I’m behind on my writing. A nasty cold, a couple of speaking engagements, and some urgent client work have made it tough to find time to blog. I spoke a week or so ago at the Airports Council International Media Relations conference at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. The conference was very interesting – it was an assembled group of communications professionals from major airports across the country. I have rarely given much thought to the unique challenges of managing an airport’s reputation, so this conference was a real eye-opener. The presenters before me did a great job of talking about the implications of user-generated content. Think about it – a routine arrest for drunk or disorderly conduct can be captured via a mobile phone, shared with the media, and then blown out of proportion on a slow news day.

This got me thinking about our personal responsibility when it comes to creating content online. People seem to think if they capture an image or incident that there are no restrictions on how it is shared. I am starting to disagree. I think we all have a personal obligation to make sure that any content we create is used in context, and that all parties are treated fairly. In the examples I saw from the airport conference, reporters were getting their hands on assets created by the flying public, and were then running stories with little fact checking and making assumptions that were completely false. This puts an unfair burden on the airport communications professional to set the record straight, and more importantly it can create fear and anxiety in air travelers. Given as much as I travel the last thing I want or need is more anxious people in airports.

We know that people are unintentionally creating news reports, and we also know the media are running stories based on this content. If we are all journalists now, don’t we all have an obligation to ensuring that the stories we create or contribute to are true, in perspective, and helpful to the general public? It is almost though, in some cases, the tables are turned and the citizen journalists have to uphold a higher standard or reporting. I know I plan to – I travel with an iPhone, a BlackBerry with camera, and a digital camera with video capability. They’ll remain in my pocket the next time I’m dashing from gate to gate.

Equally as interesting as the conference was the time I got to spend with the DFW Int’l Airport public affairs / communications team. Ken Capps, VP of Public Affairs at DFW hosted a dinner at the awesome restaurant in the Grand Hyatt at the airport. He had many great stories about running comms at an airport, and I greatly appreciated his insights and hospitality. More importantly, I appreciated his commitment to transparency in digital communications, and was excited to hear about his plans to push the digital envelope in the next iteration of the DFW website. He has a great team that I got to spend some time with – Megan Bozarth who is the marketing manager, and Cynthia Cooper, a marketing specialist. They are working together on DFW’s web presence and are very committed to providing a great experience for air travelers. Brian Murnahan spoke about the challenges of media relations for an airport, and Sarah McDaniel-Langhorst also had an interesting perspective about working in a comms role for an airport. I always assumed the mentality was along the lines of “get them in, get them out,” but Ken and his team are truly committed to creating a pleasant experience throughout the entire airport. That can’t be an easy task – this is an airport that is bigger than all of Manhattan! I’m quite jealous of my colleagues James Florez who is Managing Director of our Dallas office, and Kent Pingel who is day to day project manager on our work for DFW, in that they get to work with this awesome team every day.

The blogosphere is buzzing over CNN firing a producer for blogging. The chatter ranges from conversations around freedom of speech to a dissection of his blog posts, and emotions range from anger over the unfairness of it all to glee from those who are have a differing political viewpoint. I first heard about this on Thursday, and my initial reaction was one of surprise. It seems very 2002 for a media property to fire someone over blogging, especially given blog readership and how many media outlets are encouraging their journalists to blog more. But then I read some of the producer’s posts, both on his personal blog and on Huffington Post. He covers topics with a strong personal point of view and no mincing of words, and could leave readers wondering how his personal perspective influences his work for CNN. To be fair, I don’t believe he had ever disclosed his employer on his blog, but he also didn’t have any disclaimers protecting them either.

So did he deserve to be fired? That isn’t for me to say. I’m curious to know what others think. In the meantime, it did make me realize how critical it is for companies to develop and distribute a policy on employee blogging. What are the rules of engagement, and what are the consequences for violating them? At Burson-Marsteller we encourage employees to participate in social media, although have a few guidelines that must be followed:

• If blogging personally about topics related to the PR or communications industry, we ask for a disclaimer indicating the point of view is personal and not on behalf of the firm.
• If blogging on behalf of the company, the blog must be reviewed before being launched for relevance, and then guidelines are in place around not mentioning clients without their permission, not disclosing confidential information, etc.
• We insist on full transparency when blogging on behalf of the company, and strongly recommend it for personal blogging and social media activities.
• We are willing to coach clients on topics and editorial style, but recommend they do their own writing for blogs. It really is different than other activities we conduct such as speech writing or internal communications.
• We support and abide by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association ethics code around social media participation.

