It should come as no surprise to hear that Google, one of the most potent organisations in the world, has trust as one of its positioning lynchpins…yet in a (business) world still coming to terms with the fact that those defining a brand are more often its stakeholders than the brand itself, this is still close to being revolutionary, especially if it is being effectively put into action, rather than simply being pontificated on.

Lucinda Barlow, Google Australia and New Zealand’s Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, put forward this premise at Frocomm’s 2010 New Media Summit. “We all work for and represent brands and brands are all about trust,” Lucinda said. “People have certain expectations of a brand and that’s what we have to portray.”

Lucinda Barlow

But are all brands about trust? I don’t think so. Australian Wheat Board? Rio Tinto? Westpac? Not exactly high-performing brands in the trust stakes.

Google are a fascinating entity in many ways, but their confluence of the dimensions of communication, products and societal centrality is one aspect of this. As a result of this it possesses an enormous amount of power:

• The power over people’s ability to access information (including information being organised in a manner customised to people’s varying ‘niche needs’)
• The power over people’s means of accessing information
• The power of influencing government and regulatory regimes.

In summary, this means the company is playing a significant role in shaping society itself.

NB. A full and comprehensive PDF report on the New Media Summit can be downloaded for free.

The power of giving away control

Lucinda (@lucindabarlow) describes Google as having collaboration at its heart and giving up power to its stakeholders. What a breath of fresh air for a public relations professional!

“Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Lucinda. “This means giving our users around the world access to the information they want, from the widest variety of sources, wherever they are.”

And it is interesting to note that, despite its competition being, “one click away,” Lucinda said Google’s policy is not to lock people into utilising the products it develops, but to, “allow customers to move their data out of Google’s services easily.

“We have a dedicated engineering team, working across all products, called the ‘Data Liberation Front’ to make this happen. To keep you coming back, we have to keep innovating to create great services that are important to people and change their lives.”

Making it easy to not use Google has a number of implications for a professional communicator:

• It gives more power to consumers to set the terms of the relationship. In fact, with products like Google Maps, consumers have the power to actually change the parameters of the product itself
• It is empowering the consumer to be a participant in the brand, not an observer
• The numerous listening and interactive posts it has in the online environment reflect the way its business model is profoundly influenced by its stakeholders’ knowledge, views and behaviour.

Analogous to this is the approach that Lucinda said Google takes to its stakeholder communication: “We need to be fast, responsive, open and transparent in our communication.”

Eavesdropping for insights

“There is a large and growing audience of people who actively listen to, distribute and publish their opinions online,” said Lucinda. “This gives real power to the vocal minority. According to Nielsen, in Australia 45% of people online publish their opinions specifically about products, services, and brands online and a massive 86% read them. It’s such an influential space.

“When you probe what the most trusted sources of information are, word of mouth comes out tops followed by online…because online is seen as a way to scale ‘word of mouth’ and tap into it en masse.
“And you’re not just about managing what gets said about your brand in order to effect sales directly. It’s also about consumer insight. It’s like being permanently tapped in to the world’s largest focus group. Our users decide what’s popular and what they want to watch. They talk about it. They debate with each other. Those comments are gold. Just ask United Airlines…”

Social responsibility

The power of Google means it has a more profound, socially pervasive social responsibility than most organisations. Its enormous global reach (i.e. all stratas of virtually all societies) make this more challenging for Google than most, as different societies and their various elements all have differing expectations of organisations.

As long as trust remains central to its business model, however, it has a reliable compass with which to steer itself. Communication, and public relations in particular, is the ideal mechanism to facilitate this journey occurring.

What are your thoughts on this post? What are your perceptions of trust in the business world? Are organisations working harder to earn it form their stakeholders? Are they sincere? Are Google sincere? What impact are public relations professionals having on organisations’ trustworthiness? Is social media making a difference to our ability to make organisations behave in a manner that makes them more trustworthy? It would be great to hear your opinions.

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite! PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

Related posts

• Free report: PR at war – opinion explosion at social media summit
• Strategic communication with Facebook
• Online content helping public relations manage reputation

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Trust, crowds (utilisation of, communicating to, segmenting of…), integration (or not) of social media and corporate websites, the death of ‘networked’ communication, content generation issues and the challenges of change within social media were some of the primary themes that were either explicitly stated at the 2010 Frocomm New Media Summit, bubbled under its surface or were notable not for their articulation, but by their surprising absence…

For your free report looking into and analysing the 2010 Frocomm New Media Summit, download the FROCOMM New Media Summit 2010_Report. And don’t forget to share it with your colleagues, peers and friends; RT about it; and get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

Articles in the report feature content formulated in four different ways:

• Reports on summit presentations by speakers
• Interviews with speakers post-summit
• Analysis by Ruci Fixter and myself
• The integration of perspectives and content from other professional communicators, business people and bloggers.

The summit was a gathering of some leading minds of the Australian public relations and social media industries, as well as a large and enthusiastically interactive audience. There was an interesting balance of presentations that took a helicopter strategic view, along with those that were more hands on/tactically-based, with both leavened by plenty of case studies.

But perhaps the most notable message that comes out of gatherings like this is: don’t sit there and vacillate; get in and get your hands dirty; expertise comes with experience, not the endless pondering of ramifications.

Of course, the way we as communication professionals act should depend on evidence-based market research. We should consider all the options and seek to apply best practice methodologies.

But social media is still evolving at a rapid rate. Each strategy and its tactical dimensions need to be customised to the business outcome sought, to the relevant target audiences and to the issue/product/service at hand.

At the end of the day, your communication activity may be the first of its kind. So whilst you can listen and learn and formulate, the best answer to your social media dilemma may just be to do. But don’t dive in thinking you are going to kill it from the start.

Strive to become the expert. But, as many speakers stated or implied, humility and adaptability are valuable. Pack them in your baggage.

Trust your public relations

The notion of trust was elemental to many of the presentations at the summit. That is because trust is what social media is deified as helping generate (if not accelerate). Trust, of course, helps generate positive word of mouth, the holy grail of marketers:

• free endorsement of products, services and organisations
• the viral, no charge (well, sort of…) snowball effect (and especially when exercised through social media)
• extrapolation into increased sales/profits.

