Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

If exposure to social media messages can affect human moods & more, what responsibility do digital marketers & organisations hold?

There's a lot of evidence available now that the emotional tone of the messaging that people are exposed to on social media goes on to affect their mood, posting behaviour, and aspects of their health and actions.

A study by Facebook and Cornell University in 2012 (published in 2014) that involved modifying the emotional valance of posts on 689,003 users' Facebook News Feeds, putting aside the ethics of experimenting unknowingly on their users, evidenced a strong link between what people saw in their Feed and the emotional valance of what they posted afterwards.

The study postulated that 'emotional contagion' was very strong in social media channels, with the capability for peoples' moods and behaviours to be significantly altered through exposure to messaging that expressed certain tones or viewpoints.

Other research has validated connections between the emotional tone of the social and digital media we consume and the behaviours we exhibit - which really should not come as a surprise as it is the basis of the advertising, propaganda and marketing industries (using emotional triggers to stimulate behaviour change) and is readily visible in the mood swings evident in forum, Facebook and Twitter conversations over time.

So if we can be fairly confident that emotional tone is 'contagious', and that emotions then influence behaviours, what is the responsibility of communicators and marketers when using digital and social media to engage audiences at scale to 'set' the right tone?

I've long been a proponent of having clear community guidelines for communities that government agencies and companies establish in order to set the appropriate context and tone for conversations up front. Failing to do this can lead to communities rapidly moving beyond the influence of the establishing organisation and having conversational tone going to places that are undesirable or damaging.

However even when posting or promoting material through general digital channels there can be a significant impact on audience mood and behaviour depending on the approach taken by the organisation - even for 'emotionless' statements of fact that could be perceived in negative or positive ways.

Simply stating the facts and taking no responsibility for the audience's emotional reaction is a common, but flawed strategy, when it is used as a way to justify that the organisation is blameless as to how others react (and I have to admit that I've used this to 'excuse' myself in personal conversations as well).

While it isn't always possible to predict how a group, or particularly how an individual, will react to a given message, we can design and test our messaging to bias toward a particular emotional and behavioural response.

This could be seen as manipulative, but arguably is no more manipulative than dropping unpleasant information in a factual manner and then blaming the negative reaction on the 'receivers'. Whenever we communicate we are aim to have an impact, so it only behooves us to strive to minimise any harm that could come from our communications as far as is possible.

So when participating or advertising online, digital marketers need to develop a sound understanding of their audiences and be mindful of the impacts of our communications - much as how newspapers now provide support line contact details at the end of disturbing articles.

When emotional contagion takes hold and amplifies an emotional or behavioural response - whether for good or ill, the impacts can be enormous - and digital marketers and communicators need to own their contribution in these cases.

Read full post...

Monday, March 31, 2014

Content Management for Government - watch the webcast

Below is the video from the live webcast on Content Marketing for Government that Content Group managed, hosted by David Pembroke with Gina Cianco of the Australian Government Department of Human Services, Kanchan Dutt and myself as guests.

It's an interesting watch.


I'll buy a drink for anyone who accurately counts the number of 'ums' I say!

Read full post...

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Keep an eye out for the live webinar at 12:30 (AEST) on Content Marketing in Government

Live Webcast poster
From 12:30-1:30pm (AEST) today, Content Group is holding the second of its live webinars, this time on Content Marketing in Government.

The webinar features a panel including Gina Ciancio, Senior Social Media Advisor at the Department of Human Services, Kanchan Dutt, Senior Manager Media and Communications at ACT Government, and myself.

It will be broadcast on Canberra Live and available after the event if you don't have time to watch today.

It should be a very interesting look at an area that government still struggles with - how to develop and provide the right content, at the right time, to the right people, through the right channels to influence in the right ways.

There will be a particular focus on Community Engagement and on mobile content.






Read full post...

Friday, December 14, 2012

Social media 2013 - the new socialnomics video

Erik Qualman of Socialnomics has released the 2013 annual Social Media video, chock full of awe-inspiring statistics on the continuing rise of social media and its increasing influence on the world today.