There are other points to the policy, but so much of this is common sense. Companies should develop policies with input from various groups - legal, human resources, regulatory (if applicable), digital, sales, marketing, etc. A frank outline of the risks and opportunities, with a discussion around acceptable behavior can save both companies and employees from difficult scenarios in the long run.

For the record, this post is my personal opinion, and doesn’t necessarily represent the opinions of Burson-Marsteller or WPP.

Update: This story is also covered on “For Immediate Release“. Listen here.

The Financial Times published an article last week advising companies that they could manage the web without the help of PR firms. I agree with my colleague Charlie who runs our digital business in Asia/Pacific who responded to the FT with letter detailing some of the challenges, opportunities, and skills required to navigate the web. Now, admittedly I run the digital business for a PR firm, but whether or not clients pick us, I’d hate for them to go it alone. The Internet is still in very early stages, a digital wild wild west of sorts, and I don’t understand why any company want to risk figuring all of this out for themselves. PR advisers bring unique perspective to digital challenges, just like other professionals do within their respective fields.

From a public relations perspective, think about context - in the era of open communications facilitated by the Internet, your consumer messaging will affect corporate reputation, and vice versa. It is not possible to say one thing to one audience and something completely different to another, at least not without them hearing both sides of your story. PR advisers are uniquely situated to provide context and help guide messaging that creates dialogue with stakeholders while building and protecting a company’s position. Next, think about content. There are so many options for where to participate. Are companies really prepared to figure out what messages are appropriate for different types of sites on their own? What about community, which gives companies the opportunity to build loyalty around their brands based on shared values. Then, think about control. Companies are used to completely controlling their communications messages, but the Internet prohibits that. Instead, companies need to figure out what their most important messages are, and then figure out where they can control them, and where they can influence them, and then participate accordingly. Lastly, there is the very important fact that online chatter dramatically influences offline communications. Having a qualified PR adviser is one sure way to straddle all of these, and many other critical elements of navigating digital media.
Companies may be able to figure all of this out on their own, but why wouldn’t they want a communications adviser who can share broad-based experiences that cut across sectors, stakeholders, and platforms to help clients make the right choices the first time around?

B-M has released a new survey indicating that ‘e-fluentials’ (active and involved individuals who make up around 15% of internet users) in the US are increasingly concerned that hired third parties are leaving biased opinions on consumer web sites.

As opinion leaders, e-fluentials shape many others’ perceptions of brands and products, so their concerns over diminishing trust in the online environment might be considered a harbinger of things to come.

On the surface, such a theory goes against the grain of received wisdom - after all, the internet is super-charging world-of-mouth, that most trusted and impactful of all forms of communication according to multiple surveys (see here, for example), and online consumer opinions are regularly rated as more reliable than other types of marketing, notably advertising of almost any description.

A combination of factors may be eroding this trust, from the open access models adopted by MySpace and other social networks that have made them manna to paedophiles to knowledge that marketers are pulling all sorts of tricks to gain people’s attention, some of them below the belt.

Yet, according to a recent Nielsen survey, this scepticism has yet to reach Asia, with users in seven Asian markets most likely to trust recommendations from consumers, notably Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, India, South Korea and the Philippines.

The study also suggests that Asians (especially South Koreans and Taiwanese) also place a high level of trust on consumer-generated content such as blogs - despite the persistant popularity of bulletin boards, where users are often anonymous and which account for higher levels of traffic than blogs.

One reason for this may be Asians’ respect for authority, a common cultural trait across the region, another could be distrust of print and broadcast media in many markets, which is seen as little more than government propaganda.

Yet another might be the comparatively high levels of security and privacy provided by homegrown social networks such as Cyworld and Mixi, where users can communicate safe in the knowledge that they won’t be pestered by unwanted intruders.

All the more reason for high levels of transparency and authenticity when planning online PR and word of mouth programs in the region.

E-marketer reported on a study conducted by the Deloitte Consumer Product Group that indicated that consumers are accessing and trust consumer-generated product reviews. The data is very convincing, indicating that 99% of respondents find consumer-generated reviews somewhat or very credible. However, only 62% read consumer-generated reviews.  I find it surprising that that 99% find the information credible but only 62% actually access in the information, but either way 62% is a big number. The eMarketer article states, “More than eight in 10 respondents in the Deloitte study who read consumer reviews said that the reviews had affected their buying intentions: either they became more determined to buy the product or they changed their minds and bought a different product altogether.”