Social media platforms, as Brendon Hughes recently wrote, “have changed our definition of friend’.” The interesting question that Brendon posed was: “Is social media making trust weaker or stronger?” His feeling is that social media is not delivering as broad a degree of trust as marketers might like to think.

Social media, corporate website or trad media?

The question of where the greatest influence on consumers will emanate from in coming years was not asked at the summit. This surprised me. Options I put on the table to some of the speakers included:

• Social media sources
• Corporate websites
• Traditional (in both ‘hard’ and digital format) media.

Of course, it isn’t an either/or zero-sum game. Shades of grey are permitted!

But as I discuss in a series of posts from my blog that are included in this report, PR needs to work harder at website communication opportunities. Strategic communication, especially those elements with a digital bent, should be wary about putting all their tactical eggs in the social media basket. The corporate website has an opportunity to:

• provide engaging, useful and credible information to stakeholders
• rank higher in web searches because of this content, intelligent backlinking strategies and appropriate technical IT support
• act as a hub for social media activity.

This thinking has been reinforced, according to Andrew Hughes of Reprise Media, because Google changes means brands need to focus more on content and one of the best ways to do this is, “publish as much relevant content on your own website…”

PR: experts in content generation?

Content. What a hassle. What an opportunity!

But…if you don’t got it, you don’t got nothing to say. It’s the elephant in the room.

Generating content valued by your target audiences takes time and a lot of it. Think of all the social media platforms to feed. Recycling and customisation will work to a degree, but this won’t entirely sate the beast. So where are the resources coming from?

And who can’t love the switch that Matthew Gain pulled on summit attendees, saying we need to think like journos when creating content for our organisations, not like PR pros. This is a favourite topic of David Meerman Scott, the king advocate of corporate website communication.

Behind content are two further themes: creativity and viral. All three work together. A major challenge with social media is getting consumers to advocate the content. For it to go viral. This might occur because it is fun, because it is creative, because it is relevant to consumers’ lifestyles or because it exhibits thought leadership.

Thought leadership works if it:

• provides POD
• adds value to target audiences’ lifestyles
• is relevant to the organisation or brand that is promulgating it.

Networked communication is dead; long live the niche

Dan Ilic said it at the summit. Seth Godin has said it in the context of micro magazines. And Mike ‘Zappy’ Zapolin said it at a recent conference: niche is winning the war. Broadcast, big reach media networks are dead.

But this notion of big-reach communication being almost dead, whether it is in the context of media outlets, social media or other forms of communication, seems to me to be just a tad precious.

PR and marketing folk love reaching as many eyeballs as possible. So do clients and CEOs. (It makes for impressive reading in monthly reports, after all.) And I bet it is likely that a lot of direct mail is undertaken based on stats that underline that though there is a lot of waste, so is there sufficient ROI to keep on cutting down forests.

A very big challenge in going niche, in being very targeted and customised, is the ROI. Smaller audiences should mean, in theory, smaller investment (unless this audience is the influencer on a wider group). But easier said than done.

So whilst I love the notion, I’m not so sure some of the talk on this topic isn’t just a little specious. I fully expect there to be further debate on this topic, with warring tribes fully armed with rationales and statistics supporting their views.

Summary

The change that is occurring in the social media/new media/digital communication/traditional (on and offline versions) environment is intense. In the time it has taken to produce this report, here is a minuscule selection of some of the topics and issues that have arisen:

• Doubts over Twitter’s efficacy for tactical/sales generating communication
• MySpace regaining momentum through Facebook’s perceived privacy failings
• The relentless ascent up the social media mountain of Foursquare
• Apple’s patenting of a Facebook/iPhone app.Who has time to keep up? Can we pay someone to filter this information for us? Social media is forcing the PR professional pay a heavy price for staying on the ball.

In regard to the summit, only a few of its themes have been flagged here. The rest are in the articles featured in the report. Download the report for free, share it around, RT it, get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

And please let Glen Frost from Frocomm and I know what you think about the content and how we can provide more useful resources for you in the future to help you do your job as a professional communicator.

So, your call to action!

• Download your free FROCOMM New Media Summit 2010_Report
• Share it with your colleagues, peers and friends
• RT about it and get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

Posts based on the report will be featured on this blog and on Blueblog in coming weeks. All comments, questions, observations and violent disagreements are welcome!

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite! PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

Related posts

• Free report: PR at war – opinion explosion at social media summit
• Strategic communication with Facebook
• Online content helping public relations manage reputation
• Social media communication generating trust

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Whilst I don’t pretend to have any great insights on this matter, I was recently interviewed by British uni student Hayley McDonald (@HAYCMAC) on how social media is impacting on the practice of PR and how it is changing the way PR pros work, with the critical upshot being that making the right strategic decision, on a variety of levels, is more important (and, yes, more challenging) than ever.

Having more tactical choices (i.e. opportunities) at our disposal means more potential mistakes occurring, which means the basics of using evidence-based market research to underpin communication strategy, identifying and leveraging thought leadership insights, setting objectives and measuring (and exploring) the impact of communication remains crucially important.

So in that sense, the more things change, the more important the strategic fundamentals have become.

I have divided up my responses to Hayley’s questions into two posts. This first post talks about the impact social media has had on PR and, in a more granular sense, how it has changed the way PR pros work. The following post talks about social media tools I use and ‘rate’, how PR pros should deal with social media and the role I think PR will play in the 21st century.

The impact social media has had (and is having) on PR

1. It has accelerated and intensified the public relations and two-way symmetrical communication process.

2. It has made the notion and conceptual underpinnings of two-way symmetrical communication clearer to PR and non-PR professionals even if they don’t’ recognise the term itself.

3. It has made life harder for PR professionals because it is requires a diverse and ever-expanding collection of skills and tactical proficiency. Ironically, perhaps, I actually think social media is easier to comprehend on a strategic level than a tactical level. This is partly because social media is so reflective of the essential tenets of two-way symmetrical communication.

