Social media and criticism

Photo from politicspa.com 

It's election day in the United States, which means the campaigning that has taken over American (and some Canadian) media discourse is almost at an end. 

In the last couple of weeks, we've noticed a theme of campaign fatigue working its way into news stories, pundit commentary and "everyday folk" opinions; we're ready for this thing to be over. 

While I know Americans have reached this point at the end of most presidential campaigns of the 24/7 media era, it seems (to me, anyway) worse this time around. 

And I think it's at least in part because of social media.  

Social media is a great democratizer... mostly

Don't get me wrong: I love following Facebook and Twitter on debate nights -- quite honestly, to watch a political debate (or the Oscars, or a Bomber game) without social media now feels like only half an experience. Social media gives us access to far more voices and information than we've ever had before, to provide context and dissenting opinions to help us interpret the things we see and hear.

This enriches the experience for me; for the kind of person who always reads footnotes, social media turns every one of these experiences into an annotated text. Or, maybe more accurately, a Pop Up Video.

I'll admit that I have enjoyed the snark, too. But when lighthearted teasing becomes ridicule, and mocking turns of phrase takes over for discussion of substantive issues, I think we turn a corner -- and I think that's contributing to the campaign fatigue.

"He said something that came out wrong" is not the same as "he is an idiot and unfit for public service," but sometimes we react as though it is.

It's not just politics 

I recently had a discussion with a PR colleague about how it seems we're all just a little quick to jump to criticism these days. 

Social media makes it easy. Even for those of us using our real names online, we can hide behind the sheer numbers; we are lulled into feeling it's safe to criticize without really understanding the story behind the story, because it seems everyone is doing it.

But maybe everyone shouldn't be.

B.C. teenager Amanda Todd's tragic suicide earlier this fall was a wake-up call to teens, parents, educators and anyone who cares about kids. Shortly after her death, mainstream media and social media sites were filled with stories about the bullying problem, and particularly, the issue of cyber-bullying.

In my Facebook timeline, which is fed by friends tending to be closer to middle-age, the posts shared outrage and sadness that this girl could have been tormented to this degree.

But I discovered in a conversation with someone much younger that her Facebook timeline (fed by friends in their teens) contained posts suggesting Amanda Todd had gotten what she deserved. 

Is our growing culture of ridicule part of the problem?

It appears the "grown-ups" can easily recognize what's wrong when a teenager is bullied to suicide (and point fingers at those we feel should have done something about it before it was too late). 

But maybe we need to consider whether there's a link between that and our own behaviour. 

Do we think a politician would be at risk of committing suicide because a bunch of faceless tweeters made fun of him/her? No. But where is the line? At what level of celebrity must a person accept that the rest of us are allowed to ridicule him/her, with or without cause, and with or without any experience to validate our opinions?

We rush to judge people -- celebrities, politicians, business leaders -- and organizations for their missteps. We call anything in any way negative a "PR disaster" or a "crisis." Politicians feign outrage every day, calling for one another's resignation, and we either jump on board or we yawn. Outrage and mocking have become entertainment -- and that can't be good.

Questioning and challenging are important. 

It's important for journalists to question leaders and organizations influencing our lives, and to expose hypocrisy where they find it.

It's also important for students of public relations (in school and in the working world) to examine issues and crises experienced by people and organizations in the public eye, and learn from how they dealt with them.

But let's keep it productive. 

Of mountains and molehills in election campaigns

In my first-year PR classes this week, we've been introducing the whole concept of PR, and specifically, the fundamental importance of understanding your audiences.

As is normal in my classes, we began on Tuesday with a few minutes of "PR in the news," in which we look at a story that's getting attention in the mainstream media and discuss what it might mean for the parties involved.  The topic of the day in my Section 2 class was last week's CBC news story about Manitoba Tory leader Hugh McFadyen's campaign launch event -- and more specifically, the campaign's choice of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" as the song playing for McFadyen's grand entrance.

The CBC story, as you would expect, had clips from Manitobans surprised the Tories would choose a song with such racy lyrics by a band with such a naughty name.

But is this the kind of news that changes the way people vote?

The incident reminded me of another local campaign-time embarrassment, last fall when incumbent Mayor Sam Katz accidentally kicked a young player in a soccer game. People laughed at the Mayor's expense, the video went viral, and then he won the election handily.

