eCommunications for global organisations

A few clips of interviews we collected from the event we organised last week at the AirMuseum on the impact the volcanic cloud has had on social media. Some nice insights from the EU commission on social media that works and quotes from Aurelie @Euroocontrol and Simon McDermott and myself.

We’d like to invite you to check out a show we are working on called Brussels Sprouts (so far). The show below is a trial run, so if you have a few minutes to spear, have a look and tell us what you think, so we can make the next one better.

I am hosting it with Helen Dunnett (@hdunnett) The idea behind each show is to focus on emerging trends and topics online with a special focus on Brussels. This is the first show (the Beta Version Zero Pilot Show) so they are open to suggestions to make it better next time, but they decided that the best way to get this show on the road was to…get the show on the road….

Last year, I introduce the eBook ‘Your Online Journey Starts here’ at an event in Brussels, with Toyota, Microsoft and VCE (Volvo Construction Equipment) who shared their own experience with online communication.

We have captured a summary of my presentation which gives an overview of some of the key topics of the ebook.  It is intended as a simple introduction to how the internet is changing communication for global communicators, and what they can do about it.  To find out more check the video (below) or download the ebook (below).

Apologies for the poor sound quality!

The social network that was created last summer for IABC (the International Association of Business Communicators) is one of the best ways for communicators in a corporate environment to experience ‘social media’ and online communities first hand.  We are using a ning platform (a site that allows you to build your own ‘facebook’) and enables members to share information, videos, presentation and discuss a range of topics. It is also very practical to organise events and keep your network aware of recent news.  Those interested in discovering more about this should join: http://be-iabc.ning.com/ or watch the video where I discussed the kind of conversations that take place there.

Here’s a short video of me – explaining a bit the IABC ning in one of our ZN events.

I am currently stranded in Bangkok - experiencing along with millions of other passengers the joys of our new found Icelandic volcano.  It is, and has been, a fascinating story and there will be a great deal of learning to be dealt with  about how people, organizations and groups communicate in times of crisis. Just to give a few examples, some organizations such as Eurocontrol, have been doing an impressive job at keeping everyone informed by Twitter.  As someone who is in real need of up to date information, I must admit that we can really appreciate the effort made:. My understanding is that Aurelie (member of the IABC group) is involved / behind this effort so it would be great to connect with her after this is over.

On the other hand, it seems that most airlines are doing a disastrous job at keeping their passengers informed about the situation. I am myself flying with Austrian Airlines and they have been slow and unresponsive in communicating.  So in the spirit of engaged online communication, I have formed a passenger group in the hotel where I am staying in Bangkok and they started to post information about developments on a facebook group we created for the occasion: Facebook: Austrian Passengers in Bangkok

Although we only have 22 people from the flight on the group it is the main place to get the latest news from the airline and the manager of Austrian airlines is relying on us to disseminate information to passengers in an effective way.  What makes this even more ironic is that Austrian Airlines has a facebook ‘fan page’ which is, in the spirit of the Nestlé ’social media suicide’ turning into a forum for people with complaints against them.

What makes this worse is that the local manager told us that they are not allowed to go on Facebook as part of their company policy so neither he nor anyone else is able to respond to a group of frustrated passengers.

More on this when (?) I return.

A few weeks ago, for the third time a group of individuals met in Brussels in a small snack place (Le Break de l’Abbaye) to discuss how the EU institutions could and should approach social media and internet communication.

Web2EU in action

The starting point for the event was an open letter written by EU Commission webmasters to try to shape the approach the new Commission was taking to Web 2.0. Tony Lockett and Dick Niewenhuis gave an overview of the origin of the letter, inspired by a similar US initiative, and talked about how this was being viewed by officials. The response to the letter was broadly positive but the key issues facing the institutions remained. Much of the discussion that followed revolved around what the Commission really is (not a government said Dick) and its role in communicating to the public.

From the US initiative I shared some comments made by Beth Noveck in an interview with Tim O’Reilly. The main point of their efforts was to use the web to bring more transparency and openness to the process of policy making in Washington. There was also talk of ‘closing the revolving door to lobbyists’.

An MEP, Wim van de Camp, joined the discussion and announced he was using twitter as his personal PR tool as had just launched his new website.

What seemed to emerge from the discussion is that there is a clear opportunity for the Commission to use the internet as a tool to communicate and share knowledge in more effective ways. The problem however is that they still need to clarify what the communication should be about. The objection made by Wim was that the Commission should not be sharing opinions but should be executing the will of its political masters. However no one objected to the fact that getting ideas on improving policy implementation and communication on its activities was a good thing.

So the discussion continues. Here’s a short video of the event.

Greenpeace's Nestle Killer campaign logo

From time to time, we come across a story that demonstrates that a worst case scenario can come to life. Nestle is currently going through just that ( http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/social-crm/nestle-debacle-demonstrates-common-social-media-misunderstandings/105610).

The story is that they launched a facebook group which is a general ‘corporate’ one – if you read the information page, it talks about Nestlé, and its Mission is ‘Good Life, Good Food’.

The group has over 93 000 members, so clearly has attracted many people.

As the communication team was getting excited about the success of this open engagement strategy something went badly wrong.

Greenpeace decided to launch a campaign against Nestle called Nestlè Killer – Give the Orang-utan a break, driven from the main UK site: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/. The greenpeace campaign has all the marks of a social media campaign (including a truly gross video – do not watch this before eating!).