4. This increased knowledge that social media has forced PR pros to acquire is not stopping anytime soon. This means if professionals haven’t been educating themselves on the field then they had better get a move on. In turn, this means more of our time needs to be spent on self-education, putting more pressure on us.

5. We have to start managing our time and prioritising more effectively due to the burden of needing to be knowledgeable about an increased array of communication tools. This is the case even if a professional decides to stay tactical (and not operate at an overarching/strategic/leadership level) and focus on a limited array of communication mechanisms.

6. With the huge importance social media plays in the tactical communication mix, not to mention SEO, it may well mean that knowledge in areas such as traditional media relations is not focused on so much.

Changing the way PR pros work

Hayley postulated that, “the impact of social media upon corporate communications is changing the role of the public relations practitioner.” She then asked me what changes has social media made to the way I work as a PR practitioner compared to the old methods of PR?

1. The whole area of website content strategy, SEO and social media optimisation is really forcing us as a profession to reprioritise and reconfigure our approach. People in western countries (and many others) use the internet as the Bible, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Idiot’s Guide to Everything. This is where influence is occurring, both through the (partially) mechanical means of directing web searches to certain sites, to who is influencing who from a thought leadership perspective on the web, to what media outlets are lifting their game to compete in this dimension.

 Further to this, check out this very useful, very relevant and just posted Slideshare deck by Rick Allen:

2.Interestingly, the emergence of social media is giving young practitioners (and I mean straight out of uni in many cases) an opportunity to become more influential and advance their careers faster than ever before. This is because (and I have seen this occur on many occasions) the older PR bosses are deferring to their younger counterparts due to their facility and experience in, and passion for, social media.

3. The increasing amount of social media avenues is underpinned by an increasing desire for content, thought leadership and perspectives that facilitate POD and competition cut-through occurring. Thought leadership we are familiar with, but the increasing demand for quality content, and its close cousin SEO, mean we have to write more (especially keyword-rich content) than ever, placing more pressure on what continues to be the most important skill of a PR pro: writing. And don’t forget, online writing demands a different approach to hard copy writing.

4. Social media obviously presents another topic to talk to clients and/or in-house management about. This is an opportunity to grab their attention with ways to help achieve organisational objectives, but it is also a challenge because generally you are talking another language to senior, and often battle weary, soldiers of contemporary business (including PR bosses). At the end of the day, the quickest route to approval is illustrating impact on the business and ROI. How do you achieve that? Measurement. Evaluation. Old school tools…

What impact do you think social media is having on PR? How is it changing the way you work, whether you are a PR pro or not, and in both your professional and personal lives? Do you think, to be a true PR leader, you need to be familiar with the strategic and tactical elements of many social media options – or can you do without this knowledge? What is your rationale for your position on this?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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Previously, in this series of posts on corporate website content and its strategic importance to PR and marketing professionals, I have discussed why public relations may be placing too much emphasis on social media instead of corporate website content, and why we need to be better at website public relations.

The strategy driving what content goes on corporate websites needs to fit into the overarching organisational communication strategy, yet so wide-ranging and large can corporate websites be, that they sometimes seem to occupy their own ‘micro-climate’ where a unique approach, arguably, needs to be applied.

In this post, with the insight and assistance of a range of communication professionals – digital, SEO (search engine optimisation), marketing, public relations – I am going to outline a number of strategic and tactical elements to consider when utilising websites as an organisational communication mechanism.

Whilst marketing director Lindy Dragstra says, “Enhancing stakeholder engagement will only work if you have interesting and high quality content for your target audience and they know how to find you”, I believe that there are more fundamental strategic communication issues that must be addressed before you begin thinking about content itself.

Strategic dimensions of website communication

One of the most significant strategic questions organisations need to address in the context of website content is how willing is it to engage in a dialogue with its stakeholders?

• Does it value diverse perspectives, even if those perspectives may not be in line with its own?
• Can it tolerate the multi-voiced world of the web or is it wedded to the notion of single, undeniable corporate voice (i.e. The Edifice Attitude)?

This question is especially important in the context of changes that social media has made to the communication and business operations environment. If engagement is the much heralded behaviour that organisations must display through social media, for instance, how can that same behaviour and recognition of other perspectives not be manifested by social media’s natural sibling, websites?

But hey, there is room for multiple approaches and this dynamic is all still being worked out.

When thinking about website content, copywriter and web content adviser Charles Cuninghame says you need to ask what is the response that you want from your human browsers, whilst website designer and strategist Heidi Cool says that her premise is that, “The site owner has specific goals and their visitors have certain expectations. Content should serve each, be written to appeal to humans first (robots second) and be packaged in a format that supports SEO.”

Website and PR consultant Clint Garwood, similar to Heidi, suggests that, “Although the content itself should be truly organic and represent what visitors need and want, your SEO keyword selections need to be research-driven. Knowing which keywords are searched often isn’t enough to identify if that keyword will drive traffic to a company website. Your keyword research needs to be able to identify which keywords/phrases offer a competitive opportunity for the website where they will be used.”

Other issues of importance to corporate website strategy include:

• What balance does your overarching communication strategy have between mediated (e.g. media relations) and non-mediated (e.g. direct mail) communication?
• What emphasis do you have on generating databases to allow for ongoing (and outgoing), consistent direct communication?
• Does it have the resources (human, as much as financial) to utilise social media tools to any reasonable level and the necessary attitude to manage them?
• Does your organisation see the issues management benefit of websites? For example, monitoring questions and the types of web pages visited not just for potentially divisive or problematic issues that the organisation can proactively address before they turn into a crisis, but for opportunities for content that help create more positive stakeholder relationships?
• How will your organisation determine what content goes on the website? Will it pay attention to the sort of web searches that people undertake? Will it undertake polls? Will it research what pages people prefer visiting on their own and their competitors’ web pages? Will it utilise market research or Google Alerts to get an insight into stakeholder interests and ‘hot topics’?
• Does your organisation have strategic alliances it can leverage through website content that will enhance the organisation’s credibility? What about interviews/testimonials with these alliances?
• What thought leadership platforms does your organisation have and how will you leverage the content generated through these platforms through the varying communication mechanisms at your disposal (e.g. media, speaking engagements, direct communication like e-newsletters, social media)?