Don't lose sight of your audiences

While schadenfreude wins the contest of do-we-or-don't-we-want-to-hear-about-political-embarrassments just about every time, that doesn't mean it's crisis mode for the PR folks. While the candidate and the campaign will be embarrassed, either by some oversight or fluke of bad luck, the communicators have to remember to keep their eyes on the prize.

Are people less likely to vote for a candidate whose policies and integrity they believe in, because of a poorly-chosen campaign song? I haven't done the research, but I'm thinking likely not.

But... the campaign could undermine the candidate's integrity if it doesn't respond appropriately. While most voters are able to recognize that everyone makes mistakes and forgive the occasional innocent blunder, a response that betrays disrespect for those offended, or arrogance, or any other personal or organizational characteristic that's out of line with what the voters would want to see in their leaders, could cost votes.

Don't make mountains out of molehills

The moral of stories like these: when your client goofs up (or when you goof up on your client's behalf), handle it respectfully but without giving it more prominence or weight than it properly deserves. While the media will likely have fun with it, because their audiences love this stuff, that doesn't mean your support will be driven away by it.

If the offence isn't likely to have a significant impact on your audiences' opinions, don't treat it as though it would. Address your error respectfully, and then take the opportunity to talk about the issues that should matter to your audiences.  And a little self-deprecating humour never hurts.

Sarah Palin's words hurt her again

One of last week's biggest political pile-ons was the controversy over Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel" in defending herself against accusations that her inflammatory political rhetoric (and gun-sight imagery) had contributed to the shootings in Tucson.

Here's the statement she posted online, linked to her Facebook page (the controversial language in question comes at around the 3:26 mark).


Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

My first reaction to this story was to be surprised that we're still surprised by anything Sarah Palin says -- or any word or expression she uses or misuses.

But an opportunity to attack a political opponent is an opportunity to attack a political opponent, so the game was on in the media.

Did she mean to be inflammatory?

Personally, I doubt it. My bet is that she was aware of the expression, but wasn't aware of its origin.

Had she known, Palin (or, at least, her advisors) would have to recognize that using such inflammatory language would do nothing to help endear her to the segment of the American public not already on her side.

In politics, as in public opinion, it's important to keep your eye on the "undecideds" -- that's where you should be spending most of your effort. Your supporters already support you, and people who've decided against you take a lot more persuading to bring on-side; so your most efficient use of resources is to focus on the undecideds.

To knowingly use divisive and hate-fuelled language at a time of crisis does not reflect positive leadership qualities; people who may be shopping for a new leader don't tend to like that. To do so could cost you at the voting booth.

What should she have said once the criticism erupted?

Once the statement was made and the expression on the record, Palin had a difficult choice to make.

Admitting she didn't understand the historical significance of the expression could make her look ignorant (not ideal, for a would-be leader of the free world).

Standing by her statement could give her opponents more material to use against her.

Palin's choice, until this evening, has been option number three: return to silence... which leaves the rest of the world to debate whether she's ignorant, or insensitive, or intentionally divisive.

Tonight, ABC News is reporting, Palin will make her first media appearance since her controversial Facebook statement, on Fox News' Hannity. I'll be interested to see what route she takes; while I think addressing it is the right move, I think she may be a bit late.

If you don't speak, the media will fill in the blanks for you.

If you search Google News for "Sarah Palin blood libel" you'll get thousands of articles.

Thousands, over the space of a week.

While the vast majority of the coverage I've seen on this topic has been critical of Palin's choice of words (even from conservative commenters like former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer), articles like the one by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in The Wall Street Journal last week came to her defence, arguing her use of the expression is appropriate.

But whether or not the usage is appropriate, a good understanding of the public's sensitivities (and even the mainstream media's prejudices, for that matter) would have told a good PR advisor that using an expression like "blood libel" would hurt her more than it would help.

The ABC News-Washington Post poll results released today, suggesting that 70% of Americans disapproved of Palin's response to the Tucson shootings, seem to bear that out.

UPDATE Monday night

Here's audio of Palin on Hannity tonight. The segment on the "blood libel" issue begins around the 15:55 mark.



To my ears, this isn't a statement aimed at the undecideds.

When it comes to public relations, it doesn't matter whether you meant to offend anyone. If people were offended by something you said, you want to take a hard look at your language, and see how you might avoid doing that next time.

