While this post is about tomorrow’s Australian Federal election, it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with communicating effectively in today’s hyper-socialised, networked environment.

With the election seemingly on a knife-edge according to the latest Newspoll research, I pose this question: Could social media have tipped the balance in tomorrow’s Federal election?

My guess – in fact, fervent belief – is that “yes”, it would have. Undoubtedly.

But it’s a moot point because both parties have failed to capitalise on what was a fantastic opportunity to leverage the social web to better engage the Australian electorate.

Yes, both parties have leveraged social media channels but by and large they’ve used them as one-way mediums to push content rather than engage.

Of course, selling the message is the platform of every political party fighting an election. That’s a given. But the golden opportunity for both leaders in this case – indeed, the ’secret sauce’ in a communications sense – was to add an extra layer of interest by telling stories that resonated and producing content that people could interact with and share with their friends..

Instead, they’ve basically done what they’ve always done and as a result the opportunity to effectively connect with the public in a refreshing manner has unfortunately been lost.

How could have either/or Gillard or Abbott better used social media to win the election?

1. Started 8-12 months ago

   Very rarely is social media massively successful in a short-term ‘campaign’-like time-frame. It takes time and considerable effort to build an online community of fans or advocates for your brand (and if you have to change people’s perceptions, as politicians generally do, it can take even longer).

   To be blunt: you simply should not be waiting until the announcement of an election to swing in to action but rather, have started well and truly in advance of the sniff of an election. That way, a solid and respectful online presence would already have been in existence and could then be better leveraged when the campaign switch was turned on.

Put more emphasis on positive two-way communications

Incessantly hitting the public over the head with overly-polished, chest-beating messages is a massively flawed and outdated strategy, and both parties have unfortunately succumbed to the belief that the more noise, the better.

To communicate effectively in today’s hyper-connected world you need to display a solid combination of empathy, humility, humour, authenticity and transparency – as well as an ability to tell interesting stories plus a desire to listen and interact with people.

It’s not about pushing your message out but rather, earning people’s attention and drawing them in. It’s not about relying simply on telling one big story to as many people as possible (the traditional media model) but also telling lots of different stories to lots of different people, thus increasing the chance of them sharing their views and thoughts with others.

By the way, this is not just me talking. It’s come through loud and clear from the public right throughout the campaign.

Developed a standalone leader’s blog to act as the ‘home base’ for all of their online communications

Both parties had a blog that a number of politicians, including the respective leaders, contributed to. But as you’d expect, these blogs are largely being used merely as one-way broadcast mediums of propaganda-style material. While some posts attracted quite a few comments, response from the actual writer was non-existent (in the case of Labour, this job was left to a faceless staffer).

Ideally, Gillard would have her own blog (preferably with it’s own quirky domain name i.e. ‘Front Row With Julia’ – i.e. no-one ever said it had to be stiff and boring) where she jotted down her ‘real’ thoughts, added video, perhaps some audio files (podcasts), photos of life on the campaign trail etc. Ditto Abbott.

The idea would be to use this medium as a means of getting away from the hype, the spin and the propaganda and instead showing the ‘real’ person behind the political facade. Oh yes, and I would expect some degree of interactivity with people making comments, with a designated staffer (with face/name attached) to attend to the rest where appropriate.

Took us behind the curtains of the campaign

Brands today can be their own TV network, radio station and online magazine. Both leaders (and I’m focusing on the leaders because this campaign is being run closely along Presidential lines) could have created serious online media properties that were interesting enough to attract the public en masse, as well as the media.

I realise there’s Liberal.tv and Labor.tv, but take a look – the content is far from inspiring and is generally stage-managed speeches and meet-and-greets, or negative TV ads etc. I mean, why bother?

Rather than always be pushing propaganda our way, why not dedicate a solid proportion of content to behind-the-scenes of the campaign, interviews with the public, raw footage of Gillard or Abbott (and their deputies and other senior politicians) in action. Barack Obama did this extremely well, and I’m sure he had a lot more constraints than his Aussie counterparts.

And what about the plethora of minders surrounding each leader. What about shining the spotlight on them for a change? Let the public put faces to names. Demonstrate there are actually real human beings putting in long hours to help their party get in to power.

Gillard has a few ‘informal’-looking videos up on YouTube (see below) but really, it’s just another speech, it just happens to be in the back of a car. What about if she interviewed her driver?

Use Twitter. No, I mean really use Twitter (properly)

Given the speed of this campaign and the breadth of geography (and topics) covered, Twitter is the perfect social media ‘constant’ at each leader’s disposal.