Lindy Dragstra raises some valuable points when she says that, “customers and partners are happy to submit content, as this will help them too. It makes your site dynamic and if you make it truly interactive (why not post strings and comments?) there is a reason for people to regularly visit your site.

“But only if the information is of interest to the audience. People tend to neglect information that is too commercial. They don’t want to be bothered by it. But they do want information that inspires them, helps them do their business better, gain new insights etc.”

Heidi Cool has made available a valuable tutorial online called Planning Your Website. It isn’t exactly along the lines of the strategic marketing communication I am really seeking, but it does help scope it out. As Heidi says, “While this doesn’t get into SEO, it does get people thinking about content, which of course is the key to good SEO anyway.”

Content for websites: a delicate dialectic

One of the main challenges for professional communicators is determining what stakeholders/target audiences/customers etc want to hear from your organisation, how this fits in with your organisation’s objectives and producing content that meets the needs of both sides of the fence (when in actual fact, due to the diverse nature of internal and external stakeholders, it is one hell of a tangled fence).

As web strategist Tylar Masters says, you need to, “find out how it feels to be a client”. Clients (or organisational stakeholders) want information on their terms, not on organisational terms. But of course there needs to be a balance and it depends on the nature of the organisation and its overarching communication strategy.

“The audience will feel compelled to reach out to you for more information if you strategically give them the information they need to make a decision about your product/service,” continues Tylar.

Tylar’s approach to what she calls the ‘content writing strategy’ starts with a messaging campaign. “My team interviews key partners and employees, as well as audiences and even competition to achieve this strategy. It’s what drives conversion.” Critical to this is determining what stakeholders actually want, not what organisations think they want or want them to think. It is a delicate dialectic.

Her ultimate upshot? “Very simply put, effective messaging and content is crucial to conversion.”

[Footnote: After three posts on this broad topic and discussions with a number of people, I still feel like something is missing. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am making this harder than it needs to be. There seems to be some strategic map or purpose or insight that I haven’t got hold of. What do you think?]

What can you add to this discussion of the approaches one should take to website communication? Is it a mechanism that is being leveraged enough by professional communicators? Should there be more focus on website communication than is, comparatively, occurring with social media?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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Previously, in this series of posts on corporate website content and its strategic importance to PR and marketing professionals, I have discussed why public relations may be placing too much emphasis on social media instead of corporate website content. The next post will feature strategic and tactical insights and tips on this topic from a panel of global experts.

There is no guide, or overarching process, for how one should go about producing the content that goes on corporate websites…from strategic business planning, public relations or marketing perspectives. This is an almost unbelievable ‘informational gap’ due to the power that has been placed at corporate websites’ discretion due to the mind-bending capabilities of search engine optimisation (SEO).

So, this is my attempt to extend what discussions on this topic have occurred. (I haven’t found any of real substance along the communication/marketing line, but I am sure they must exist!).

There smatterings of information all over the place but, seemingly, no central resource that integrates all the parts; nothing that addresses the full picture of website content and social media and how you push ‘out’ to generate awareness of your new content. Or whether that is even an approach that will yield results.

Strategic approaches for corporate website content

Is the purpose of new website content constrained to Google spiders recognising it as new, and relevant to searches, thus ranking the content/web pages higher for organic searches?

Is the purpose of it limited to it being up-to-date, thus more likely to be relevant and useful to the needs of those searching for information? The implication of both these questions is that the content is only waiting for those who come to it – not content that is actually reaching out to those potentially interested in it.

Or is an option to repurpose (or just duplicate) it for other forms of communication like newsletters, e-newsletters, media programs, speaking programs et al, so it can be leveraged through those mediums?

But then, I presume, you can put Feedburner social media sharing options on each page (e.g. Digg, Reddit, Twitter etc) and thus give ‘human browsers’ an opportunity to easily share the content in a broadcast manner (and editorialised with their own comments, for that matter).

Hmmm, the lines between old-timey broadcast and new age social media sharing approaches are sometimes pretty arbitrary, aren’t they?

The face-off between social media, corporate websites and digital ‘traditional’ media

As for the face-off between social media, corporate websites and digital forms of traditional, hard copy media as to who wins the ‘most influential’ status, for me organisations have a real opportunity to win this battle. Or at least be a competitive participant.

If they are smart.

Smart, as in organisations recognise that all opinions count and all opinions/perspectives should be recognised.

Smart, as in recognise if they invest time and money into this opportunity then they have the opportunity to rank highly in organic searches, then get human browsers to advocate them.

Smart, as in providing content that is above and beyond being purely self-serving (i.e. helpful information that assists human browsers do whatever they want to do that is relevant to the organisation’s essential remit or purpose – no need to be too uptight here. People go for helpfulness, not brand handlers freaked out by the fool’s gold of brand frigging essences and other such bollocks marketing blather [um, apologies, a pet dislike going on here, obviously...]).

As strategic PR counsel Sean Williams pointed out, however, one of the great values of traditional media and social media (in fact, any opinion sources that are not from the organisation in question), is that they are 3^rd party opinion. Supposedly objective. Supposedly with nothing to gain. Supposedly this generates enhanced credibility for the organisation.

Essentially, I agree with this notion in most cases. It’s one of the reasons I espouse the forming of strategic alliances as a PR 101 approach.

But, as Sean himself points out, there is increasing doubt regarding the trustworthiness of both social media and traditional media sources. Everyone, it seems, has an axe to grind. If you know the source personally, sure, you know how much to trust and rely upon their perspectives.

But the web is a many-peopled world. Why should you trust people you will never meet and you will probably only have a web-relationship with? Sounds a bit, um, naive, does it not?