It doesn't really matter how many others may have used similar language before you; this is between you (or your organization) and your audiences.

Think about how this works in our personal lives: if someone says something that offends you, how much does it matter whether they meant to offend? Maybe a bit, but not much. If you're going to feel better about your relationship with that person, you probably want your perspective acknowledged, and the person to regret having offended you. What likely won't help is if you're told you are unreasonable to have been offended.

Sarah Palin is so certain that the "lame-stream media" is out to get her that she's betting few people were actually offended by her language. That's a bet I wouldn't be willing to take.

The time to respond to a gaffe is immediately, and the way to respond to a gaffe is with an apology.

If you don't think you have anything to apologize for, you shouldn't do so insincerely; but if that's the case, and you're concerned about public opinion at all, don't re-raise the issue after the initial controversy has passed.

Doing so may just as likely offend -- and alienate -- even more people.

In which I predict the future

This week, we read in the Winnipeg Free Press about a telecom company error that had reportedly caused automatic calls made by the re-election campaign of Winnipeg's incumbent Mayor, Sam Katz, to show up on Call Display as having come from the home of an everyday Winnipegger.

Embarrassing mix-up, sure. (And to the former telco spokesperson in me, particularly interesting, since the reporter never mentions which telecom provider was being blamed, or gives that telecom company the opportunity to comment. Must remember to ask the Journalism instructors about that.) But it happens.

A discussion about the incident with my first-year PR class, though, got me thinking about the future of "robocalls," as folks around here were calling them.

Personally, I've always disliked them.

I haven't received any of the calls in question in this mayoral campaign, but I have received automatically-dialed, pre-recorded calls from federal candidates, credit card companies and long-distance providers, and what I can only guess are scams (telling me I've won a cruise).

As soon as I hear there's a pre-recorded message at the other end, I hang up. And if the caller has been (smart?) enough to tell me who's calling in the first few seconds of the call, I also think about how little I appreciate that caller's decision to interrupt whatever I was doing to listen to his/her message.

Interestingly, pre-recorded messages don't bother me at work -- but then, "mass voicemail" messages sent in the workplace are generally related to work, and are picked up at the receiver's convenience, so don't seem like such an interruption.

In class, we discussed why this might be: students called the pre-recorded message calls "shady" and "cheap" -- and "falsely personal," which I think is the bottom line for me. Despite the ever-widening range of mass media available to us today, the home phone remains (for now, anyway) a device for personal communication.

Who listens to these messages?

Well, political/PR junkies and journalism students, for one. After all, this stuff is all great ammo.

But otherwise, I'd love to see some actual research on who 1) listens to and 2) is persuaded by pre-recorded messages "pushed" at audiences through the phone.

I'd assume the target audience is people who aren't going online and "pulling" messaging from candidates' websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds (such as they may be, in the case of this particular contest), listening to candidates' debates posted on radio station websites, etc.

In the Lockstep crystal ball...

As demographics shift and the majority of voters move into "information pull" mode, I see "robocalls" going the way of the dodo bird as a campaign tool,

That's not to say campaigners won't look to "push" any messaging -- but I'll bet they'll be doing it through means that are less intrusive on voters' time, and in ways that allow more efficient dialogue between candidate and voter: I'll push this information out, but you can read it when it's next convenient for you. And if you have any questions or want to engage, I'll be ready and waiting -- when it's convenient for you.

The credit card companies and the fly-by-night long distance providers and the scammy cruise vendors may find it worth the risk to annoy customers who wouldn't have bought in anyway, for the chance at catching those who might.  But politicians seeking election won't, I don't think, have that luxury forever.

Social media have spoiled us a bit, in that we now have pretty much anytime access to pretty much everything. The more audiences come to expect to be able to receive information on their own time, the more anyone wanting their attention will have to adapt.

What Twitter isn't

By now, just about anyone who's likely to be reading a PR blog is aware of what Twitter is, and (in general terms, at least) how it's used.

In a nutshell: it's an online platform that enables the sharing of short thoughts, information and links among people around the world. On Twitter, you "follow" people to receive the messages they send out (called "tweets"), and your "followers" opt in to receive yours.

Twitter can be a hugely effective tool for PR, because it gives us the opportunity to engage with people who share interests; for more on that, please read this post from this blog, last year.

