.

Photo: Day 100, 365, KEEP OFF THE GRASSby Andreas-Photography via Flickr

It looks like it was drawn by a child, because it was. Which I think is rather grand.

The official emblem is available from The British Monarchy website

The princely sum of 10 shillings was presented to each of the winners. How times change.

Dan Slee has spread the excellent idea to write down twenty thoughts or snippets from the event. Here are mine (cue TOTP countdown music):

1. It now takes an age to walk to the Victoria line from Kings Cross train station. Do not attempt to cut it fine when aiming for a train home – it will not end well

2. No one takes a blind bit of notice when asked to keep their intros short at the opening session

3. There is a social media simulator available for emergency planning training

4. Identifying local and vocal digital users ahead of emergencies is a good plan – you can ask them to help you get your messages out in a crisis

5. During a crisis, be prepared for your website to crash. Have a Plan B – such as a WordPress site – in your back pocket

6. Ben Proctor has some practical suggestions for minimum social media practice in emergencies

7. If you’re editing Wikipedia you need to be mindful of its Conflict of Interest policy. You should not directly edit pages related to your employer or work without being totally open and honest about it

8. Wikipedia does not accept The Daily Mail as a credible source for health-related stories

9. Key phrases to use when asking for Wikipedia pages to be edited are: It is not neutral, undue weight has been given to a specific area, there is cultural bias, the page/section is unreferenced or does not cite reliable sources

10. When people are passionate about Wikipedia or QR codes, they’re super-passionate about them in a very infectious way

11. If you use bit.ly or google’s link shortener for QR codes anyone can view the statistics as they’re public by default. Terence Eden explains more 

12. QR codes are being used in museums to great effect at minimum cost

13. Never forget the end user – is what we’re doing and using the right thing for them?

14. Never forget that most people don’t have whizzy tech or phones – get your level right

15. Most people have no interest in visiting a Council website, they only go when they really need to

16. It’s a tiny bit marvelous to put faces to Twitter names

17. There will always be people you miss speaking to who you really wanted to meet

18. It’s brilliant that a Councillor came along to the Saturday session

19. Unconferences are a fantastically collborative way to bring people together and learn new things

20. The Plumbers Arms serves very good sausages. I worked nearby for four years and never went in. This was probably a mistake.

Photo: 2012-govcamp-002 by #ashroplad via Flickr

Yes. Publics. Sometimes the terms stakeholders or customers just don’t fit the bill. Also, I’ve recently been hiking through communications theory for the CIPR diploma, and those theorists do like a public.

The theory of publics caught my eye in relation to social media. In 1983, public relations academic James Grunig identified four basic publics*:

• All-issue publics – active on all issues and often focused on injustices carried out by or through organisations
• Apathetic publics – inattentive on all issues. Not aware of, or concerned by, events. Self-focused and unlikely to take part in action to make their views heard
• Single-issue publics – active on one specific issue/area. Put all their energies into one cause and are very active
• Hot-issue publics – active on one issue with high profile and broad application often seize on issue currently in the media, but for a short time

Working with Todd Hunt, Grunig further refined the theory, moving to:

• latent publics – who face a similar problem but do not recognise it
• aware publics – who recognise a common issue
• active publics – who recognise the problem and organise to do something about it.

A fourth public – non-public with no interest in the issue – was added later. In his book Online Public Relations, David Phillips states that, in web terms, this public can be identified ‘as those who do not have ready access to the Internet.’ As said in a recent We Love Local Gov blog post, we mustn’t forget this public in the general move to embrace social media.

In another well-worth-a-read blog post , Grunig points out that social media gives publics the freedom to identify themselves, rather than wait to be defined by an organisation’s self-interest. He suggests that organisations should engage all publics to the extent of available resources. If this ideal situation is not possible, publics should be prioritised “according to the impact the organisation has on them or the impact they have on the organisation  … [which] requires judgement both about social responsibility and about the strategic interests of the organisation.”