Corporate websites should be better at public relations

Organisations, of course, have the most resources to dedicate to their own profile (through marketing and/or public relations, for instance). They certainly should have the greatest motivation and focus on their own profile. And they should have the acumen and intelligence to take the broadest, most strategic and most realistic possible view of their place in their world.

So, really, they have no excuse to be beaten to the punch by other communication mechanisms when it comes to organic searches. Nor do they have any excuse not to form and/or enhance relationships (by both behaviour and communication) with their stakeholders.

Yet, they continue to allow this to occur because of a lack of recognition of the primacy of organic search and, very importantly, because they fail to recognise it is one thing to use technical SEO trickery to get highly ranked. It is quite another to get human browsers to like and advocate you because of the value-adding insights and resources you freely provide.

This is the telling factor in website content success. Is it making stakeholders do what you want them to do? Advocate you? Buy your products? Support your stance?

Resources is a key issue here. Traditional media is losing them. Social media never really had them; and though this is changing to some extent, we are talking an explosion of a chattering class that is great at accusations and sarcasm, but isn’t really setting the world on fire with providing scientifically reliable and assiduously generated proof for its observations, is it?

There may well come a point where the credibility of both sources of information (traditional and social media) lower themselves enough for organisations (through their corporate websites – which can lift themselves up in the credibility status) to be considered at least in the credibility ball park with them. It is an interesting dialectic. And it is certainly an opportunity for organisations that respect their stakeholders to gain a POD over their competitors that accelerates them along the road to long term, meaningful stakeholder relationships.

This, in turn, must inevitably lead to results such as meeting organisational objectives, increasing profits and minimising regulatory, media and political criticism/scrutiny.

Public relations value from corporate website content

So what is generated from getting positive results from providing corporate website content of value and utility to stakeholders/human browsers?

Authority. Respect. Leadership. And you know, getting the POD from this means a funny little thing called…‘increased sales’.

Looking for strategic communication answers on corporate website content

As there is not an authoritative guide to corporate website content and its implementation, I asked a question on LinkedIn and reached out to a number of digital, SEO, marketing and public relations professionals whose views and expertise I respect. Fortunately, many of them responded and their comments and insights are included in my next post on this issue.

Check out my next post on these issues to get some useful tips. But in the meantime, what strategic and tactical tips can you provide for marketing or public relations professionals on website content? And what did you think of the issues raised in the post and my views on them?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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In the rush to become social media experts, and to grab the largest slice of its revenue, responsibility and thought leadership pie, public relations pros are at risk of missing the main digital game: that of providing meaningful, resonant and useful content for corporate websites that is search engine optimised and customised to the needs of organisational stakeholders.

But, hey, make my day! Prove me wrong.

I raise this question (because this really is a question from me, rather than a full-blooded assertion) not as an out-and-out expert, but as someone who has observed, for the best part of this year, a swelling tide of – albeit fractured rather than concerted or integrated – commentary from the chattering digital/marketing classes on website content and its importance to communication and engagement between an organisation and its stakeholders.

Are we in living in fear of what is all of a sudden, gulp, dogma that says: do not challenge the deity that is social media!?

Of course, if website content and social media cannot co-exist peaceably, nay, profitably, then what hope is there for professional communicators?

So, over a couple of posts and with the insight and assistance of communication professionals – digital, SEO (search engine optimisation), marketing, public relations (oh such a delirious sisterhood) – I am going to explore a number of issues…

Public relations and providing website content

• Where is the thought leadership and guiding strategic hand in providing direction on what approaches should we take to generating corporate website content?
• Where does public relations fit into the dynamic of service providers involved in providing and delivering content for corporate websites?

Why is this an important topic?

David Meerman Scott says that corporate (or organisational – I use the terms interchangeably) websites are the new centre of the informational digital universe. He purports that when useful content (for organisational stakeholders) is placed there, and it has reasonable technical/coding SEO backing it up, then that is where those searching the web will go.

This is due to high organically-driven Google rankings, firstly, and secondly, that the content draws them back and they advocate it to others.

But there are others that purport social media is the centre of influence from a digital communication mechanism perspective. And there are yet others who say that the digital manifestation of traditional media, due to both its objectivity and professionalism (I know, try not to laugh), is the most influential mechanism.

Yes, we are getting reductive here. Different issues and different modes of communication need to be focused on, and utilised, for different stakeholder groups, but we are talking in general here.

Anyway, this is just why this corporate website content thing is important. This is not the point of this post.

Why content may indeed be king for public relations(hips)

The internet is, in many cases, the main (or at least an extremely important) means people use to find out information in numerous parts of the world. People will rarely look past the first half a dozen organically ranked search results.

Ipso facto, getting your preferred website (virtually) top of the list is critically important. So if you want your organisation to get a chance to influence stakeholders, then it needs to have great SEO.

How do you get great SEO?

1. The current school of thought says the primary influencer is website content
2. This must be supported by very good technical/coding/backend ITish type twiddling
3. Backlinking: getting other sites to link into your organisation’s site.

There are also a range of other factors that Jeff Bullas writes eloquently about, such as keyword use, diversity of link sources and trustworthiness of the domain linking to your site.

So, leaving the techie stuff to the backroom IT boys and girls, relevant content that is engaging for organisational stakeholders is a profound, fundamental priority for communication professionals. It needs to be updated regularly, as well, or at least the pages that are being visited do. Google’s search spiders get bored if this doesn’t happen and then your SEO rankings fall away into search oblivion…

Again I ask, so why hasn’t there been a stronger focus on the strategy behind website content design and generation by the public relations profession?

PR controlling influence…by sharing control

Organisations have an opportunity to get in front of, or at least be in the shooting match, with all the other sources of information out there (especially the digitally diseased ones). Meerman Scott pretty much states that if organisations are smart they can themselves become the new version of the old media – where you go to when you want up to date, interesting, compelling information about and relevant to an organisation.

You know: thought leadership, value-adding, free content (see Meerman Scott’s interview with Seth Godin and Tom Peters: making change..very cool) that is complementary to an organisation and DEFINITELY useful to its stakeholders.

