How social media is levelling the field in public affairs and political campaigning

Quiet News Day

Some thoughts on how social media is levelling the field in public affairs and political campaigning

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I was delighted to be asked to sit in on an episode of Quiet News Day, which is a podcast by Scott Douglas and Shaun Milne. The podcast is a mix of discussion on the media, public relations and social media. And more and more of my work involves social media. One of the discussion points was how social media is levelling the field in public affairs, particularly when it comes to campaigning.

We should start by just reminding ourselves that public affairs is just like any of other disciplines within public relations. The parts of the PR formula are always the same - have a good understanding of the individuals and organisations that have an impact on success; develop a set of persuasive messages and the use of the most appropriate channels of communication.

In public affairs the context may be slightly different, but it is basically the same. Okay, the more mainstream PR practitioner may be targeting thousands, if not millions, whilst the public affairs professional may seek to engage just handful of decision-makers. The messages are often developed with a knowledge to the political context, and the channels are likely to be more direct. But you can see the basic skills are same.

The 'secret ingredient', and the reason why practitioners are able to pay their mortgage, is that understanding the political context has not always been that easy to do.

Despite the amount of coverage on policy and politics, some of the traditions and machinations of politics make it a difficult subject to follow.

But what we are seeing, is that the field is being levelled by access to online resources, and the ability to use of social media to gather together an alliance of interested people.

Lets just look at those three areas of public affairs expertise and think about how social media is helping.

Understanding the audience - we have greater access to the workings of politics than we have ever had. From the comfort of our living room we can watch the great, and not so great, parliamentary debates of our day. We have access to the policy papers and to the research on which it is based.

And in terms of politicians, we can find out so much more as they establish websites, use Twitter and engage in discussion online.

There has never been so much in-depth coverage on politics. Not just the headline stories but all the background information about politicians, about their constituencies, election results and about the issues they have campaigned on.

If you want, you can follow every parliamentary comment made by your Member of Parliament. I am a great fan of website Theyworkforyou. It can be easily set up to email you whenever your MP, or any MP you want to follow, speaks in Parliament. There is more to be said about the people behind this site and I am sure there is another article to write.

But the point is that there is no excuse for us not to know more about our politicians.

Crafting the message - this is all about understanding what is important to the politician, or their officials, and using that insight to develop persuasive messages.

Why is your message persuasive? Do you bring expert opinion? Are you representing the views of the majority? Is your view a minority one, but with a passionate set of supporters that are unstoppable?

Online resources allow you to develop an expertise. The amount of raw information online means that you can draw conclusions ahead of the experts. Social media allows you to marshal your supporters, to first raise awareness of an issue and then gently push them into action.

Choosing the best channel - in terms of channels of communications, it is much easier to go online and organise a old-fashioned demonstration. Or to keep the campaign online with e-petitions or to asking your supporter to email their politicians.

I have mentioned it before, but here is a simple US micro-site that prompts supporters to tweet their elected representatives on issue of the legalisation of online poker.


http://www.tweetforpoker.com/

So there are new direct links that can be used.


More channels to get your message across to the politician.

Why am I telling you how to run political campaign and be a public affairs practitioner?

Social media is levelling the playing field. I am already involved in issues where the protest group has a much slicker online presence than the corporate client.

Am I giving away the tricks of the trade? I can do all of this for a client. But any committed individual can do this for themselves and for their issue of choice.

Well first of all, policy debate is good. Communities should be involved in making decisions about their future. That is a good thing. It is what democracy is all about.

There is a very practical benefit to me. As a public relations practitioner I often want to speak to the community. I am looking for channels of communication to get to the various groups and individuals. Traditionally I look for community leaders, but if there is a community group in place then I am delighted to engage with them. Even if they are opposed to the view I am proposing I can debate the issue with them, and hopefully better understand their position.

There is a business benefit, because though the playing field may be levelled, there is always going to be benefit in having a professional PR or public affairs adviser.

Yes social media can help the community group. But there are additional communication skills, experiences from past campaigns and a deeper level of nerdy political knowledge, that the community activist may not have immediately at hand.

…………..And of course the more cynical might point out that the more activist groups are on the ground, the more work there will be for a public affairs consultant.