In a new twist, it's available with two different music tracks (for those of you tired of an annual dose of FatBoy Slim). I've embedded both versions for your viewing pleasure below.

Keep in mind that while in Australia we appear to have quite a mature social media market, with year on year change more being a factor of population ageing than increasing widespread adoption, we are only at around 50% smartphone penetration - where desktop connections to the internet sat back in 2006 - allowing for much further growth in the mobile social media market.

We also have the NBN on the way, which presents entirely new opportunities for integrated digital services, for example having ongoing real-time online conversations integrated with TV and radio experiences - an extension of the Twitter hashtags and forums used to support popular programs today.

Around the world there is much 'blue sky' growth remaining for social media, with over 50% of the world's population under the age of 30, the rapid rate of mobile adoption in countries across asia and africa and the fact that even the largest social network in the world (Facebook) only has 14% of the world's population as members.

Continued rising social media use around the world will trigger the development of new services which, in turn, will further drive adoption in countries like Australia - such as how the emergence of platforms like Ushahidi from Kenya have led to global adoption of new tools for public engagement.

Socialnomics' Social Media Video 2013 with FatBoy Slim music:


Socialnomics' Social Media Video 2013 with new music:

Read full post...

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Register now for the next Canberra Gov 2.0 free lunchtime event - 19 September 2012

It's time to register for the next (free) Government 2.0 lunchtime event in Canberra - this time featuring Matthew Gordon from OurSay.org and Gina Beschorner from the Department of Human Services.

Matthew will be talking aboutOurSay’s approach to public engagement in government and business decision making, drawing upon experiences holding forums with government agencies, political candidates, local government, media corporations and industry.

Gina will be providing a view on how DHS manage their consultation blog - speechbubble and discuss their social media monitoring and activities responding to customers in forums and blogs.

The event is on at DEEWR's lecture theatre on Marcus Clarke Road on Wednesday 19 September from 12:30 - 1:30pm.

For more information and to register, go to http://gov2septact.eventbrite.com/

Read full post...

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

How Aussies are using social media - latest Sensis report

Thanks to a tip off from John Sheridan at GovCamp yesterday, I'm happy to report that the latest Sensis figures on social media use by Australians are out - and the numbers have continued to increase.

Sensis reports that 62% of online Australians are using social media, with 97% using Facebook - roughly the same numbers they reported last year.

However use of LinkedIn (16%) and Twitter (14%) has surged - with some interesting state-by-state results, particularly in the ACT where we're above average Twitter users (25%) but below average LinkedIn users (8%) - compared, for example to NSW where 19% used Twitter and 26% used LinkedIn.

There was also interesting information on the engagement and expenditure by business on social media channels - with 82% of large businesses having a Facebook page, 71% having a Twitter presence and 30% and 29% respectively using LinkedIn and YouTube (though a disappointingly 13% had a blog) and spending on average 4.5% of their marketing budget (or around $100,000) per year on the area.

If you consider the expenditure of the Commonwealth Government on advertising alone for 2010-11 was $116.9 million dollars (from the Parliamentary Library report, The administration of Commonwealth Government advertising), then the Commonwealth, to reflect the expenditure of large Australian companies, should be spending at least $5.2 million on social media.

59% of large businesses expected to spend more in social marketing over the next twelve months (an average 12% increase in spend), with only 2% planning on cutting their investment. The funds for increasing social marketingwas coming from print (38% - sorry newspapers!), TV advertising (10%), radio advertising (10%) - though 29% indicated nothing would be cut and 24% were unsure where the funds would come from.

Of course, as comms budgets are often reported by program rather than by agency, the amount spent on communication is generally much higher - as would need to be the social media spending to compare.

It was also interesting to see that 53% of Australians accessing social media were doing so on mobile phones - compared to 54% on desktop computers, indicating how quickly Australians are moving to mobile devices for their social interactions - no surprise considering that social is mobile, for all intents and purposes.