This information needs to take a non-high handed approach. It cannot be condescending or obtuse. It must be customised to the micro-second attention span of digitally evolved (repurposed!?) human beings.

And guess what? Organisations are going to, at some stage, have to acknowledge perspectives (maybe even on themselves…) other than their own. If they can’t do that, then how do they expect their stakeholders to take them seriously..take them for real?

Now, if public relations is meant to be the profession that is queen of relationship building, where are we in this? Why are we ignoring this whilst lionising social media? Are websites not the hub and social media the spokes?

(Um, there have been a few variations on this one said before. I’m just not that clever. Although, generally, it is the blog positioned as the hub and other forms of social media as the spoke. I am thinking that now it is the corporate website as the hub, though the blog has an integral role to play.)

I’m going to talk more about this. As in what strategic approach should be taken? What are some tactical tips that are useful to integrate? And more. I have some real experts putting in their five cents worth, so join in and have your say. ‘Fess up: PR is on the junkheap at this game right now, isn’t it?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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The defining theme that, arguably, characterises the world’s leading authority on public relations, Professor James Grunig, extensive, career-long discussion of public relations is this: organisations that proactively create mutually meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with their stakeholders, including anticipating issues and actively communicating with them during crises:

“…should be more likely to develop relationships with their publics that make it possible to achieve organisational objectives, develop a positive reputation, and reduce the consequences of poor relationships on the implementation of management decisions.”*

“In some ways,” Grunig says, “Public relations has not been changed by the revolution in digital media.” The illusion of stakeholders being controlled existed before and it still exists now. Stakeholders create their own reality. The only way to impact on this reality is to engage and share information, to evolve based on this sharing and to enhance the meaning that relationships bring.

He made this comment in his recently published article, Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalisation (Praxis, a digital PR resource centre.) The article had as its central point the potential that social media has to, “truly revolutionalise public relations – but only if a paradigm shift in the thinking of many practitioners and scholars takes place.”

Global public relations in an age of digitalisation: the story so far

This post is the final of a three-part series that discusses certain elements of the article. In the first post (featured on Trevor Young’s PR Warrior blog, as was the second), the following elements were explored:

• how social media has complicated stakeholder targeting and communication
• the notion of ‘giving’ that characterises both public relations and social media
• the lack of control that organisations have over their stakeholders.

In the second post, key elements included:

• the participation required to utilise social media to its full effect
• the dialectic between reputation and engagement for organisational stakeholders
• social media as an issues management activity.

What social media can do for public relations

Social media, Grunig says, has “the potential to make the profession more global, strategic, two-way and interactive, symmetrical or dialogical, and socially responsible.” This will not occur, he warns, if PR pros use it as a means of “dumping messages”, however. Rather, he counsels professionals to interact with stakeholders and bring information, “from the environment into organisational decision-making.”

Social media, if not the ideal way to create this meaning (surely it is direct, interpersonal, face-to-face interaction which still rules here), is clearly becoming more and more influential in this regard.

Human beings are increasingly relying on these forms of communication. For some, social media/digital communication dominates their reality. And, certainly, the information they receive through these mediums, has a considerable degree of credibility. It has been argued that this is due to much of this information coming from individuals, rather than organisations.

Information that enters the social media realm and receives either a deliberate and strategised – or a non-designed organic – impetus from the solar systems of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and their ilk can also have a cumulative, snowball-building ‘word-of-mouth’ effect that the planet has not experienced to this degree before.

Organisations can contribute to this multi-connected and multi-source generated and accelerated dimension. But they sure as hell can’t control it.

Social media is providing public relations with an opportunity to reinforce its importance to business and society. The profession is, in many cases, trying to take advantage of this opportunity. The question is, will it succeed?

The answer, according to Grunig, is only if we institutionalise public relations as a strategic management discipline, one that provides a vitally important element to business strategy and organisational culture.

“I have long provided evidence that public relations has greater value both for organisations and society when it is strategic, managerial, symmetrical, integrated [but not sublimated], diverse, and ethical,” summarised Professor Grunig. “Public relations, when practiced according to this global theory, helps organisations to achieve their goals, cultivate relationships in societies and globally, and reduce conflict.”

In the first post of this three-part series, issues discussed included how social media has complicated stakeholder targeting and communication, the notion of ‘giving’ that characterises both public relations and social media and the lack of control that organisations have over their stakeholders. In the second post, issues discussed included the participation required to utilise social media to its full effect, the dialectic between reputation and engagement for organisational stakeholders and social media as an issues management activity

What are your thoughts on Grunig’s thoughts and on this series of posts? Did you find them of value? Were there any aspects, arguments or thoughts you disagreed with? How can public relations enhance its professional standing and achieve its potential? What role or opportunity does social media have to play in this?

PS. I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

*[Note that I am not differentiating, as Grunig does, between ‘stakeholders’ and ‘publics’. I am using the terms as synonyms.]

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One of the most interesting, thought provoking and humorous Australian public relations blogs is justanotherpr, the product of the wild, fearless and intelligent Karalee Evans. I say one of the best Australian PR blogs, but really it’s one of my fave blogs on a global level.

One of the most notable characteristics of Karalee’s writing is its forthrightness. You won’t die wondering what her opinion is on any of the topics she covers. You get it right between the eyes. Public relations professionals included. Read the serve she gives the profession when she writes that we have a responsibility to be the guardians of authenticity (i.e. truth/reality) rather than arbiters of spin.

Taking responsibility for public relations

You get the idea – loud and clear – that Karalee wants the profession to take responsibility for its own development. This will only occur when it provides counsel in the best interests of an organisation, which means that it needs to take into account the best interests of an organisation’s stakeholders as well. What works for all parties? Without addressing and working with the potentially conflicting needs and wants, the relationship – the relations – will not be meaningful or sustainable.