Abbott didn’t tweet for a month (between July 17 and August 18) – the guts of the campaign. Gillard too has been slow on the uptake and at time of writing had only tweeted on 127 occasions, although she seems to have got the hang of it and is starting to become a little more chatty and responsive compared to her shaky start in the medium. (Had she been at it for 12 months or more, it would have become a potential lethal weapon in her campaign).

Malcolm Turnbull, on the other hand, has been a lot more prolific on Twitter and has definitely showed the way. It’s no wonder that Matthew Gain and the team at Edelman claim he is the most influential Australian politician on Twitter.

An election-winning performance with the help of social media (I say ‘help’ because it should be integrated with all the other communication tools) would have seen one of the leaders develop a real passion for connection with the public via a content-rich, multimedia blog, an accompanying tweet stream that delivered us news and questions and interesting talking points, unedited videos that took us behind the scenes of the campaign trail (ditto a Flickr account) plus a Facebook presence that tied everything together and included selected tweets and links to blog posts and videos as they were published (oh, and responses to comments made across all platforms wherever possible).

But while it would have been good to see either leader taking the time to use the tools in a smart way, the real benefit to the public (and therefore, ultimately, the parties themselves) would be the breaking down of barriers between politician and voter, the demonstration of empathy and a glimpse behind the facade that is a political campaign. In short, it would have provided the electorate with real insight and credible information by which they could make a better and more informed decision as to who they’d like to run this country.

I have no doubt Barack Obama would not be US President today had it not been for his smart, strategic use of social media. It was the ‘kicker’ that got him across the line and he leveraged the social web better than perhaps any brand has.

The fact this has seems to have been lost on the coterie of advisers to Gillard and Abbott is interesting to say the least, and will undoubtedly leave the losing party to ponder the heart-breaking question: “what if…”

* Thanks to Parky for his input to this post!

PHOTO SOURCE: The Australian

parkyoung Director David Park – usually called Parky – gets to play a Michael Parkinson ‘Parky’ chat-show role in support of this year’s Melbourne Awards.

The producers of the prestigious event, Arts Events, will incorporate a video element in the gala Awards Ceremony on Saturday 28 August.

Finalists for the Awards will be interviewed, Parky-style, by Parky .. who confesses to being a great fan of Michael Parkinson.

Creative Production Manager, James Nam, said: “The aim is to secure videos of this year’s finalists chatting personally about their motivations and inspiration for the stand-out community work they do in Melbourne. Of course, we need them to be relaxed and chat openly to camera.

“So we approached Leadership Victoria for assistance. They recommended ExperienceBank graduate David Park: even referring to him as ‘Parky’.  He had presented to a number of Leadership Victoria’s seminars on communications and came well-recommended for his style of presentation.

“We’re glad Parky can be our Parky for the day.”

BACKGROUND: THE MELBOURNE AWARDS

Since 2003, the Melbourne Awards have celebrated the people and organisations whose vision and hard work shape Melbourne City. Highlighting these achievements inspires and challenges others to make their own contribution to creating a better future for Melbourne.

Winners are selected through an independent judging process, which gives entrants access to industry leaders and professionals who often become ambassadors for the achievements they witness.

On Saturday 28 August 2010, the program will culminate in the presentation of a series of awards at a prestigious Gala Awards Ceremony produced by Arts Events Management Australasia. With a fabulous entertainment program, the awards will honour a diverse range of contributions, focusing on the people and organisations who go above and beyond the call of duty.

UPDATE: here’s one pic from the 40 interviews conducted with finalists on the day.

Interviewing a Melbourne Award finalist at Melbourne City Hall.

At our recent ‘Communications Revolution’ seminar the impact of web-based communications and social media on internal communications was a notable chat item.

The traditional mantra was: You can never have enough internal comms.

So that’s what we did: more and more.

We thought employee communications was about providing fellow workers with more information: stuff we wanted them know.

But employees were clearly not getting the message.

So the mantra must be right. We have to pump out more. It’s not working – so shout louder! Ok?

So our discussions at the seminar concluded with the following insight:–

1. 1 The impact on society by the web and social media is bringing about communications-driven change.
2. 2  This change is building wide expectation for more transparent, frank, plain-language conversations with, and notably within companies and other organisations.
3. 3  Where these conversations are encouraged, the earlier one-way broadcast method of communicating is giving way to healthier two-way discussion. It’s shifting away from top-down, jug-to-mug stuff – to real, human/humane dialogue.
4. 4  So previously, the mantra ‘you can never have enough internal comms’ was self-fulfilling. It was never going to work .. because it didn’t work.
5. 5  Not surprisingly when communication is a healthy two-way conversation, the mantra no longer applies.
6. 6  You can have enough .. when it works.