It was also good to see that social media engagement and activity was being controlled predominantly by marketing (64%) and communication (17%) areas, rather than IT (5%). Government still has a way to go in this space to find the most effective balance of control and management, reflecting the skills and the security required for effective online engagement.

Social media success is still largely being measured by likes/followers/subscribers (67% of large businesses), while positive social media conversation (17%), usage (11%)  and brand sentiment (7%) remain quite low. Only 39% of large businesses reported measuring return on investment for social media and only 28% of large businesses were using third party statistics providers with another 11% using in-house statistics, indicating there's still a great deal of ad-hoc or non measurement going on.

You can see the full report and statistics from the Sensis media release The Yellow Social Media Report 2012, and I have attached the infographic to the right (or view the larger version).

Read full post...

Monday, April 23, 2012

What are Australian Government agencies using social media to achieve?

I'm still collecting responses to my FOI request, however felt it worth providing some interim data on what Australian Government agencies are telling me that they are using social media to achieve.

Of the 166 FOI requests I sent out, I have, so far, received 59 legitimate responses in survey format (35%), another 10-20 in other formats (not analysed below) and 6 refusals to respond.

(I also received a survey response from the 'Dept of Silly Walks and Frilly Pants' that I've disregarded in this analysis. However I am pleased that FOI officers have healthy senses of humour!)

Of the 59 legitimate responses, 43 agencies indicated in Question 8 of my survey that they used social media channels for some purpose.

That is, 73% of Australian Government agencies in my sample are using social media.

This demonstrates how far the public service has come in embedding social media into their activities. However what do they say they are using social media to achieve?

Question 8 of my survey asked agencies:
Has your agency used social media services in the following activities?
(Please indicate all that apply and name each of the specific social media services used, ie: agency operated blogs or forums, third party blogs or forums, social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, social sharing sites such as YouTube, SlideShare or Flickr, etc)
The responses (so far) are as follows, listed from most to least popular uses of social media:

Answer choiceResponsesShare
For stakeholder engagement or collaboration3254.24%
Operating an information campaign2542.37%
Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints2542.37%
For engaging with journalists and media outlets2440.68%
For engagement or collaboration with other government agencies2440.68%
Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and activities1728.81%
For a public consultation process1627.12%
For a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation process1322.03%
Other type of activity 1118.64%
For policy or services co-design  711.86%




The 'Other' category was broken into the following 11 responses:
  • cartoon competition - Flickr
  • day to day information for subscribers and stakeholders
  • Youtube
  • No, but use of social media to advertise Gov Jobs is being assessed.
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn (recruitment activity)
  • Internal communication
  • Yes
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Yes. Facebook (Promote Aboriginal Studies [ED: followed by two unreadable words])
  • Facebook, Twitter
So, what are my conclusions from this data?

Firstly, there is a high use of social media for official purposes throughout the Australian Government. Almost three-quarters of agencies (73%) reported using at least one (and more commonly two or more) social media tools.

The most popular use for these tools is for stakeholder engagement or collaboration (53.24%) - well ahead of operating an information campaign (42.37%), indicating that social media use is expanding beyond Communication teams into broader agency use for two-way dialogues.

Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints was also quite high (42.37%), indicating that many agencies are serious about the use of social media channels for engaging.

Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and activities was lower than I would have expected (28.81%). This is potentially the most cost-effective use for social media as it doesn't require engagement by an agency and can often be accomplished with free tools and limited time. I hope more agencies take this up in the future as it can provide deeper insights into their stakeholders and clients and help head-off issues.

Consultation was also lower than I had expected, with only a quarter of agencies respectively using social media for a public consultation process (27.12%) or for a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation process (22.03%). This is an area with significant potential to add value to policy deliberations and to provide a cost-effective extension or replacement of physical consultation events (particularly when budgets are tight). I hope more agencies take this up in the future as well.

The lowest rating answer was for policy or services co-design (11.86%), an emerging area which has a potentially bright future ahead of it. I can understand this being low as it is a new area for many agencies, but hope it grows as they realise the efficiencies of online co-design processes (alongside offline processes).

