I've said it before and I'll say it again: technology is changing the way we communicate and interact with one another. This holds true for public affairs practices as well. Public affairs professionals are constantly influenced by user-generated content and social media.
According to Chapter 14 of Share This, the old model for public affairs involves pushing policy messages out to stakeholders in hopes of influencing them to adopt your policy agenda. The new model of public affairs is two-way symmetrical (this is what PR is all about!). The new model involves pushing your messages out and pulling stakeholders in at the same time by creating engaging content that compels them to participate in your policy agenda.
For example, President Obama has been heavily pushing his messages supporting Obamacare via Twitter for the past several months. And thanks to the social media site, the American people have been able to engage with this content, share their opinions, and directly respond to the president's messages. Rather than solely pushing his Obamacare messages via traditional media outlets, President Obama is modernizing his public affairs practices with the two-way symmetric model and digital communication. This is effective because people spend more time on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media outlets than they do on mainstream media sites like CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
The private policy meetings, networking meetings and lobbying efforts of the past have all become truly public information thanks to citizen journalism and the transparency of social media. Public affairs professionals can now easily research potential supporters and opponents via the Internet. Public officials and the general public alike can easily monitor conversations or create new conversations regarding public policy issues. Social media also provides a platform where public officials can easily respond to crises or controversial issues and reach a large number of their target publics.
The greatest argument against the integration of social media into public affairs is the importance of face-to-face communication and grassroots public policy efforts. Face-to-face relationships are crucial to public affairs success, but social media can allow public officials to strengthen these relationships and promote more frequent engagement with stakeholders. Social media also has the potential to help public affairs professionals reach much larger audiences than they would by grassroots efforts alone.
Both the National Rifle Association and the Human Rights Campaign are examples of grassroots organizations that have successfully integrated social media into their public relations plans. Check out these links to their Facebook pages:
National Rifle Association
Human Rights Campaign
No comments:
Post a Comment