If you're using Twitter as just another way to connect with friends and colleagues, or as a way of gathering information, or as a way of providing information in case someone comes looking for it, this post isn't about you (Twitter is a great way to do all of those things). But if you intend to use Twitter as part of a strategic social media plan aimed at enhancing your relationships with your (or your employer's, or your client's) audiences, you might want to consider the points below.

New-fangled communication tools are still about people

Here's the thing. Online media like Twitter give us the opportunity to reach audiences well beyond the bounds of geography and even mass media markets. But people aren't just sitting around waiting with bated breath for our next pronouncement (well, not for most of us, at least).

Common sense (offline and online) would dictate that:

If we want people to listen to what we have to say, we have to say something worth listening to; that is, provide something our audiences will value.

If we want people to want to listen to us, we have to respect their time.

If we want to build relationships, we have to listen at least as much as we talk.

I've recently un-followed a number of Twitter users I'd been following because their tweets have, quite frankly, annoyed me for having ignored one or all of these basic truths about how people relate to one another. It's not that we shouldn't ever tweet personal thoughts or ideas - we absolutely should. But we have to remember we're interacting with other individual human beings using online media - human beings who have tastes, preferences, and demands on their time, and are going to want to see some benefit from having engaged in the conversation.

The examples I'm providing below come from my own observations of Twitter accounts belonging to people or organizations who could and should be using Twitter to build/enhance really valuable relationships, but are missing the mark.

What Twitter isn't

1. Twitter isn't a soapbox and a megaphone... or a fax machine.

Twitter is about engagement. It's said so often now that it's become cliche -- but it's true. Unless you are someone with Very Important Pronouncements to make (and even then, really), you are not going to get the maximum benefit from a Twitter presence if all you do is talk about yourself.

Good PR, regardless of the shiny new medium, will always be about relationship-building, not just about talking about yourself. So a politician is smart to set up a Twitter account for an election campaign, but should use it to listen to voters and have exchanges and conversations about the issues that matter to them. If the account sends out tweets but doesn't follow anyone, the message is "I am going to say what I have to say, but I'm not interested in listening to you." Not great PR.

2. Twitter isn't the online equivalent of ribbon-cutting events.

I follow a number of politicians whose tweets are largely "Am in beautiful Komarno, Manitoba enjoying delicious perogies!," and "Am in beautiful Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, enjoying delicious lobster rolls!" with the occasional "My opponent is a bad Canadian" message thrown in. Twitter users (that is, "people") are generally intelligent enough not to confuse name-dropping with actual engagement.

3. Twitter isn't a means to spew marketing messages for your clients, disguised as independent thoughts or opinions.

This is one I've noticed among fellow PR folks. I'm not at all saying that PR, advertising and marketing professionals shouldn't use Twitter to share messages about their clients -- but that shouldn't be all they offer, unless that's the understood purpose of the account. If your account is "@MLLdeals" and all your tweets are advertising for MLL products, that's fine. People can choose to follow the account because they want MLL ads.

But if you're in the PR business, you don't want your Twitter feed to become the online equivalent of an ad flyer for your various clients; people will simply choose not to read it. Again, it's always about what your audience wants. MLL's audience wants MLL's deals; but your audience wants insights from and interaction with you.

4.  Twitter isn't a collector of people who have nothing better to do than to read your every thought.

The people who follow you on Twitter have chosen to do so because they think they will learn something, or be entertained, or receive information they want by doing so. They are also likely to want to know about you as a person, not just a "source," so by all means share (appropriate) information about yourself. But don't over-share, either in terms of content (i.e. information that is too personal) or in terms of volume (i.e. too many tweets).

I recently un-followed a community leader who published 17 separate tweets in under 24 hours on the same topic (hyping a product he was really pleased with). I don't know whether he works for the company behind the product or not, but it was just too much. He may tweet things I'd like to hear tomorrow, but I won't read them. I'm fickle, I know... but so may your audiences be. So tweet wisely.

So, how should we use Twitter to build relationships?

The same way we build relationships in real life: listen, and talk, and listen. Respond. Share things of value, and respect others' time.

On Twitter, as it is in so many other facets of life -- and as it will be on the "next big thing" to come along in social media -- good PR comes down to treating people the way they want to be treated.