Finally, the other type of activity answer provided some interesting food for future thought. The answers provided by agencies, excluding the naming of specific social media tools and general use, fell into several significant categories; recruitment, internal communication and crowdsourcing.

These are all emerging areas where social media can make a significant difference and I hope we see a lot more of them in the future.

There is more analysis I will do down the track - which social media tools are most often used for each type of activity, what are the average number (and types) of tools used by agencies), however I'll wait for all responses to be received before putting this time in.

All in all the interim responses are very positive (at least from my position as a Gov 2.0 Advocate), with Australian Government agencies making strong use of social media across many different types of activities.

There's many who are testing, piloting and practicing different approaches to social media use, which will provide an ever-growing source of useful social media examples, case studies and expertise for all agencies to draw on and thereby build their capabilities and effectiveness online.

Read full post...

Friday, October 14, 2011

Treating bloggers right

Many organisations still haven't cottoned on to the influence of a number of blogs or how to appropriately approach and engage with them - including PR and advertising agencies who should know better.

I was reading an excellent example of this the other week, from The Bloggess, where a PR agency not only approached with an inappropriately targeted form letter, which indicated the agency hadn't even read her blog, but responded to her (relatively) polite reply with an annoyed response.

The situation really escalated, however, when a VP in the PR agency, in an internal email, called her a "F**king bitch" (without the asterisks). This email was accidentally (by the VP) also CCed to The Bloggess.

The Bloggess took a deep breath, and responded politely, however then received a torrent of abuse from the PR agency.

At this point she published the entire exchange on her blog - in a post that has already received 1,240 comments, has been shared on Facebook 8,397 times and via Twitter 5,328 times.

Her comments have also been shared widely and her post read by many of her 164,000 Twitter followers.

The Bloggess's post is a good read - particularly for government agencies and their PR representatives - on how to behave appropriately when engaging bloggers, and the potential fallout when they don't.

I'm also keeping a link handy to 'Here's a picture of Wil Wheaton collating papers' for those PR and advertising agencies who send me form emails asking me to post about their product or brand promotions on my blog (and yes there's been a few in the last six months - all Australian agencies).

Read full post...

Friday, September 09, 2011

Liveblog from AMI Marketing & Communications Conference - Day 2

I've taken some time off this morning to put together some extra slides for my presentation, so are not yet in the room, however have a liveblog running to capture the tweeters who are...

My presentation is at 3.20pm today and will be on slideshare shortly afterwards.

Read full post...

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Liveblog from AMI Marketing & Communications Conference - Day 1

Hi,

I'll be liveblogging parts of the AMI Marketing and Communications Conference today and tomorrow.

You can also follow the conference at the hashtag #amigov2011

Read full post...

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Mobile internet trends - an online game changer

Mary Meeker, managing director for Morgan Stanley's global technology research unit recently gave an excellent presentation on mobile internet trends.

It highlights the incredible growth of tablets and apps, the rise of Android, the new uses that smartphones are being put to (only 32% of time is spent on phone calls) and the relative effectiveness of mobile and internet advertising compared to traditional media (internet matches television and mobile exceeds it).

I've embedded it below - it is a must see.

Read full post...

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Mind the Gap - rebranding in the social media age

Last Monday (4 October) one of the US's most loved brands tried to introduce its new logo.

The company went about it in the traditional, time-honoured way.

Marketing staff had consulted internal stakeholders (who thought after twenty years the logo looked a little tired), considered the research and wrote a brief. Working with a creative agency they tested new concepts and finally publicly unveiled their new logo to the public in a soft launch via their website on 4 October.

This is about the time they realised that the world had changed.

The company had been very successful at marketing its brand online, using Facebook (721,000 fans), Twitter (35,000 fans) and other social media channels to engage customers and build their loyalty.

So naturally the company announced its brand online first to its fans - its most loyal and engaged customers.


Within hours of the announcement criticism began pouring in. Not from a few scattered individuals, but from a massive group of people.

