Iconic magazine getting it wrong

 

Rolling Stone was criticized heavily on social media for choosing the Boston bomber DZhokhar Tsarnaev as their cover.  The question is whether this is marketing gone wrong or good, investigative journalism.

Ever heard the saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity?  I think those days are over thanks to social media.  Consumers are able to share their opinions and show their disapproval. Every person engaged in social media has the ability to inflict real and long lasting damage to the image of a company.  It was evident that this topic was hot with 4465 people leaving comments, 2972 tweeting about it and 4.1k sharing it on Facebook.

 The general feeling on Twitter was that this decision of Rolling Stone elevates a criminal to stardom.  "Why not feature some of the survivors or the grieving families?" was the prevailing sentiment.  Some people felt so strongly about this, that they cancelled their subscription to the magazine.

Even before reading the article, I am bothered and puzzled by Rolling Stone's reaction.  I do not think that companies should sway to please their customers in every little way.  But let's face it, this is not a little way, this is an emotionally charged issue and an approach that most people find insensitive and downright insulting.  Rolling Stone defended the article with this statement:

Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families. The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day. The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens. –THE EDITORS

My opinion was not swayed after reading the article.  It is written from a very sympathetic point of view.  I do agree that it is important to understand how a tragedy like this occurred, but using an angelic picture of the perpetrator and trying to get readers to identify with his struggles is hardly the way to achieve it.  I think you failed in your duty as journalists.  I think your marketing department failed in understanding your target market.  The only test that still remains is how your PR department will handle this?

Can your business afford PR?

The real question is actually whether your business can afford to continue without PR.  The 2012 IBIS report on PR in Australia points out that marketing budgets are the first items to be sacrificed during an economic downturn.  However, PR is often viewed as a more specialized field and therefore delivering better value for money.  The report also elaborates on the importance of communication with all stakeholders during a downturn.  This is precisely the time you need to focus on public relations in order to calm fears and avoid crises.

So what is PR?

Public Relations (PR) is a vast field encompassing all communications of a business.  The aim of PR is to engage, collaborate and develop trust between the business and its public.  It is about sensing and responding to change as well as to provide clarity in times of confusion.

What can PR do for your business?

Increase the visibility of your business
This is achieved through appropriate exposure to the media.  However, old media alone is no longer sufficient on its own.  It needs to be complimented with online communication in the form of interactive websites, blogging and social media sites.

Manage the business's image
Modern customers expect more than a good product at a good price.  They also want to know that the business stand for, what does it represent, what does it value.  In addition to exposure through media PR aids with this by organizing meetings and collaborating with community leaders and stakeholders.  It is also vital that your business give back to the community.

 A good PR team really becomes invaluable during a crisis.  The team will have the expertise to guide you through while keeping the potential damage to a bare minimum.

Raise your profile
With ever increasing competition, it is crucial that you set your business apart from the rest.  It will take time and dedication to build your credibility.  Yet, once your PR team have established it and people trust your knowledge and experience, you will have established yourself as the go-to business.

Create a loyal customer base
Good PR will build strong relationships with customers which in turn will lead to returning customers.  A business should never forget that it is far easier and more cost effective to retain a customer than to attract a new one.
 

8 things that make a story newsworthy

Have you ever wondered what it would take for your business to be featured in media?  It is really not all that difficult.  Before you pick up the phone to call a journalist, go through my list to ensure that you can provide a newsworthy angle.

• Well timed

Stories covering current events have the greatest news value.  In our technologically connected world, it is becoming increasingly difficult for media outlets to be the first to break a story.  Just spend a couple of hours on Twitter and you'll be amazed at the vast majority of news stories being covered way before the major media outlets get hold of it. 

I would urge you to entertain the thought of publishing your story via social media.  If you are still a bit skeptical or uncertain and prefer exposure through traditional media, ask yourself : What does your business have to offer that is new and exciting?  It might be a new product, discount or a special deal.  You'll gain the greatest benefit if you could tie it in with a particular event.  For example, if you are a landscape architect, you could pitch a story to a journalist before the annual Gardening Show about the free quotations on offer when people visit your store at the show.

Clearly planning is a crucial factor.  Mark all the big events that are related to your business on the calendar well in advance.  This affords you the time to organize your special offerings and releases of new products as well as enough time to get media coverage in a timely fashion.