Sounds like a line from ‘Life of Brian’ – just after the one about cheese-makers.

Many organisations ask “what” can they do in web-based communications and social media;  far fewer ask “why” they should be doing it.

Those who question “why” can render their organisation a great blessing. Because social media and other web-based communications are just tools; they are tactics. They need to be set into the strategic bigger picture of what your organisation is doing – and heading – with communications.

A “what” question, unsupported by a “why”, often results in poor, lonely and undernourished Twitter or Facebook functions. Perfunctorily attached somewhere on the company web-page they invariably wither and starve.

Social media is less about “what?” Ideally it should be part of the bigger and more fundamental “why” question which asks ..

Q     “Why should we improve our communications?”

A     “Because internally and externally our stakeholders no longer want to be subjected to a one-way monologue. They want a conversation: thank you very much.”

So .. rather than a Facebook page or Twitter facility that only pushes a narrow product/service story (say a beer brand), why not create an on-line resource of interesting content on that whole sector (drinks).

Much less the ‘push’ site and more the ‘pull’.

Unfortunately many organisations (especially the bigger ones) find it difficult to cope with “why” questions. They often rub against the culture. Usually it’s just that there’s too much history and investment in the monologue.

The traditional ties that blind: legal, regulatory, shareholder.

Asking "why?" may not be popular (from Monty Python's Life of Brian)

“If you’re going to tell your [brand] story in a world of blogs and streaming video, you better be able to communicate digitally,” summed up Hershey CFO Bert Alfonso.

This from a great article in Marketing Daily out of the USA by Karlene Lukovitz titled Top Execs Dish About Social Media Strategies.

Sent to parkyoung by the well-read Doctor Jen Frahm.

The article focuses on CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies refering to the just-released 2010 Grocery Manufacturers Association/PWC financial performance report.

Key take-out is that top execs know that sitting on the social media sideline is not really an option.

Importantly, the article notes they are giving serious thought to social media and its implications.

We presume that means they are actually doing stuff? We know that some certainly are: like PepsiCo’s Refresh Project.

The article concludes with six experiences/insights that the big guys believe are the ‘right’ social media strategies/tactics to take on.. sometime. In summary they are:–

1  Accept that privacy is dead, and plan for it.

2  Succeeding requires engaging consumers with respect and providing real value (no strings attached).

3  Companies need to create structures that support social media over the long haul.

4  Figure out the ROI.

5  Realise that the big challenge — and greatest ROI opportunity — lies in using consumer and employee feedback to drive innovation.

6 Have an effective crisis management plan.
[Note: The article qualifies point 6 by noting: "Social media gaffes (like threatening to take down posts) reveal a lack of training and consistent involvement in the digital dialogue, said Del Monte's Chavez. "We have a policy in place that provides freedom within a framework for our cross-functional stakeholders to respond quickly," he explained. Also realize that most people just want to be heard. A simple apology and online coupon in response to a complaint frequently turns a poster's or tweeter's tone around completely, Chavez noted.]

Great to see any progress at this level. Big corporations have been suspicious by their absence in social media to date.

In their defence they have to bear a massive legal, regulatory and shareholder superstructure. But social media is hardly new and Cluetrain Manifesto’s insights to the networked market have been out there for over a decade.

Parky & the Warrior engage in robust discussion with brand guru Michel Hogan (Brandology). Michel shares her views about brand and illustrates with examples from around the world.
This is second instalment of a two-part interview. Listen to part one here

Download Podcast 10 part 2

The Higher Education supplement in this week’s Australian newspaper featured the article “The profession that dare not speak its name” by Stephen Matchett.

The section pointer prompted: “What’s in a name: the public relations problem” – it’s right next to a BP logo. Okay – you piqued our professional interest.

The article kicks off with an academic noting: “Public relations does a bad job on its PR.”

Matchett concludes with: “It seems that PR needs to blow its own trumpet and one way to do this could be to increase the subject’s standing as well as the industry’s overall reputation.”

The backdrop is BP’s handling of its oil spill.

There are a couple of paragraphs midway through the article that – to our mind – are signally relevant to the current status of PR. They focus on the impact of the web. They cite two NSW academics.