Customers began rallying around the old logo, self-organising their own groups in protest to the new one. A website, Crap Logo Yourself was created to mock the brand (give it a try!)

The company did what any socially aware organisation would do. It listened to its most important stakeholders - its customers.

Within three days (on Thursday 7 October) the company's President blogged publicly about what they would do to address customer concerns.

"We chose this design as it's more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward.

Now, given the passionate outpouring from customers that followed, we've decided to engage in the dialogue, take their feedback on board and work together as we move ahead and evolve to the next phase..."
The company looked at ways to engage its customers - seeking their views and designs to help bring their customers with them on a new brand journey.

However it was too late in the process for this. Customers had rallied around the old brand and were not in the mood to consider a new look.

A few hours ago (on Monday 11 October), the company announced it would keep its old brand, stating in a media release that:

Last week, we moved to address the feedback and began exploring how we could tap into all of the passion. Ultimately, we’ve learned just how much energy there is around our brand...

... our customers have always come first. We’ve been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back. So we’ve made the decision to do just that – we will bring it back across all channels.

And on Twitter:

We’ve heard you. We only want what’s best for Gap. No crowd sourcing, but the Blue Box is back. http://bit.ly/9xvtvJ

Yes, the company was the clothes brand, Gap.

An embarrassing backdown? No - it has been lauded as a social media success story for the company.

Executives put their egos in their pockets, listened to customer sentiment and gave customers what they wanted. They did this before the company suffered sales losses, downward profit corrections, shareholder anger and an expensive and time consuming process of rebuilding customer trust.


Of course if the company had embedded social media into its branding process - as it had its marketing - the story may have been different. By engaging customers in a dialogue about what the brand stood for, crowdsourcing branding concepts and taking customers on the journey throughout the creative processes it could have reimagined the brand successfully.

However regardless of this, the company has retained its customer loyalty, created enormous positive publicity about its existing brand and learn the valuable lesson that successful organisations are the custodians, not owners, of their brands. Their brands are owned by their customers.

And it has achieved this in a week, where before social media it would have taken months or even years for a company to recognise, accept and address mistakes (with corresponding greater damage).


How does this relate to the public sector?

We too have brands. We too have customers (also called clients and citizens). We too have processes for introducing new logos, services and products (and policies).

Our customers are as capable as those of Gap at using social media to organise and make their views known.

And we too can engage our customers online in ways which bring them with us - or in way which cut them out of decision loops, leaving them feeling betrayed and angry.


When attempting to design and then sell new policies, in areas including climate change, taxation, education and so on, are we really engaging our end  'customers' - citizens?

When we rebrand a Department, rethink a service or redesign a website, do we put our citizens at the middle of the design and decision making process?

Are we using cheap and fast engagement channels - such as social media - to engage, listen and bring our citizens with us?

Or are we falling back on traditional and time-honoured approaches, as Gap did?

Defending a 'traditional' approach as 'process-driven' and 'proven' may protect a few egos, but can fail to achieve public good, desired outcomes and even damage the reputation and credibility of agencies and governments.

No good public servant wants that.

Gap case study
Gap sources:
Coverage:
Community:

Read full post...

Monday, September 13, 2010

Tips for hiring a public sector social media manager

We are now starting to see government departments advertising social media roles - although the titles vary, including 'New Media Adviser', 'Community Manager' and even 'Online Media Coordinator'.

In Australia it is difficult to recruit people with substantial experience for these roles. I am seeing many filled by media specialists or website managers, who are qualified in their professions, but can be new to the social media space.

This shortage of experienced people also reflect competition from the private sector. Corporate social media roles are now advertised at entry levels around $50,000, mid-range around $90 and at senior levels at $130,000 or more. Government agencies are not always able to offer similar levels of compensation, although attempt to compensate through conditions and superannuation contributions.

Some agencies are taking the route of having graduates lead social media initiatives in the belief that their youth gives them greater familiarity with the medium.

While graduates do come with enthusiasm, innovation and fresh ideas, they haven't always had time to build experience in the public sector, to understand the governance processes or political considerations or build networks of influence. They need support from mentors and sponsors to overcome these challenges.