Marketers, and those who espouse an inaccurate and outmoded perspective of what constitutes PR (you the type, media relations = PR), also get a drilling. As Karalee rightly surmises, what a load of bollocks. But each of her posts exhibits a wry sense of self-deprecation, as well. Karalee and I both fight the good fight on the ‘PR is a strategic business discipline’ front, but we realise it’s a Sisyphean challenge at worst, and a long, slow haul at best.

The forensic detail Karalee attacks some of her topics with is positively, um, media-like. Well, in the days when Rupert etc provided their flacks with resources, anyway. I don’t have the patience myself, but read the way she talks about the evils of public relations astroturfing or her discussion of iSnack public relations ‘disaster’. I ‘apostrophise’ disaster because I am pretty sure Kraft went on to make a motza from the product anyway and at the end of the day why would it care about anything else?

Reputation? Sales? You pick the KPI its executives and shareholders are most concerned with.

Strategic thinking

Inherent within each of Karalee’s posts is a strategic public relations/communication management aesthetic. You can almost hear the gears clanking. Even her superficial-type rants are clearly underpinned by big picture thinking. This is articulated more transparently in posts where she talks about strategy being the most important part of public relations.

She says that, ‘A good strategy seeks to preempt your tactical failures.’ It’s an illustration of that holistic thinking I mentioned. Most strategies are focused on success, but without considering the alternative possibilities occurring as a result of best intentions, has the situation being fully, and ‘strategically’, considered? A further implication of this is the flexibility and fluidity that should be inherent within any strategy.

Research, conceptualise and plan, by all means. Everybody needs to have a direction and responsibilities. But the world is a surprising, delightful and quirky place. Message: get ready to go with (and respond to) the flow!

Karalee is a social media devotee. And no, just because you run a blog it doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about social media-wise. But whilst she recognises and espouses the force of the medium(s), she also writes about it not so much changing what best practice PR is, so much as being an acceleration and almost ideal manifestation of it.

I like the social awareness and corporate social responsibility principles which inform Karalee’s professional stance and writing as well. She is no wowser, but organisations and communication professionals have a responsibility to society as a whole. And as marketers seem to have a HUGE problem with incorporating a social responsibility into the work they do and advice they give, it looks like its left up to the saintly PR folk to deliver!

I was going to tell you something of Karalee’s background, but you can read that for yourself. More important is what she writes about, what she delivers. In summary, these are two things:

• An extremely important contribution to the public relations profession through her tireless, thoughtful examination of issues, trends and case studies. PR folk who don’t read her posts are missing out (on professional development AND fun). She is helping public relations ‘get’ strategic
• An enhancement of Australian culture. She frequently writes on Australian issues and, sometimes, icons. Her work is in Australia. Her humour is Oz-larrikin. Her rapier is pure Antipodean. She does not suffer fools gladly (but she will allow them to buy her a drink).

justanotherpr: spread the word.

Have you read Karalee’s blog? What do you think? Which of her ideas and opinions do you agree or disagree with? What other PR or marketing bloggers do you rate highly?

PS. I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

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Strategically, social media offers immense utility for public relations professionals when it comes to crisis management but, conversely, it also opens up organisations to immense risk.

On the upside, said James Griffin of SR|7 at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009, an example of the positive power of social media is the over $3 million US dollars of revenue that has been generated by Dell through its Twitter platform engagement. “This has created a new asset for Dell,” said James, “Allowing the company to build trust, revenue and its brand.”

And organisations need all the help they can get, it seems, if the findings James cited from AON’s  Australasian Risk Management Benchmarking Survey are anything to go by. “Brand and image have been ranked above corporate governance and other risk categories including legal, human resources and information systems as the number one risk concern since 2007.”

But the “wild wild web”, as James calls it, has a set of risks of its own. “It is a world where people are largely anonymous,” he said. “People feel empowered to say anything regardless of the truth. It is a world where blogs, videos and Twitter broadcasts are more powerful and faster than bullets.”

James quoted Deloitte findings that 58% of executives agree that reputational risk and social networking should be a boardroom issue, but only 15% say it actually is. “Staggeringly, Deloitte also found that only 17% of companies had any form of program to mitigate risks associated with social media.”

An opportunity for communicators? It certainly looks like it.

James said that critical to understanding the importance of social media, and an insight into where social media is heading, is that both Bing and Google will be integrating Facebook status updates and Twitter posts into public search results. “This means a standard Google search for a company is as likely to bring up the official webpage as it is the live feeds of customers, suppliers or employees who happen to comment on that brand and organisation.

“In addition, it will make it faster and easier for the media to source negative or sensationalist stories about goods, services and individuals. The flipside is that there will increasingly be more opportunities for organisations to leverage and use social media as a means for positive brand engagement.”

A powerful strategic point is that 60% of Australians trust the recommendations of their peers. And with the prevalence of social media as networking tool for peers, the importance of the mediums to public relations professionals and marketers is clear.

“The key is knowing where the positive content exists and developing strategies around maximising authentic brand advocates, said James. “These are critical in times of crisis.

iSnack. iFail? Or eyeballs = iWin?

The KRAFT iSnack 2.0 campaign is a very good illustration, said James, of how the integration of social media platforms makes it critical for your organisation to have a presence on each one.

SR|7 was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald to provide data and analysis of the KRAFT iSnack 2.0 marketing campaign as it unfolded. Central to the drama around the branding of the product was a very funny but subversively critical YouTube video which, James said, “featured heavily in the majority of traditional news articles both online and offline was linked to, and from, a variety of social media platforms.

“The Kraft experience highlights the power of social media in shaping perception about goods and services. It is clear that Kraft did not have the tools in place to counter arguments and discussion online about iSnack 2.0”

Counting and caring: monitoring results

YouTube video:

• Monday 10am 1,110 views
• 1 day later #1 most watched video – Australia
• 3 days later 45,956 views

Views were accelerated by these sources:

• First referral from YouTube – Homepage 9,391
• Other / Viral 17,581
• First embedded on – www.facebook.com 10,414
• First view from a mobile device 5,703
• First referral from – www.facebook.com 4,722
• First embedded on – www.thepunch.com.au 4,324
• First embedded on – www.crikey.com.au 1,780
• First embedded on – www.defamer.com.au 1,590.

