The End of the Beginning

By James Warren, Head of Interactive, Social and Emerging Media, Weber Shandwick

Social media is no longer the new kid on the block. Digital advocacy is now an accepted part of the public relations product mix. I believe every agency and sizeable PR function should have at least one person dedicated to the creation and development of advocacy online. The communications model is changing, of that there can be no doubt. Digital communications are not a passing fad, to be dismissed as an unnecessary irrelevance. A PR function's ability to initiate and maintain conversations online is to be expected. The days of passing off errors of judgement as teething troubles in a new and unpredictable environment are long gone. There is a palpable feeling that we are at the end of the beginning. The PR industry's time has come.
Social media lies at the very heart of advocacy. Its ability to enable anyone to become a publisher or producer means that anyone, anywhere and at any time can become an advocate for a brand. By the same token, those with opposing points of view to those of our clients can also share their opinions. But providing these advocates/badvocates (those individuals with the power to damage a reputation rather than enhance it) with a virtual soapbox is only the tip of the social media iceberg. Social media connects those people with shared interests: it is as much about communication and interaction as it is about publishing. Highly active communities exist both around interests and demographics. Social media is an activity as much as it is a destination.
Successful digital advocacy is about identifying those communities where there are either existing or potential advocates. Then it is about monitoring those communities and tuning our clients' messaging based on what's being said and by whom. The creation of true advocacy is grounded in active participation in those communities and - ultimately - in producing content that is tailored to their needs and the needs of the brand we represent.

For the purposes of this essay, I thought it might be useful to define social media. Social media is ultimately generated and driven by users. It is a set of free, open and simple techniques and/or technologies that allow anyone to create, repurpose and share content. The fundamental principles of social media are community, fairness and transparency.

Hardly a day goes by when there isn't a new digital development involving new technologies and new techniques, but the fundamentals of social media engagement remain the same. And, in the spirit of community, fairness and transparency, I am going to share the methodology we at Weber Shandwick use to guide our social media engagement…

Successful social media engagement is based on six fundamental principles:

• Identify
• Monitor
• Tune
• Participate
• Produce
• Measure

Identify
Stage one, where we find the advocates (or badvocates) - individual or groups - that have either a significant degree of current influence or the potential to form/shift opinions. At this stage we also identify the online communities where the target audience for the campaign exist/participate. Weber Shandwick typically creates what we call a landscape analysis of a brand's online universe.

Monitor
Once we have identified where our audience is and who the potential advocates might be, we can begin to monitor what they are saying, how they are saying it, who they are saying it to and where. This is an ongoing, automated process that acts like a live focus group, keeping us appraised of the opinions of our advocates. The intelligence gleaned here constantly informs our communications strategy and content.

Tune
Stage three is a direct result of the monitoring process. We use our awareness of the issues and appreciation of subtle communications nuances to ensure we adapt our client's messaging and activity in the most appropriate manner. This tuning stage is imperative if the next two stages are to be successful.

Participate
Once our strategy is finely tuned, we can begin engaging with the relevant communities. This is done by whole-heartedly and earnestly joining the community and engaging in useful and balanced activity therein. This is best managed by the brand itself, in accordance with social media best practice guidelines (in a nutshell: somebody somewhere knows more than you do - so be transparent, honest and respectful).

Produce
The final element of successful social media engagement is the creation of relevant and appropriate content that serves the purposes of both the audience for the campaign and the brand itself. This content can take many forms and exist in many different environments - from social networks to blogs to sharing sites to multimedia content…this will vary from engagement to engagement.

Measure
Social media engagement should be viewed as a long-term communications strategy and certainly not a quick fix or a 'turn on/turn off' approach. Therefore effective measurement is absolutely essential, to gauge the degree to which advocacy is being generated/distributed online.

There you have it. Not rocket science by any means. But then who ever said it was complicated?