But here comes the twist. The greenpeace campaign gradually started to take over the Nestlé facebook group, putting comments, pictures and activating the campaign using the very platform Nestlè had build to show it’s customers how it was delivering ‘Good Life, Good Food’. The result is that currently the site is dominated by posts by anti-Nestlé campaigners. The company is struggling to find the appropriate response – first by deleting comments, then confronting the campaigners and finally apologies and letting all the comments stand. The spirit is one of open and and learning – but it feels a lot like a catastrophic situation out of which there is no easy way out. As this is still unfolding it will be fascinating to observe how this plays out.

Nestle Facebook Fan Page: What should Nestlé do now?

The question is: what should Nestlé do now? Delete? Engage? Change country? Flee the country? They have already said that they had stopped giving business to one the companies that was responsible for the deforestation that is leading to the Orang-utan being threatened.

Yesterday, I made a presentation on the topic of SEO (search engine optimisation) and its relevance to online communication.  It was a challenging subject as the meeting was hosted by IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) so you could expect people to be familiar with the concepts. My focus was to talk about how this very useful ‘tool’ should fit the communication mix – and not to discuss the details of the concept.

For those who are not familiar with the word, SEO (as well as SEM and SEA – search engine marketing and search engine advertising) covers the science and art of using search engines (such as Google, Bing or Yahoo) to get traffic to your website.

My main points on the subject were the following:

1. It’s really easy to get it wrong and most companies do so by default.  They treat SEO as an IT/technical project.  This means they see as a project that needs to be done (because traffic increase MUST be good).
2. They focus only on numbers (how much traffic will get and how many statistics can extract from this exercise)
3. They do it as a standalone project – often a company will choose to do an SEO ‘project’ before they have define what they wanted to online (let alone define a clear business and marketing strategy in which this fits)
4. They think it is the only way to get traffic to your site (or at least the easiest) - this can be plain wrong
5. Finally they feel it simply needs to be done

My suggestions (in a nutshell) to approach and formulate this web strategy (and discussing whether or not to hire an SEO company or do SEO internally) is the following

1. Get the basics right first – don’t start on these activities until you have gone through some key steps
2. Start from a clear business and communication strategy – make sure you have an online strategy that will deliver some clearly defined business goals and fits with your other marcom activities
3. Get the right tools to deliver your stories to your key audiences (is it a website, youtube channel, blog, twitter, event, press release?)
4. Create a content plan – define the key messages, products and the information that you need to communicate to your audience
5. Create an editorial plan – a plan on how to keep your story going over a period of time.  Plan the appropriate team and resources to deliver on this (launching a new site is easy, making it work over the long term is the hard part)
6. Create an activation plan – define a plan in which you define how you will get traffic.  This is the part of the project you look at SEO and how it fits in your campaign.  The first part of this process is to study what is happening online.  What are people searching on Google or Bing, and what are the relevant keywords for your audience.  The insights you can extract from this can be highly relevant to the kind of messages that might resonate with your target audience.
7. Find the right partners (Iprospect and ZN).  Tempting as it may be to learn the skills of SEO by yourself, you need professional help to get good results. Although some simple things can be done in house, to get a really effective SEO programme in place you need experts who know the latest changes to search engines and the best way to integrate the right tags at the right place.
8. Define KPIs (key performance indicators) and use them as a key business tool.  Most people are familiar with KPIs. However, few manage to use these as real business tools, keeping track of them, reviewing them on a regular basis and taking action according to the results found.  The key about setting good KPIs is to align them with your business objectives and to not simply focus on traffic indicators, and then ensuring that the data is useful.
9. Don’t do it if you don’t need to.  Finally and probably most importantly is it vital to ask yourself if you need to undertake such a project.  Often web traffic alone will not really bring value to your business, whereas targeted communication to key customers via email, having good content and relevant hyperlinks is what is needed.

Tomorrow is a big day for us, and we hope for Brussels. We have been working on setting-up TEDxBrussels (http://www.tedxbrussels.eu) for the past few months and it has been an exciting and challenging experience.

We have long been fans of TED (http://www.ted.com) and avid watchers of the videos the organisation shares with the world, so when the opportunity came up to help with the organisation and launch of TEDxBrussels, we jumped in working alongside OLPC (http://www.olpceu.org/) and a number of others to make this idea a reality.  It has been a challenging  ride and tomorrow we will see if it is up to the vision that the team had in mind.

We very much hope this event marks the beginning of culture shift in Brussels, bringing together passionate individuals who believe in the power of ideas to change their surroundings.  One of the first initiatives to come out of this thinking is a project called ‘Imagine The City’, developed by TEDxBrussels, The Bulletin and AddictLab.  The idea is to get the community of TEDxsters to share ideas on how to transform their city on a platform called www.brusselslab.com.  Addict Lab will selecting ideas emerging from this platform on a regular basis and The Bulletin will feature some of the most intriguing ones.  Later we will look at how to turn some of them into a reality.

If you want to get involved in this community and start thinking about the next TEDxBrussels, then join the ning (tedxbxl.ning.com/).

See you tomorrow or online.

After months of hard work, editing and designing, we have just gone live with our latest eBook, “Your Online Journey Starts Now - A Survival Guide for Corporate Marketers”. Writing an eBook takes time and perseverance and I hope that the outcome is worth it. I am sure a great deal can still be improved, and I look forward to your feedback in order to update it.

It is written for the corporate marketers who want to take advantage of the current crisis to shift their communication to a web based model.

Read it, share it and enjoy!

Looking forward to your feedback.