This afternoon saw an intellectual mix-up of The Jerry Springer Show where a hypothetical scenario was put forward to a panel.

Introducing the panel...

Stephen Waddington, Managing Director, Speed

Eddie Bensilum, Director, Regester Larkin

Gideon Banaim, Partner, Schillings

Tracey Frauzel, Head of Digital Communications, Greenpeace

Joanna Lund, Director, Reputation Matters

Neil Gibbons, Editor, Communicate Magazine

Stuart Bruce,  Managing Director, Wolfstar

Scenario...

A video has been uploaded on YouTube of a 7 year old child handling the parts and making your mobile phones. The company, Redmobile, have to respond but how?!?

Discussion...

Having had the scenario, this is where the panel come into play, with each person representing a different area of the internal communications team as well as a journalist and aggravator spreading the message online.

Some of the key messages from the internal communications were;

-          Gather a team with legal representation

-          Define roles

-          Log the crisis to refer back to in the future as a learning process

-          Show that your being active

Also, it is key to take a step back when the crisis is snowballing and take a moment to re-evaluate whether you are communicating with your key stakeholders. Don’t worry about responding to every single comment but do be pro-active in monitoring content online.   

As for the media, Neil Gibbons speaks about when they have some solid evidence, such as this hypothetical video, they will go straight to the organisation for a comment. If the organisation responds with nothing or ‘no comment’, Neil described it as gold dust for a journalist as they know the organisation is in panic mode!

Other interesting comments that were made throughout the discussion were organisations have a one hour to respond otherwise known as the ‘golden hour’! And no matter how much pressure the communications team are under, you need to remember communication can’t work in isolation.

So overall, the discussion offered general crisis and issue management protocols.  

The Digital democray with Ben Llyod (Echo Research), and the final session 'Hypotheticals', with guest panel Eddie Bensilum (Regester Larkin), Gideon Beniam (Schillings), Tracy Frauzel (Greenpeace), Joanna Lund (Reputation Matters) and Stephen Waddington (Speed).

Luke Aviat, managing director from GoViral explains the advantages of brands using viral videos to interact with their audiences online. TV is still a primary communicator however online is now putting content out there and the audience have the opportunity to pull it in and then participate with the content in terms of commenting and giving personal feedback.

In some recent research, it has been revealed that online video adverts are more effective than television. This is perhaps because online there are different genres of video available, often branded content and and longer adverts do not have a place on TV.

Luke discusses the online funnel when thinking of a campaign strategy, considering the platforms available and where their target audience are.

There are three phases to think about:

• Owned media – YouTube, Twitter etc.

• Paid media – Banner Advertising, getting the message out there.

• Organic media – sharing, people blogging the content, posting it elsewhere

  The organic media is based on quality and distribution of content.

The media strategy for a video campaign consists of:

• Advertising

• Branded content

  Always on – combining the two of these ensures you are always in the demographic's eyes.

Luke used an example of a viral advert by GoViral for Quiksilver, called 'Original Thinking' which got between 20-30 million hits. This originated with the core audience of surfers but then rapidly moved viral to the mainstream. The success of the video was because it was edgy and cool; it has value and good content which will drive your video to the mainstream audience.

EGV: Employee generated video.

Pete Stevenson, Creative Director at Edge Picture Company, discussed how organisations can use video and filming to motivate and engage their employees ... even create an appetite for it.

As with any introduction of new communication in an organisation, there needs to be thought behind it and it’s no different for EGV as it needs to have a clear purpose in terms of where and how it’s being used. There are also guidelines which Pete was keen to highlight; keep them short, support the people taking part in the video and consider where it fits best.  

To support Pete’s presentation, Louise Clements Communications Manager at Telefonica Europe plc described the EGV campaign that O2 has been running since 2007. O2 are part of Telefonica and they used the EGV campaign to communicate with O2 employees who Telefonica is and their personality.  

The EGV campaign sent O2 employees to Spain and Latin America to volunteer in a programme that Telefonica are already part of which involved supporting children in poverty. The O2 employees that went on the trip were asked to make video diaries which were then later edited and distributed internally. The result not only raised the profile of Telefonica amongst O2 employees and more applications for the programme but also created an external buzz.

Pete finished off by stressing that film and web can grab people but the danger is don’t just produce ‘stuff’, make it relevant and interesting.

The enthusiasm for a video platform that EGV Pete described and what Louise supported with the O2 case study, highlights that EGV is something organisations should defiantly consider, if not already. 

 

Abigail Harrison, Andrew Girdwood, Chris Reed, and Jemima Garthwaite lead the debate over where social media fits in to PR organisation. Each individual puts forward their debate:

 

Abigail Harrison, managing director, thebluedoor

• Social media for Search Engine Optimisation

• Social media is just one component of PR strategy

• A business needs a language or framework to communicate the vision a company wants to achieve, which social media is able to offer

• PR is more vital than ever due to engagement of consumers through social media

• Must consider reputation management

• PR ensure right messages meet the right audience through the right channel

• Need to ensure clients have their own language and don't get lost in their own grammar

 

Andrew Girdwood, head of search, Big Mouth Media

• Bogger of 15 years

• Search Engine Optimisation is not a tool, 2010 controlling search engines

• Social media is not digital PR, should be run by digital natives – know how to engage audiences

   

 

Chris Reed, managing partner, Brew

• Stresses the importance of comments on forums

• Social media should sit everywhere in an organisation

• Organisations reputation is too important to be determined by online

• Every company should have a social media strategy

• Not about who runs it, but who drives it. Must have knowledge of company branding

 

Jemima Garthwaite, head of social media, MyCityDeal.co.uk

• PR is not Search Engine Optimisation

• Build a resource of unique content for successful viral, social media

• Utilise people within company who already have social media skills, against the view that social media should be run by a PR department

   

Landslide vote from the debate concludes: Social Media policy should be led by PR.

With Abigail Harrison, managing director of Thebluedoor, Andrew Girdwood, head of search at Big Mouth Media, Chris Reed, managing partner of Brew and Jemima Garthwaite, head of social media at MyCityDeal

Hosted by Simon Henderson, Director of Corporate Responsibility & Internal Communications at Centrica and Peter Grant, CEO of Cision

 

Bryan Smith the former head of digital media, Rio Tinto discussed social media and it’s place in the world of investor relations. One of the main points that we thought was really interesting, was that some people think that in two years we won’t even be discussing this term ‘social media’ because it will be so embedded into industry practice.

There were many interesting points throughout the talk, one of which was about Facebook and how important it has been for certain companies and their investor relations, the example was given of Pacific Inc. Who use Facebook as a communication tool with their investors, who comment on their page or private message them.  As an organisation they stress that they reply to every single comment within 24hrs! Pretty impressive, no? Personally, I wouldn’t have said Facebook was in the same league as Twitter or other social media tools in the corperate/professional context. However, with figures like 29% of users now being aged 35-55, that is the target age group for investor relations it’s obviously is not a market to be ignored!

There was also a bit of chat about the best methods to use and for Bryan Smith said they find Youtube and Twitter most useful, however there is a debate around how safe Twitter really is. There have been many articles floating around of recent hacked accounts and Bryan really highlighted the dangers of this and with being a mining company how much of a target they are. In all discussions today there have been pros and cons for all social media use but being used properly and with honesty seems to work in favour of most users.