• Proximity

Stories that occur closer to home, have a greater impact. The same principle rings true for media publications.  Your local newspaper will certainly be more likely to publish your story than a national paper.  People simply  care first and foremost about what is happening in their own back yard.

• Prominence

Stories featuring powerful or well know people carry more weight. If a high profile person has ties with your business be sure to flaunt it!  It might be as simple as featuring your local member of parliament enjoying his regular morning coffee at your shop. 

• Unusual

Stories that deviate from the usual lean towards the dramatic.  These stories are the conversation starters and mostly pure entertainment. Any unusual or quirky angle to your business will help to make it newsworthy.

• Conflict

We all share some sort of fascination with conflict.  It stems from our embedded need for security and well-being.  Stories about war or terrorism always occupy the most prominent position in newspapers and on the evening news. 

Although no business wants to be portrayed as experiencing internal conflict or the cause of conflict, it is great if you could pitch your business as part of the solution to any conflict.

• Impact

Impact deals with how many people will be affected by your business.  Say for instance you have opened a raw food restaurant.  You already have the advantage of this being something unusual, yet well timed as many people are working towards a healthier way of living.  If you could produce statistics of the benefit of incorporating raw food into your diet on a regular basis, it will emphasize just how widespread and important this issue really is.

• Human interest

Make that human connection by telling your own story - what lead you to this particular business?  Let a customer tell about the impact your business had on his/her life.  It is important to let the humans operating and benefiting from the business be the stars of the story.  It creates warmth and allow future customers to identify with you.

• Currency

Currency is about connecting with the bigger picture.  Look for similar stories currently in the media.  See if you have something new to offer to the current debate.  
 
 
 

Key components of the communication process

I am a firm believer in creating strong foundations - whether you are building a house, a business empire or an marketing campaign.  The very basis of creating a successful marketing campaign is to understand the communication process.  Communication in any business defines the relationship with the customers.

Key elements of the communication process

The source or sender

The source or the sender is the person or organisation that distributes information.  For marketing purposes it is better to convey information via a person as consumers relate better to individuals than faceless corporations.

The source needs to be credible.  The consumer will internalise the marketing message and make it part of his/her own belief system if they perceive the source to be reliable.  The attractiveness of the source will have a bearing on the likeliness of the receiver to identify with the message.  In other words, if the consumer find the message familiar or likeable, he/she is more likely to identify with the message. 

Receiver

Where marketing is concerned the receiver is referred to as the audience.  It is crucial that the marketer identifies the target audience in great detail.  The better your understanding of the demographic, geographic and psycho-graphic aspects defining your target audience, the more effective your marketing strategies will be.

Message

The message is any information you want to convey to your target audience.  It can range from awareness about the brand or product, in depth information about product attributes to images promoting positive associations with the product.  What is important to remember is that research indicate information presented first and last are remembered better than those in the middle.

Encoding

Encoding refers to the translation process of putting ideas and messages into symbolic form.

Decoding

This process occurs when the receiver tries to interpret the message.  Marketers know that the message might be decoded differently by different people.  This is due to the fact that the sender and the receiver are likely to have different fields of experience.

Feedback

Feedback is the part of a receiver's response that is communicated back to the sender.  It occurs in the form of purchases, inquiries, complaints, questions, store visits, website hits, etc.  Feedback assists the marketer in determining why a campaign fail or succeed.

Noise

Noise is anything that distorts a message or distracts the sender.



                       Image:  www.pixmule.com

Where to next?

The impact of the changing nature of digital technology is clearly visible in every sphere of life.  Think about films - not only is digital technology changing how movies are produced and what it actually looks like but it is also changing how we watch movies.  The days of film are over as digital projection are taking over at cinemas.  Image quality has improved tremendously and the wonders that can be created through digital special effects exceed even the wildest imagination (Dargis and Scott 2012).

James Cameron's Avatar.  Source: herocomplex.latimes.com

Social media opened up the world to us.  It also changed our expectations of society and of the web.  Just consider our changing views regarding copyright.  A huge amount of content is continuously shared on the net.  One would think that implicates infringements on copyright.  Yet, when you embed or share content, you are not breaking the copyright law.  The content never passes through your server, but is streamed directly from the host site.  Be careful though, as this does not apply to content that you copy.