“A lot of PR scholarship is obsolete courtesy of the web … Online media provides an opportunity to get the public back into PR.” Gwyneth Howell: University of Western Sydney.

“… what is changing in journalism and PR is the practice of communications. it’s not one way anymore and this means giving up control. Most companies and government get the technology but not the practice.” Professor Jim Macnamara of University of Technology Sydney.

The article overlooks a key take-out on ‘what PR needs to do’ in light of these learned observations.

They underline that societal communications have undergone a revolutionary change due to the web. Simple one-way comms – blowing your own trumpet – work less effectively with a networked market.

‘Giving up control’ means creating honest, transparent, networked dialogue across all stakeholders.

It also means leaving behind many traditional and simplistic solutions that the old one-way, command-and-control model favoured. BP thought that years of one-way ‘beyond petroleum’ name-changing marketing would make it appear other than an oil company. Oops.

“Blowing your own trumpet” makes noise and builds awareness: but it’s one way and doesn’t engage. Companies typically respond to its failure by increasing the volume.

Doing stuff to build your reputation – like accreditation – is a good move. But if it too relies on one-way “PR” and blowing your own trumpet, then it’s likely to be just more noise.

The communications revolution means that PR – or any service or organisation really – will be more accessible through real dialogue and, as Prof Macnamara suggests, ‘giving up control.’

Maybe PR too needs to give up control.

A name change for PR because we dare not speak it and ‘blowing our own trumpet’ both ignore the academics’ counsel in the article.

Companies that do ease off control and one-way comms and really try to engage in a conversation note their fans start listening. They start trusting: they start taking a real interest.

If they can do it, why not PR?

This is an unabashed plug by me for a new and special client of ours. I do it out of personal reasons close to my heart: well actually .. closer to my head.

My dad died of a stroke. He was, in my eyes, a genius: a challenging intellect. I’m comforted he passed quickly and that the rapid onset dementia resulting from the stroke did not confuse him too long.

So here’s the plug. The National Stroke Foundation is ‘celebrating the brain’ and the genius inside us all with a new initiative - Stroke of Genius.

Stroke of Genius is an online competition inviting Australians to share their ‘light bulb’ moment. Their stoke of genius idea.

These bright ideas might not be ground-breaking or have the potential to change the world, but they illustrate the creative ability of our brains.

The public will then vote to determine Australia’s favourite Stroke of Genius idea.

Don’t miss the chance to be crowned the Stroke of Genius Popular Choice or Judges Choice Winner and to take home some fabulous prizes.

Stroke of Genius winners announced on 1st August.

If this post has made you think – then you’ve only your brain to thank. So maybe think about getting involved.

Now there’s a good idea.

My dad: John Park

Parky & the Warrior engage in robust discussion with brand guru Michel Hogan (Brandology). Michel shares her views about brand and illustrates with examples from around the world.

This is part one of the interview; part two will be posted shortly. 

Download podcast 10 part 1

parkyoung’s Kimberley Lee and my good self were interviewed the other day by Chloe Nicholls fromTechfluff.tv, a European-based online TV show about all things digital technology and social media.

The interview was wide-ranging and included questions about the Australian media landscape – as well we got in one of our favourite marketing PR philosophies – ”Every brand needs a base. Whether it’s offline or online, they need a group of fans, followers and advocates…and you need to build it, before you need it.”

Would love to hear your thoughts!

These opening lines to our e-Book “Reputation Renegades” jumped out of AFR BOSS magazine this week.

Well – almost.

I couldn’t help note an interesting similarity to the opening lines of this great article in BOSS titled  “Brand We.”

They read: ‘Forget brand management – it’s no longer in your hands. In the future, your customer community will control your brand.’

It’s an excerpt written by Rachel Botsman from a new book she co-authors with Roo Rogers, titled ‘What’s Mine is Yours: The rise of collaborative consumption.’ It will be published soon by Harper Business.

For brand – read reputation

I’m looking forward to getting it. Because, from a broader comms/PR perspective: for brand – read reputation.

And, for me, there are interesting parallels between her views on trusted brands like Harley-Davidson and Apple and corporate reputation. And where corporate reputation might go.

The article provides 10 ways to start building a collaborative brand. Reputation Renegades provides 10 ways for corporate affairs managers to take up a reputation-building challenge.

And that challenge is – as Botsman encapsulates so well – about ‘letting go.’ Letting go of the need in brand marketing to control the message via advertising campaigns.