James made the following further points:

• Collecting only brand mentions will miss the most relevant conversations. Discussions are key
• Simple measures (counts, brand mentions, sentiment) are not useful for understanding why people do what they do and, without understanding, we don’t gain the insight of what to do next
• Effective social media monitoring is going beyond buzz and ‘sentiment’, to understand the emotional and motivational drivers of your customers or clients. Human analysis of social media data is vital.

Web visuals’ growing impact

The power of visuals – and moving visuals at that – on the internet seems to be replacing the primacy that television has (had?) in our lives. Online visuals can be seen at the viewer’s convenience and may take only a minute or so to view. From there, it takes mere seconds of effort before an online missive is despatched, whether through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog and others where untold numbers of people may see it.

Strategic alliances

One method of combating this is applying the tried and true methodology of strategic alliances, even more potent in the social media environment than in a non-digital environment. This is a key tool public professionals should always consider applying when designing communication strategies.

The three primary benefits of strategic alliances are that they enlarge the communication footprint an organisation can have, they can enhance the credibility of alliance ‘partners’ and they provide excellent ROI (especially if they are mostly free!).

In this context, the following is relevant:

• Identify customers, suppliers or other organisations that have appropriate communication mechanisms in place and a mutually beneficial interest in, helping communicate your messages/position
• This is particularly useful, in the context of this discussion, if those mechanisms include social media and their audiences are complementary/relevant to your own
• As these messages, even if they are flagged as being your own organisation’s, come from a third party, they come with their brand imprint and, presumably, credibility
• Even, as has been seen ad nauseum at the Frocomm summit and elsewhere, if the alliance’s social media network is not big but it is influential, then it will be a strategic tactic (um, verging on tautological here…) worth implementing.

These alliances won’t be ‘one-offs’ (who the hell is going to, firstly, want to institute an alliance with your organisation when it is in the credibility ‘bad books’ and, secondly, have the time to do the sign off protocol turnaround in about 24 hours flat?).

As Libby Day, From Roche Australia, said at the summit, alliances and partnerships are built up over years, not hours. Whether we are talking social media or ‘simple’, professional relationships, it takes trust to form alliances and for those alliances to be willing to put themselves at some level of risk by associating themselves publicly with another organisation under the gun.

But if those relationships are meaningful from a two-way perspective, if they are mutually beneficial and if they are founded on trust, then they may well help your organisation get over the crisis line.

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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Fires and flu: what a year. Worst of all for those suffering from the cataclysms. But a real challenge for public relations professionals working hard to inform and help the community. This post features insights shared by two of Australia’s preeminent public relations practitioners at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

Fire

Amber Brodecky, Director Communities and Media Relations, for the Victorian Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner, led the crisis communication effort in response to the deadly Victorian Bushfires, Australia’s worst natural disaster, earlier this year.

A statistical summary of the tragedy is not able to reflect the anguish it caused, but the figures are sobering:

• 173 lives lost
• 2,000+ homes and businesses destroyed
• 1,500 properties damaged
• 430,000 hectares of land burnt
• Fires affected 78 Victorian communities across 25 municipalities.

Some web 2.0 tools were used to assist communication, but a model for strengthening their use as part of operational planning is currently being devised by the emergency services. The key principles that inform the communications approach still make for compelling reading, however. They include:

• An approach that is based not on spin, but providing information communities need to put in place safe behaviours
• Messaging that builds on the 9/11 model used by Rudy Giuliani:
  • What we know
  • What we don’t know
  • What we are doing
  • What we want you to do
  • Ensuring messages use a  ‘call to action’
  • Being realistic, real-time, disciplined, authoritative and two-way in communication
  • Taking the view that resilient communities are informed communities.

Amber said that the media were an important link in emergency management chain and they were viewed as partners, rather than a group that need to be managed. Similarly, local communities were also viewed as partners, playing a key role in their own safety planning.

The emergency services were also transparent in updating the public on fatalities and losses, with the view that an open, honest approach is best.

Flu

Porter Novelli provides another example of how selected social media tools and selected applications of those tools can b effectively applied. Sometimes, it isn’t necessary to throw the kitchen sink at the problem. As always, public relations professionals need to assess the situation, build the appropriate strategy and utilise the most efficacious tactics in the most effective manner.

Porter Novelli (PN) applied  social media tools to help Australian Pork Ltd (APL) in its  management of the communication dimension of the A/H1N1 (swine) flu epidemic this year.

PN’s corporate and crisis practice principal, Campbell Fuller, said social media was used to monitor conversations about swine flu and pork consumption and assess awareness and key message penetration. The challenge for APL and PN was to convince consumers that pork was safe to eat and the flu could not be contracted through eating pork, thus arresting falling meat sales.

Though Porter Novelli and APL were prepared to engage with consumers through social media to counter misinformation about eating pork and catching the flu, they found this was not necessary.

Instead, what Porter Novelli found was that:

• Coverage achieved in traditional media, especially TV news, syndicated radio programs and daily newspapers, and their online versions, easily flowed through to online and social media channels
• Active social media participants became advocates for pork
• Social media participants swiftly responded and corrected negative and incorrect information without any involvement from APL, posting links to mainstream sources
• Medical and veterinary experts, and ministers’ reassurances, were seen as credible, highlighting the importance of being able to call on strong stakeholder relationships established over many years
• Messaging surrounding the impact (i.e. lower sales/revenue, thus livelihood ramifications) the issue was having on farmers – a personal approach – had traction. Most people love a symbol
• Real primary producers appeared in the media to help show the human face of the crisis, leaving APL’s chief executive Andrew Spencer as the corporate spokesperson.

Porter Novelli used consumer surveys to measure changes in sentiment toward the purchase and consumption of pork. Within a month, negative sentiment was almost zero and pork sales had returned to almost pre-crisis levels.

What do you think of the approaches taken by these two organisations in their management of the crises? What could they have done better? What was done particularly well? What are the most important factors you have learnt from these two public relations professionals?

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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