Social media brought forth infinite access to free speech.  This can quickly turn into a liability in countries where no criticism against the government is tolerated.  Even in countries with freedom of speech it can still land you in hot water ... think of how many people has lost their jobs after ranting about their boss, work place or colleagues via social media.

The question now remains how social media and digital technology will influence our future?  Schaffer (2012) points out that humans are by nature social creatures.  We are turning away from mass media and are once again turning to one another with the help of social media.  He speculates that SoMo (social mobile) will be the focus point in the near future as more and more people are using their smart phones as their primary communication and web access tool.

Nosowitz (2012) argues that we will be able to control our daily activities from our phones with great ease.  We will turn off lights, change the temperature inside our homes, cook dinner, make the beds, brew coffee and feed the dog all with a few clicks on our phones.  Innovations like the Satis toilet from Lixill are able to connect to an Android smartphone via bluetooth.  All that is required of you to lift the seat or flush the toilet is to scroll on your phone.

For me the real potential for the future lies in the application of technology in warfare.  The Pentagon spends huge amounts in an effort to create superhuman soldiers.  While teams of geneticists work on a pain vaccine that will block pain for months at a time or figuring out how soldiers can regrow limbs, Raytheon has already developed an exoskeleton that turns ordinary soldiers into cyborgs.

Contemporary war has a new frontline, one where war is no longer fought physically but virtually, where the actors involved on both sides have increasingly started to replace bombs and bullets with weapons in the form of bites and bandwith.    Dr Kaempf 2010

The main focus of technology is to make our lives easier.  IBM will certainly achieve that once it figures out how to bring the power of Watson to smartphones.  Watson is a cognitive system that will change how we think and operate in the future.  In agriculture it can aid farmers by analyzing precipitation and scientific data as well as location trends before recommending which type of crop to plant.    It also looks very promising for the medical sector.

Whether you like or dislike the role technology plays in our lives, it has become so entrenched in the idea of modern society that the two are virtually inseparable.  My hopes for the future is not that development of technology should slow down, but that we should take the time to analyze its impact on our lives.  Is it still a tool enriching lives or are we enslaved by it?

References
Dargis, M & Scott, AO 2012, 'Film is dead?  Long live movies', The New York Times, 6 September, viewed 4 February 2013,
Kaempf, S 2010, 'Digital media technology changes nature of war', Phys Org, 21 September, viewed 4 February 2013,
Nasowitz, D 2012, 'Smartphone controlled Japanese toilet keeps a personal poop diary', Australian popular science, 19 December, viewed 4 February 2013,
Schaffer, N 2012, 'The future of social media in 2013: six points to consider', Social media today, viewed 4 February 2013, -six-points-consider>   

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying refers to bullying through information and communication technologies. It is a fast growing trend that is believed to be more harmful than traditional school yard bullying. The nature of the technology means that bullies have access to their victims 24/7 (Webster n.d.).

No bullying is harmless and can in some cases even constitute criminal behaviour. In the Australian legal system using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence is a relatively new cyber-stalking offence punishable by a maximum jail sentence of 3 years. Two Australian defence cadets will face trail in August 2013 under this law over sex acts being broadcast to other men without the knowledge or consent of the female cadet involved.

You should also reconsider sending foul-mouthed, derogatory and inflammatory text messages as this can result in hefty fines. Miko (2011) reports on a pair being fined $300 each for this very act. England cricketer Kevin Pietersen experienced backlash over his derogatory emails to South African players. Pietersen was dropped from the team over emails that he considered to be bantering at the time he sent it. He has since apologised.

Tragically sometimes cyberbullying leads to suicide as was the case for Sheniz Erkan and Megan Meier.  I mention these two specifically to illustrate the intricacy of the situation and the extent to which cyber-bullies go. Investigations into the circumstances leading up to the death of Megan revealed that she was bullied by a boy she really liked, or so it seemed at first. In reality that boy never existed. It was a fake personality orchestrated by the mother of one of Megan's friends. Yes the mother.

What really gets to me about Sheniz (and countless others since) is that they are being bullied even after death. Tribute pages set up in their memories are being desecrated by so called trolls. Trolling refers to any Internet user behavior that is meant to intentionally anger or frustrate someone else in order to provoke a response.

Although hailed as heroes with great intelligence and a sense of humour by some, in the eyes of the law they are offenders. In 2010 Jessica Cook was given a suspended sentence for posting offensive material on the tribute page of Justine Jones. In 2011 Bradley Hampson was the first Australian convicted of internet trolling and sentenced to three years in jail for posting child pornography on the tribute pages of two slain schoolchildren.