Letting go of the need in corporate affairs to control the message via corporate speak.

I loved the punchy closing sentence to Botsman’s article: “Members of collaborative brands have a passion that is authentic and intimate – it’s not a quality that can be manufactured or manipulated through clever advertising.”

Scribbled thereafter on my copy is: “… or corporate media release.”

Worth a read.

It seems every time I read about social media in the business or marketing press these days, someone is always banging on about ‘tools’.

The gist is generally about brands using ’social media tools’ to get their message out in to the marketplace.

Yes, there are social media tools – lots of them in fact! The biggies, of course, always get all the attention: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FourSquare blah, blah, blah.

You need to know about these tools and understand intuitively how they work.

But more importantly…

There’s the bigger picture at play that marketers need to get their heads around before bursting forth with too much enthusiasm (last year you could have been forgiven, but now – today! – I can’t understand why the social web is still seen as simply ‘another medium’).

I’ve always been a big advocate for asking “why” in communications, not “what”.

This is certainly pertinent today with the social web. By asking what tools should your company be using, you’re going tactical straight away. Start asking why – “Why should we put videos on YouTube” – and you’re suddenly putting on your strategy hat (a bit simplistic, for sure, but you get the idea). Indeed, the highly-regarded Mitch Joel is a huge advocate for this school of thought – see quote below (click to enlarge, sourced from Hubspot Blog).

So my message for marketers who focus on the ’shiny new thing’ is this:

• - People connecting with one another is not a tool.
• - Relationships forged online (and generally offline as well) are not tools.
• - ‘Blogosphere’ conversations are not tools.
• - Peer-to-peer recommendations (whether good or bad) are not tools.
• - People’s love affairs with causes, ideas and stories are not tools.
• - Crowdsourcing of ideas is not a tool.
• - Helping a consumer with a problem is not a tool.
• - Opening up your organisation to the social web is not a tool.
• - Empowering employees online is not a tool.

Yes, Facebook is a tool and an incredibly powerful one at that. Twitter too. And by all means, consider them in a marketing sense.

But please be aware, you’ll have far more sustained success on the web (and in the marketplace generally) if you take into account the seismic changes and emerging themes that are taking place as a result of the massive take-up of new media technologies.

As promised, here are some more pics from the RSVP expo for your viewing pleasure. You can also see these and more on our Flickr site.

Enjoy!

Our PR Warrior Trevor Young took to the spotlight (again!) last Wednesday as part of a panel at Event Talks at the RSVP Expo in Melbourne.

The theme ‘Leader of the Pack’ referred to the topics for discussion: event style and design, brand innovation and trends in marketing for the events and hospitality industry.  The panel of industry leaders included: Tom Rutherford ( Chef/Creative Director fnb), Xen ( Director, Trumpet Events), Ian Andrew Walsh (Managing Director, G1 Group) and Trevor.

The panel, sitting on inflatable couches in a massive inflatable ‘room’, fielded questions from the maximum capacity crowd. Kicking off with a screening of the Socialnomics Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) it was a fitting precursor to many of the discussion points about the changing ways to engage audiences, delegates, exhibitors and event attendees.

Next Big Thing

The usual ‘what is the next big thing’ question was thoroughly discussed with all panellists agreeing that the trend was towards providing experiences.

Another main issue debated was about getting more ‘bang for your buck’ and maximising your budget. Sustainability and eco-friendly events were also noted as a trend. Perhaps this is where the inflatable furniture came in: blow up, set up, deflate and leave!

Audience participation was encouraged via IML for interactivity during events. During the session attendees could type their questions into the handheld IML gadgets and comments were displayed on several screens placed around the venue. While it was a bit slow and there was a delay in getting the messages on to the monitors, it is a good concept in terms of generating audience interactivity with the speakers. That said, ‘hands up’ for a roving microphone also worked well!

This seems to be a fitting segue to highlight the importance and value of human, face-to-face connection in an increasingly online society. While in the session I received a tweet from someone whom I’ve not met but have tweeted with in the past. Toula (@DigitalKulcha) was at the event helping out at the Provincial Events stall and tweeted an invite to taste test the catering which was delicious as you’ll see in the pics.

Meeting Toula was a delight – if every online connection could be cemented with a face-to-face encounter then the value would no doubt grow immensely.

There was a lot of exciting and cool stuff at the event which I’ll pop into a separate post.

I was tweeting furiously with the hashtag #rsvpmelb and many of the ‘notes’ from the session can be found there from @KimberleyL.