The idea of a face representing the organization is not a new concept. Within crisis communication in PR, practitioners talk about the need to have a recognized face to front the media and develop a rapport and connection with the community.
I suppose it’s in the same spirit when Mark Drapeau says in his article Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR that the government “brand” in a Web 2.0 environment is similarly best represented by individual people as “brand ambassadors” who promote messages through indirect, intimate influence (I3).
“Brand ambassadors ideally listen and learn from ongoing conversations, and then engage in them, creating bidirectionality… they also talk about other aspects of [their lives] to the point that followers begin to see the brand ambassador as something of a trusted friend,” Mark says.
He goes on to predict that these ambassadors will become a critical part of government PR and outreach and serve a two-way function of being a voice on behalf of the government among the people, but also on behalf of the people within the government.
Just what are some defining characteristics of such social ambassadors? Mark says they will be marked by their accessibility, transparency, authenticity, and level of collaboration.
In other words, their humanity.
It's People that Engage with People
Harking back to the words of Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge (2009, p. 200), they say that [ultimately] brands don’t engage with people – people engage with people.
It doesn’t matter if they are called brand ambassadors, or go by other titles (e.g. community advocate, community manager, social media evangelist, social media specialist, community relations manager, or chief social officer, etc), they are still primarily concerned with the inbound and outbound communication that the organization receives.
“[This person] is the voice of the company externally and the voice of the customers internally,” say Brian and Deirdre (2009, p. 207).
“The value lies in… having the ability to personally connect with the customer (humanize the company), and providing feedback to many departments internally (development, PR, marketing, customer service, tech support, etc).”
But God-terms and values like authenticity, transparency, or if I may even throw in the humanity bit, do not just happen like that. Especially not when there are also the elements of the firm’s public communication policy and guidelines to think about.
Two-Step Approach to Fighting the Fear of Social Media
According to Debbie Weils, the author of The Corporate Blogging Book, the elephant in the room when it comes to corporate blogging (and if we extrapolate this, it could easily involve all forms of social media as well) is fear (2006, p. 37).
Fear of the loss of control over the narratives.
Fear that employees, if unconstrained, will say something inappropriate, embarrassing, or illegal.
Fear that corporate secrets may be leaked out to the market…
How do organizations deal with this seemingly un-scalable chasm between wanting to provide rhetorical flexibility and the protective urge to stride within the legal confines of corporate communication guidelines?
From Weil’s account, I gather that she is essentially proposing a two-level approach to this dilemma: (1) an organizational paradigm shift in the new approach to communication, and (2) the strategic use of communication guidelines to let employees know where the OB markers are, apart from which all else is fair game!
Thinking Out of the Box Required!
The call for a paradigm shift, where organizations need to be prepared for uncertainty instead of the urge to control, is a similar message echoed by Brian, Deirdre, Mark, and many other social media and PR 2.0 evangelists . It’s a recognition of the inalienable fact that technology has forever changed the face of communication in the Web 2.0 era, and instead of a top-down communication approach, people are increasingly thirsting for conversations and dialogues.
But even corporate communication in the new environment isn’t a free for all, which is why there’s always a place for some level of guidelines just to indicate where the no-go areas are. Describing social media platforms as durable forms of communication (arguably because of the bidirectional nature of transactions), Debbie offers the following collage of guidelines that she had aggregated from several corporate sources as examples of sensible and recurring stuff that ought to be covered (2006, pp. 43-45):
- Respect your audience.
- Don’t defame or discuss your colleagues and their behavior.
- Don’t write anything defamatory.
- Don’t pick fights.
- Don’t blog on company time.
- Find out who else is blogging on the topic and cite them.
- Identify the blog as personal content
- Include disclaimers.
- Don’t reveal confidential information or trade secrets.
Note that when developing the policies, it should be written from a broad perspective that encapsulates generic social media platforms like blogs, IM, or even Twitter.
I think it is absolutely key that organizations make it clear what topics and on and off limits, and also cultivate an innovative paradigm and culture that supports rhetorical transparency and accepts the need for some degree of judgment calls and flexibility. These collectively form the cornerstone from which to nurture brand ambassadors with the right attitudes, world view and values for the Communication 2.0 era!
Humanity on the outside; the right attitude on the inside.
What do you think?