In the above mentioned cases autism and loneliness were offered as explanation to justify their actions. However, not all trolls are created equally it seems. Insight ran a very educational program on this very topic.

 I learned a lot about the psyche self proclaimed trolls like Jamie Cochran. She classifies herself as a performance artist on the prowl for scalps. It is important to note that all trolls interviewed on Insight distance themselves from the desecration of tribute pages or hate campaigns. They do not classify behaviour like that as trolling but as vitriolic bullying. In Cochran's own words:

"Most of what I do, I do with great jest and playfulness. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, I just want to make people think and laugh along the way.  I also look at [trolling] as a form of culture jamming, in the sense that it can disrupt the status quo to hopefully stop and make people think for a moment."

I doubt whether this play on semantics will impress Charlotte Dawson though. The ferocity of the death threats she received resulted in her ending up in hospital. She bravely tracked down her abusers in real life later. Their response once again highlights the severity of the problem. Some of them claim not knowing that things said on the internet would have a real impact in reality others claimed to have gained confidence in doing this.

For me the solution to cyberbullying lies in teaching compassion, because like Campbell (2005) I view bullying as a social problem. Only when we care enough about another being to imagine the pain we can inflict with our words, can we expect to turn this bullying trend around.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

References
Campbell, , M 2005, 'Cyber bullying: an old problem in a new guise?', Australian journal of guidance and counselling, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 68 – 76, viewed 27 January 2013, <http://eprints.qut.edu.au/1925/1/1925.pdf>
Miko, t 2011, 'Texting lands couple in court', Central Queensland News, 29 April, viewed 4 February 2013,
Webster, C n.d., What is cyberbullying?, viewed 4 February 2013,

Produsage

Remember the old saying that two heads are better than one?  Produsage is the modern, digital equivalent of that saying.  It is a continuous cycle of improving ideas or information that already exist.

"...once you start contributing and sharing and connecting

with the work of those who connect with yours,

you're engaging in something called produsage." 

Bon Stewart (2010) 

There are four core characteristics to produsage:

1.  It is community based

2.  The roles are fluid.  Over time different leaders will emerge based on their skills, interests and knowledge.

3.  The result is an unfinished artifact that is subjected to continual development.

4.  It remains common property with individuals being rewarded by the status capital they gain for their contributions (Bruns 2007).

From the fourth characteristic it is clear that produsage is fundamentally at odds with the underlying premises of traditional intellectual property.  Produsage has contributed to an emergent ethic of sharing that demands such laws and the economies they generate, be revised (Sinnreich et al nd).  Accompanying this there is also a deep social need currently rising for media ethics (Couldry nd).  Couldry sums up it by saying that we no longer know how to live together without media, yet we haven't figured out how to live well with media.

Bruns (2008) points out a few key principles for future and continuous development of produsage.  He stresses the importance of organizations working with produsage communities to respect the characteristics, principles and conventions which apply to the produsage process.  The future will require well educated producers, therefore educational institutions should equip their graduates with produsage skills.

 Clearly produsage currently works well for sites like Wikipedia, open source programs, game development and even through interaction on blogs.  However I do believe that the true potential of produsage is yet to be experienced.   Most of us just repost links without commenting or exploring the ideas contained in that link.  Yet this reposting is very useful for sites like Google to determine what people deem important or interesting.  It seems that people are less able to create and more willing to share.  In fact some sites exist purely because of this like Pinterest.

For me producing your own content is the opportunity to materialize that what matters to you.  This is then maintained and expanded by the attention and comments of others.  Distribution and production opportunities are more available than ever, to more people than ever.  Once we all get involved the opportunities for greater application of knowledge, greater quality control and greater socialization are endless.

References

Bruns, A 2007,  'Produsage - key principles', Produsage, viewed 8 January 2013,

 
Bruns, A 2008, 'The future is user led: the path to widespread produsage', The Fibreculture Journal, vol. 11, viewed 8 January 2013,

Couldry, N nd, 'Why media ethics still matters', John Wiley, viewed 8 January 2013,

Sinnreich, A, Latonero, M, Gluck, M and Riley, N nd, 'Nowadays it's like remix world: the hidden demography of new media ethics', Academia, viewed 8 January 2013,