Graduates may also not be the most experienced users of social media - the types of social media used by a graduate can be quite different from those used by a professional communicator with five or more years experience, simply due to the different professional needs they have in their lives.

Introducing social media into an organisation is a complex and delicate endeavour. When was the last time organisations added a major new communications channel? What type of cultural, procedural and technical changes were required? How major was the change program - and how well resourced?

Traditionally government employs specialist teams for policy development, program management and service delivery - yet in the social media space a single person or small team is often required to have all these skills in ample measure.

This means agencies need to think seriously about the experience and expertise they need in the people they employ to lead their social media initiatives. The experience and expertise required to navigate the cultural and change considerations, work within the governance and processes and appreciate the public communications and political sensitivities around social media adoption.

To aid in this challenge the post 12 Steps To Hiring A Social Media Manager from SocialMediaToday provides many useful tips and considerations that organisations need to take on board when making a social media manager hire.

Read full post...

Friday, April 09, 2010

What are the top Australian Facebook pages (and how many are government-run)?

Social media commentator Laurel Papworth published a list last week of the top Australian Facebook pages (by number of fans). She's just updated it to include more identified through a crowd sourcing process in her blog.

The post, Fanpages: List of top 100+ Australian Facebook Fan Pages, provides the first glimpse of which organisations and brands in Australia are constructively using Facebook to build communities of interest, support campaigns and seek community feedback.

The diversity of Facebook's audience is visible just by looking at the five most popular pages:

I'm happy to say that Australian government isn't totally absent from the top half of the list - with Tourism Australia's Australia page in 6th place with 372,000 fans, the War Memorial's The ANZACs page in 21st place, with 150,000 fans, the Department of Health and Ageing's binge drinking campaign Don’t Turn a Night out into a Nightmare page at 29th place with 110,000 fans (note: I am involved with the management of this page) and the Australian Institute of Sport at 50th place with 50,000 fans.

There are a number of other government sites further down in the list as well, starting with the Victorian government's Melbourne Australia page in 58th place with 23,000 fans.

It would be fantastic to see a comprehensive list of all the Facebook pages run by Australian governments - like the Twitter list I developed.

Read full post...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

If you are a communications professional who chooses not to use social media, will you have a job in ten years?

I'm beginning to see more and more organisations and their various advertising and PR agencies look seriously at social media as a core communications channel for their campaigns and other customer, client and citizen engagement activities.

This is beginning to make me wonder how communications professionals who know little or nothing about social media will continue to be able to give good communications advice to their employers into the future.

If you don't use social media, how can you critically assess its comparative worth as a communications tool? How can you help your employer avoid and rebound from embarrassing social media mistakes?

Of course there's an argument that you needn't be hands-on with a medium to know a good strategy from a bad one, however this doesn't stand up. Today's communications professionals have grown up consuming traditional mass media from an early age - radio, television and print. While they mightn't be hands-on as in running a TV channel, radio station or newspaper, they have 20+ years experience, starting from early childhood, of normalising their use of these mediums.

This level of immersion, together with theoretical and practical experience, goes a long way to help long-time communications professionals make good decisions and critically assess communications options.

However if these communications professionals aren't using social media they aren't developing the same level of familiarity with new communications channels.

Where will this leave them in ten years time, when we have university educated communications professionals who have been using social media for up to fifteen years seeking more senior roles?

Some of today's experienced communicators will move far enough up the chain so that they can rely on their subordinates to exercise this judgement. Others will leave communications altogether for other pursuits. However most will potentially find themselves unable to function effectively as communications professionals - and may face more limited career options.

If you're a communications professional aged 40-50 and expect to be working when you're 50-60, it is probably worth considering whether you should step out of your media comfort zone and start building expertise in social media - by getting hands on.

Read full post...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Digital outlook for 2010

The Society for Digital Agencies (SODA) has released its Digital Outlook for 2010.

This is a great read and provides insight into the thinking and activity around the digital space from a global perspective.