It’s all too easy for organisations to focus on the benefits of social media for them, forgetting that it gives anyone the same opportunity to get their voice heard and find like-minded people. Organisations overlook the ability for publics to identify and arrange themselves using social media at their peril. Clay Shirky cites numerous examples in his book Here Comes Everybody. In Online Public Relations, Anne Gregory summarises that, “The ability of groups to form quickly and mobilise action provides a great opportunity as well as being a potential threat for PR professionals who are the guardians of organisational reputation.”

A few basic points this all throws up for me – nothing new but always important - are:

• Who are your publics, active or otherwise and where are they on social media?
• How and what are you monitoring?
• How are you reacting and engaging to issues being brought up online? Social media triage is handy here
• What issues could cause latent publics to move to aware and then active and how can/will you engage (wind farm application anyone?)
• Which of your publics aren’t online, where are they instead and how are you going to reach them/they reach you?

*Adapted from Edwards, L. ( 2009), Public Relations Theories: An Overview, Chapter 8 in Tench.R and Yeomans, L, Exploring Public Relations, Second Edition, Harlow, Pearson Education Limited

Images: Crowd by Wayne Large  and Wind Turbine by Ben Harrington both via Flickr

Headed up by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and utilising crowdsourcing and social media, #PRdefined is a global collaboration between the PRSA and 11 peer organisations – including the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

Launching the initiative, Rosanna M. Fiske , PRSA chair and CEO, said: “As recognition of the profession’s value has grown in recent years, it has become increasingly important that we find a universal definition befitting the scope and modern role of public relations.”

PR professionals were invited to submit ideas online for a new definition, by answering: Public relations [DOES WHAT] with/for [WHOM] to [DO WHAT] for [WHAT PURPOSE.] These ideas were fed into three draft definitions (taken from the PRSA website):

Definition No. 1: Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.

Definition No. 2: Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.

Definition No. 3: Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

The consultation on these draft ideas is open until 23 January, before three final definitions are put out to vote. You can comment here  and join in on Twitter using the #prdefined hashtag.

PR Week editor Danny Rogers has commented: “Finding a new definition of PR matters because the tens of thousands employed within this well-established industry need to more clearly and consistently explain what they do – and the value they add.”

Yet blanket acceptance is not assured. CIPR CEO, Jane Wilson, has said: “PR Professionals themselves have widely diverging opinions on the nature of public relations. It might be the case that a one-size-fits-all definition is very difficult to reach, but the process of trying will be very instructive.”

The debate looks set to continue.

Photo: Question Mark by Marco Belluci via Flickr

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A thread on Mumsnet this week debates whether government departments should post on social forums alongside everyday users.

A poster with the name ‘DepartmentforEducation’ was joining education-related threads, raising more than a few eyebrows.

The posts and username inferred that there was a civil servant somewhere monitoring Mumsnet, chipping into conversations to add links to official information.

Now there’s no saying that the poster is definitely a Government department – you can choose any username you like on Mumsnet, as the poster ‘DepartmentofHealth’ shows later in the thread – but it does raise some interesting issues.

There were a range of reactions, from posters feeling uncomfortable that Government was potentially intruding onto what is a social site, to others liking that information was appearing to come from an official source.

The general consensus was that organisations and politicians being upfront about their motives and identities – and going through official site channels - is OK, but simply posting into ongoing threads is a bit creepy.

On the thread, Mumsnet HQ themselves say:

“We have mailed them (the poster) to say that posting on the boards really isn’t on and if they would like to engage with MNetters it is much better to do it through MNHQ.”

This is a great example of making sure that you know the rules of social media – both implicit and explicit. The rules and etiquette of each site vary, any organisation must make sure it knows what they are.

The case also raises the age-old identity issue. Cybersquatters snap up well-known domain names and spoof accounts are commonplace on Twitter and Facebook, for fun or for mischief, and the same could well have happened in this case.

Whatever the legitimacy of ’DepartmentofEducation’, the question this raises for me is: just how sociable should public sector organisations be on social media?

Creative commons: QUIET … I’m trying to eavesdrop by Nikos Providakis via Flickr