As if we needed more proof, this is yet another demonstration of the big stick that consumers now carry, and further proof that marketers need to participate in online conversations with consumers.  Knowing that online reviews are influencing other consumers makes them a critical source of marketing data.  Talk about immediate and actionable feedback. Marketers need to track online feedback, and have a great opportunity to use it to facilitate real-time branding and even impact product development and potentially business operations. CPG companies have it pretty good being able to get this feedback.  I wish we had a system like this for agencies!

I had an interesting day in Washington DC yesterday, spending time with Andy Mirsky of Mirsky and Company at his “Digital Lunch Group.” Every month, local members of the media, law and policy institutes meet and discuss current issues surrounding the intersection of digital life, business, and of course, politics. 

I had the chance to share some thinking regarding how digital fits into integrated communications planning, and more importantly, the opportunity for brands who are willing to become conversational and engage in social media.  I believe the risk to companies today is in NOT participating, and we discussed different ways that companies can scale their involvement.  Our goal (as reporters, lawyers, policy makers or public relations professionals) is relatively simple in theory but difficult in practice: engage in digital dialogue that influences as opposed to controls. 

We also talked a bit about the tendency for marketers to latch on to the shiniest toy - the toy right now being social networks.  Luckily, social networking sites and blogs exist to do such that. MySpace, Facebook and Bebo offer numerous possibilities for ownership of content and advertisements. Companies should not rush out to build their own network without considering the possibility first of participating where others are already congregating.

Michael Bassik, Vice President of Internet Strategy at MSHC Partners, Inc., explained how the web has become a pivotal political communication medium and targeted ad-serving database for 2008 US presidential contenders. Specifically, as ad-spending continues to increase on a yearly basis, political organizations and players are beginning to see the potential return on engagement and ownership in online media, although are still quite hesitant to embrace the opportunity at at spending levels that would be considered best practices by mainstream marketers. His presentation was compelling, and it made me look even more forward to seeing how the election plays out from a digital marketing perspective.

Great discussion this afternoon and thank you Andy for the invitation. For more information regarding the Digital Media Lunch Group and its next meeting at Burson-Marsteller’s office in Washington, DC, please contact Andy Mirsky at (202) 339-0303.

A very astute client forwarded a link to a video on YouTube that I think is a must-see for every client.  We are getting to the stage where companies understand that consumers have lost interest in one way marketing messages but are willing to having conversations with marketers.  However, companies are still struggling with how to maintain some semblance of control while creating a participatory marketing framework.  This funny video, created by an ad agency in Belgium, does a great job of poking fun at the problem while showcasing the potential impact of continuing with marketing business as usual.

Nice job, and thanks Julie and Vickie for the link.

A new survey released by Synovate eNation demonstrates that 8 in 10 Americans know what a blog is and that nearly half have visited a blog.

You’d have to live under a rock in today’s 24/7 media environment to not know what a blog is, and I’d bet that the number who have visited blogs is actually higher. Reading about this study made me think of a client meeting last year. The CEO of a company was asking for digital guidance, but told me he was tired of hearing about blogs and didn’t want to discuss them. About three slides into the presentation I took a glance at his computer screen and was surprised to see a blog on the monitor. I asked him what the site was and he replied, “oh, it is just some guy, he writes every day about current events and politics and is really entertaining. His is the first site I visit every morning.” That was quite the gotcha moment. (And yes, we did discuss blogs after that!)

Anyway, the more important issue really is content. Given user search habits, the delivery mechanism is not at important. What matters is that companies have a push / pull strategy to participating in online conversations. Users access all sorts of web content based on search engine results, including proactive client blogs, microsites, consumer-generated content, and rick-media materials. The key is to have consistent messaging, relevant to targeted groups, in numerous places and formats, that can all be confirmed on a corporate website. And, companies need to recognize that consumers are no longer interested in receiving directive marketing messages, but are quite open to having marketing conversations with companies who are willing to dialogue in a genuine fashion.

Blogs can no longer be considered “emerging media,” especially if 8 in 10 Americans know what they are. And companies can no longer ignore blogs as a significant component of an overall communications strategy.