1. Social Media & PR
A view from the bridge
simon collister
London College of Communication,
University of the Arts London
2. PR industry “missing the boat”
“Within minutes of PRWeek's
interview starting, Grant is
lambasting the PR industry for
'missing the boat' on digital,
allowing advertising and media
agencies to steal a march.”
- Robin Grant, Global Managing
Director, We Are Social - PR
Week, 24th May 2012
3. Current challenges [in a nutshell]
1. Increasing commercialisation of social media
2. Rise of the ‘social business’ or ‘social
organisation’
3. Data-driven communications
4. What’s happening to Facebook?
1. Post-IPO social interaction within Facebook is becoming
increasingly commercialised
2. Shift from ‘organic’
to paid communication
pushes Facebook more into
the domains of media
and ad agencies
3. Similar happening with
other platforms, e.g. Twitter
5. Commercialisation
• Facebook:
– Newsfeed not ‘open’ communications channel
– Determined by Facebook’s ‘EdgeRank’
– Visibility determined by Affinity, Freshness &
Weight of ‘edges’, e.g. links, photos, videos, etc
6. The word from within Facebook
• ‘While news feed posts are fine for everyday
engagement, businesses should consider using
‘Sponsored Stories’ [i.e. advertising] to ensure
business critical information reaches users’
– Advice from Facebook employee
10. Big Data?
• Commonly applied to the vast quantities of
data being generated by contemporary socio-
technological systems whose size is beyond
the ability of commonly used software tools to
capture, manage, and process the data within
a tolerable elapsed time
– Bollier 2009; boyd and Crawford 2011
11. What is Big Data?
• Search engine marketing performance
• Digital ad acquisition metrics
• Website analytics
• Email communication performance
• Online surveys
• Social media conversations
• Media content
12. Tracking big data
• Database of 20 billion social media conversations
• 8 million new posts archived every hour
• Social media and news
sources gathered
SOURCE: Sysomos MAP
13. Impact on PR?
• “Metrics driven communication, advocacy and
outreach efforts are now becoming the
expectation.”
– Big Data comes to the Communications Industry
• [Political] campaign planning now “involves the
computer-automated analysis of blog postings,
Congressional speeches and press releases, and
news articles, looking for insights into how
political ideas spread”
– The Age of Big Data
14. Future for PR…?
• Much more complex landscape blurring boundaries
between traditional industry sectors and organisational
models
• Strong opportunity to adapt, presuming PR can fulfill
its role as a strategic business function
• However, need to consider:
– Big rethink in terms of skills of PR practitioners
– Big rethink in terms of organisational structure and roles
– Greater leadership from industry bodies
16. References
• Bollier, D. (2009) The Promise and Peril of Big Data. Extreme Inference:
Implications of Data Intensive Advanced Correlation Techniques. The
Eighteenth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology,
Aspen, Colarado, The Aspen Institute.
• boyd, d. and K. Crawford (2011) Six Provocations for Big Data. A Decade in
Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society.
Oxford.
• Lohr, S. (2012). The Age of Big Data. New York Times, 12 February. Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-
the-world.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
• Luker, S. (2012) Robin Grant: Man on a Digital Mission. PRWeek, 24 May.
Available: http://www.prweek.com/uk/features/1133323/robin-grant-man-
digital-mission/
• Olsen, C. (2012) Big Data Comes to the Communications Industry. Huffington
Post, 13 March. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christian-
olsen/big-data-comes-to-the-com_b_1343310.html
Hinweis der Redaktion
Increasing commercialisation of social media – driving SM comms/marketing into domian of paid media industriesRise of social business – impact of convergence and disintermediation affecting all business areas. Internal (and external) landgrab for ownershipData-driven communications – Significant growth in available data and thuscomplexity of understanding and planning effective consumer and organisational engagement
What is social business
Who owns comms internally? There’s the perennial landgrabs but also driven by external factors, such as consumer engagement – fine line between customer service conversations in social media and reputational issues. Getting it right needs proactive awareness and strategic action!But also beware external landgrabs…… PR agencies pushing this (e.g. Edelman) but alsot he boutique/niche/specialist agencies (e.g. 1000Heads; WAS; etc) and also Mgt Consultancies (McKinsey; PA; etc)
Complexity of consumer and organisational landscape now becoming truly visible and adopted by consumersOpportunity to deliver real, insight led campaignsPersonal exerience is – not always the case – and often assumptive or aggregated or macro-level or media insightsChallenge is to respond appropriately at the organisational and strategic levels