Note that they are having an event in Sydney this Friday (Media 2010, Introducing the next media decade), which I am hoping will be extensively tweeted and liveblogged.

Read full post...

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Who are the 'media' anyway? The new reality of media engagement

One of the long established principles in government and big business is that only designated staff are allowed to represent their organisations when speaking to the media.

This is an extremely well-intentioned principle, designed to protect both the organisation and individual staff. The media is frequently more interested in sensation than truth and can twist innocent statements into major incidents. Even when truth and accuracy are the goal, some things may need to be kept secret (at least for awhile) for good reasons - to protect intellectual property, safeguard individual privacy, avoid giving the competition an advantage or to keep complex fast-changing situations from being presented in static and simplistic (or inaccurate) ways.

Professional journalists are, in some ways, trained interrogators (and sometimes executioners). It can take an experienced, well-trained and well-briefed organisational representative to navigate a conversation that will later be reported, dissected and analysed for flaws and inconsistencies.

This limited media engagement approach relies on a single very important factor - that the 'media' is a clearly identifiable group.

In the past it was easy to identify the media. They were the people who owned the media distribution channels - radio stations, television channels and newspapers and magazines.

Commonly journalists identified themselves based on the media outlet they were from - except when going undercover - and a good organisational media representative could relatively easily identify and, over time, build productive relationships with the leading journalists covering their topical material.

However with the introduction of the internet this changed. We now have a virtually free global distribution network topped by ubiquitious access to publishing devices - including video and photos (via mobile phones) - and usage rates in excess of 90% of western populations.

Every internet user is able to break news to every other internet user - via blogs, citizen news sites, social networks, chatrooms, forums, newsgroups, microblogs and other online media channels.

This news can then be picked up and redistributed by other internet users and may also be picked up by 'traditional media' - those radio stations, television channels, newspapers and magazines (who are thirsty for cheap content).

This makes the question 'who are the 'media' a moot point. The 'media' is now 'the public' - no longer a small group of large conglomerates controlling information distribution channels but every single person with access to a mobile phone and internet connection.

This poses a challenge for government and private sector organisations who traditionally limit media engagement by staff. All of their customers and stakeholders are able to produce, publish and distribute media news. So can their employees.

So if the rules of the past no longer apply, what can organisations do?

The first choice is to ignore the changes in the environment and try to enforce the rules that worked in the past.

This approach is enormously risky as it can lead to many gray areas and blind spots - plenty of room for inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Individual managers (or in the government, agencies) could interpret the scope of the 'media' differently - creating discrimination and a rising tide of dissatisfaction and legal controversy.

The second choice is to educate all of an organisation's staff on how to engage appropriately in public arenas.

This is a signficant, but not impossible, undertaking. In fact Telstra is in the process of doing this right now (regarding social media engagement), as are the US Defense forces and some government agencies and large companies around the world. This approach recognises that the media environment has changed and organisations must change with it.

The third choice is to - well I can't think of a third choice. Organisations can either recognise the realities of the world and accommodate change, or they can attempt to hold back or even reverse them.

The next few years will tell us which approach organisations have chosen - and how well they have worked out.

Read full post...

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Getting serious about web analytics in Australian government - join the new group

Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics ran a free event for government website managers to discuss web analytics - how different agencies were doing it and what, collectively, we would like to see happen in the area.

There were a number of excellent presentations and plenty of time for group discussion. In fact it's the best such event I've seen run to-date within government and was better than many of the (more costly) commercial conferences.

Some of the outcomes of the day included a recognition that while there are many different tools and reasons for measuring public websites, there are some standards we should have in place across government to define and agree on appropriate metrics - beginning with the basics like page-views, visits and unique visitors.

There was also a good discussion around the prospect of a whole-of-government web reporting system which would allow agencies to directly benchmark and compare against appropriate peers. The Victorian government has made great strides towards this already, as has the NSW government.

To continue the conversation, and begin to recommend some firm ideas for how to proceed in the web analytics space at all levels of Australian government, a Web Analytics For Australian Government group was established at Google at the end of last week, and is already beginning to see some discussion of the topic.

