The one thing you can say about the IPRRC is that every year it just gets better. The quality of the papers improves as does the conversation. This was our
second year in the Holiday Inn, University of Miami, and the vastly-improved
location also factored into the general excellence of this year’s
conference. We now know how long it
takes to eat lunch, get a drink, and get from pool to the conference room, so
everything seemed to work a lot more smoothly than the first year.
As always, I would have liked to see more research into social media, but the ones that did address social media were particularly interesting this year. Read this one first for the impact of social media on PR.
Tina McCorkindale did a fascinating review of the Facebook pages for the Fortune 50. Perhaps the biggest takeaway was that a large number of posts on these sites were from Journalists looking for access to company personal or asking a question.
Tina content-analyzed every Fortune 50 Facebook page with more than
100 fans, and ended up with 52 total pages, of which 40 per positive, and 3
were negative. Not surprisingly the 3
negative ones – Anti-Wal-Mart, Boycott Exxon-Mobile and Verizon were all very
negative, and very active, with thousands of fans. They were all also run by
students.
Of the 52, 27 were member sites,
28 were fan sites, 12 of the 27 were run by employees 8 by students and while it’s hard to tell
exactly who is behind every site, 12 sites self-identified as employee-run. Some
sites were very obviously managed by corporate communications or customer
service especially McKesson who’s address is [email protected].
Not surprisingly those sites tended to only have positive postings which makes
one wonder what’s been taken down. Ford’s
Scott Monte has managed to win over 25,000 members to Ford’s Facebook page.
Verizon had 154,000 members
because by becoming a member you were able to download ring tones and games.
Target had the most number of fans 191,000 and some of the most positive
conversations. Many organizations that
allowed employees to have Facebook pages, my favorite was “Lowe’s ‘Ho’s, clearly
encouraged employees to share their opinions, with many “I love my job” quotes
contributing to the overall positivity of the conversation. Humor was also important – Target team members
shared some of the silliest things they’d heard, for example, which no doubt
contributed to the sites popularity. The sites did not seem to be a repository
for new news, with many of the wall posts being seriously out of date. Verizon
had the most wall posts with 1620, while IBM only had 269. Fords were most
positive, then GE and Chevron. Dell’s was most personal with “Janet at Dell”
signing her wall posts, and offering assistance.
Only 12 included discussions of
CSR. 36 posted photos (mostly CEO’s in suits, and pix of corporate
headquarters) 17 had videos. Many offered exclusive deals and promotions to
encourage engagement,
Best Practices
McCorkindale found, were sites that offered functionality –downloadable ring
tones, games, exclusive deals and promotions.
Steve Ruh and
Frank Magallon from San Diego State University had a thought-provoking piece on
the influence of social networking sites on today’s generation of sailors. Under David Dozier and Bey-Ling Sha’s
tutelage, “The Navy Guys” as I call them – actually Navy Public Affairs
officers enrolled at SDSU have consistently presented some of the most intriguing
papers of the conference and this year was no exception. Ruh’s point was that the problem that is
unique to today’s Navy, is that it takes young men who are used to communicating
with their social circles via text messaging,
MySpace, Facebook etc, and puts them in with virtual strangers on a ship, with
no access to social media of any s ort.
While access to email, You-Tube etc. is a lot more available in other
parts of the armed forces, due to security concerns, the Navy has very strict
rules, as well as unique logistical reasons why cell phones, texting MySpace
and Facebook are not part of their culture. But, Ruh and Magallon will attempt
to define whether providing first term enlisted Sailors, ages 17 to 24 with
access to social networking sites during their deployment will result in an enhanced “navy identify” .e. improved leadership
teamwork and command capabilities. Ruh suggested, that if social networking is
how community is created in today’s society, and if the Navy wants to make sure
that the new recruit is part of the “Navy Community” some form of internal Navy-specific
network may be necessary.
Among the
best of the academic+practioner papers was the one presented by Julie O’Neil of
Texas Christian University
and Bethe Spurlock, Director of Marketing &
Public relations at North Hills Hospital in North Richland Hills, Tex. Starting
with a benchmark study in 2007, they evaluated employees attitudes around
internal communications prior to the launch of their new Intranet site. One key
factor was that they continuously conducted research with employees throughout the
development of the site, getting continuous feedback as the site progressed, so
by the time it actually launched almost all employees had been exposed to it.
The numbers tell the story. In the
follow up study conducted in 2008, they witnessed dramatic increases in the
percentage of employees satisfied with the level of information, as well as
those that felt they had a voice in the company. After the new intranet had
been launched they also saw an 8& jump in the % of employees that world recommend
North Hills as a great place to work, and a less dramatic but still significant
increase in people saying that they felt differences were valued and all employees
are treated with respect. Regarding feedback on the intranet itself, the majority
of employees said that the site had made it easier for them to find information
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