If you're involved or interested in website management and measurement - or simply wish to understand how to measure the effectiveness of websites alongside other communications channels - please join the Web Analytics For Australian Government group.

Read full post...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Could the government replace some advertising and communications contracts with crowdsourcing?

Many government initiatives need to be communicated to all or some of the community to increase awareness and, in some cases, encourage behavioural change.

Whether advising people of changes in tax laws, informing and influencing the community's health habits, or seeking public submissions in a consultation, there needs to be communications strategies in place to identify, reach and influence appropriate audiences.

Over the past forty years, like other large private sector organisations, government departments have worked with specialist advertising and communications agencies to provide the extra help required to craft messages and run communications campaigns.

This approach helps smooths out bumps in hiring (providing extra hands and minds for short periods), introduces fresh ideas from highly talented communications experts and provides a broader perspective through exposing government departments to people who continually work across the entire communications industry.

However new approaches to sourcing communications ideas are now emerging - thanks to digital communications.

Recently Unilever removed the advertising agency for its Peperami product and replaced it with - crowdsourcing.

Rather than using Lowes, the agency who had worked on the account for 16 years, Unilever put up a US$10,000 prize and, using a service called Ideabounty, opened up the account to anyone in the world with good ideas.

I won't go into the details of this example - there's more information in The Guardian's article, Unilever goes crowdsourcing to spice up Peperami's TV ads.

However what I will ask is this - should the Australian government look beyond advertising and communications agencies for good communications ideas?

Should we go directly to the communities impacted by our programs, invite them to provide ideas for communications campaigns and reward them appropriately?

Will this cost less than using professional agencies?

Will it deliver better or 'as good' outcomes?

Finally, if it does make sense, will our procurement and advertising guidelines allow us to use a crowdsourcing approach to deliver better outcomes at lower costs?

It's probably a good time for government agencies to think about these questions - I expect we'll begin being asked them in the next few years as more organisations visibly consider crowdsourcing.


Below are a few reference articles on the topic worth reading - I welcome your comments, particularly from  anyone who provides communications services to Australian governments.

Read full post...

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Youtube offers free branded channels to government departments globally

Youtube recently announced that government departments using the service can get a free branded channel for their videos, saving a US$50,000 set-up fee.

The offer is apparently still making its way to the Youtube site, however the details of the offer are public and it is available now.

Below I've provided the content of an email sent to me by Geordie Hyland of Youtube regarding how to take up the offer and here is a link to a blog post by Mike Kujawski in his blog Public Sector Marketing 2.0 with details of what departments will get with a branded channel.

Note that departments do need to assess whether taking this up meets their needs - and whether there's any potential lock-in effect that may not be in their strategic interests in the future.

Youtube does have a dominant position in the online video distribution market at present - however it may not suit all departments' needs.

Please contact me by email directly for a Youtube contact if needed.

Hi,

Thanks for your interest in starting a YouTube channel for your government, government department, or government agency. If you like, you can start a YouTube channel right away by creating an account and posting videos. One time at the end of every month, YouTube will transfer any new government channels to "branded" - thus allowing you to upload a branded banner to the top of your channel, and giving you the ability to upload longer videos to the site.

We do not have the capacity to do this more than one time per month, so please be patient if you don't hear back right away - and feel free to start posting videos to your account.

To enter your application for a branded channel, please send an email to government@youtube.com with the following 5 pieces of information:

* The name of your government, government department, or agency.
* Your .gov website URL.
* The account name you've registered on YouTube (i.e., your YouTube username).
* The email address you are using to manage the account.
* Any other information you want to tell us about your plans to launch the channel, and what types of content you plan to post.

Please also be aware the YouTube will not negotiate any individual content licensing agreements with state or local governments - your contract with YouTube is our site-wide terms and conditions, which you agree to upon starting an account on YouTube. To see that policy, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/t/terms

Thanks, and good luck!

-The YouTube Team

Read full post...

Bookmark and Share