Tag: social media

Does Advertising Adjacency Affect Corporate Reputation?

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(Note: I have been on a sort of hiatus from blogging as I was on a sabbatical during the fall of 2024 to write a book on public relations theory. Then, based on previous academic articles I have published, I was asked by a book editor to contribute a chapter on corporate reputation. With the book in production and the chapter awaiting my presentation at a conference for feedback, I hope to pick up the pace on the blog again. More about both books when their publication dates near).

Public relations professionals use all forms of tactics, including paid advertising. Public relations professionals also are strategically concerned with the reputations of the organizations they represent. So an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) about advertisers concerned with Meta’s allowing free speech being a threat to ‘brand safety’ caught my eye.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s president, gained lots of attention for recently saying Meta would back off on censorship and allow more free speech on Facebook and the company’s other platforms. There had been complaints that there was a noted bias against conservatives when some posts were given a lower push by an algorithm or accounts blocked entirely. There was even evidence that some of this was done in cooperation with federal government agencies. 

Of course, what is censorship to some is responsible monitoring of misinformation and hate speech. But there again, those are subjective judgements. A difference of opinions and values is not necessarily hate. And many comments labeled misinformation have borne out to be true, from Covid origins to the involvement of Russia in previous elections. 

I’ll leave that debate there.

But the WSJ article pointed out that advertisers are concerned that with the filters off, their digital ads could be adjacent to questionable content. I have wondered about this concept long before there was such a thing as digital advertising.

Brands have placed ads in newspapers and magazines for years, not exactly knowing what editorial or other ad content would appear on the same or adjacent page. If the ad is near content some reasonable people could see as objectionable, would those readers see it as associated with the brand?

Granted, in broadcast media, and magazines with a specific content and tone, ads are also considered sponsorship. There is a reputational factor to consider there.

But in print, and largely in social media advertising, I doubt that many viewers see an ad in their stream as an endorsement or sponsorship of other content in their stream. This is especially true because users can choose who to follow and select their own feeds (unless they just scroll “for you” posts). In other words, users have more agency over what they see than advertisers do.

Are users not savvy enough to realize that advertisers are there to reach them, not to promote others? I would venture to say that they are. 

Also, if professionals are worried about brand safety, what reputation impact would there be if the brand is known to be  encouraging subjective censorship? 

This might be something for brands to do their own research on. Do their key publics—from employees, to customers, to investors and more—factor in they content near corporate branding when they form their own view of the company, ie it’s reputation in their minds? An academic study on this would also be fascinating. 

Or perhaps Meta could use its resources to find an answer to this question. It may be in their own interest to do so.

The PR response to Americans overwhelmed by news

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A recent study by the Knight Foundation showed that Americans are overwhelmed by news, particularly online, and they are adapting by picking a few trusted news sources.

Few. Trusted.

Those are the key words.

I have commented on this phenomenon before, including in a previous post where I proposed social media outlets like Facebook and others divide their content into channels to separate news from noise.

But we are arriving at something else I have predicted. In time, the allure of having so much free accessible content online will become counterproductive to both the news industry and consumers. And this recent study shows that consumers have determined the volume leads to more difficulty in staying informed, not ease.

As is often the case, industry finally changes when consumers change their own behavior. And the behavior of news consumers is a lesson and strategic insight for public relations professionals.

Consumers are self selecting fewer sources of news. Instead of gorging themselves on an open buffet of headlines in a social media stream or clicking through multiple apps and websites, they are ordering off the menu and exercising portion control in their daily diet of news.

They also want trusted sources. There is much anxiety about misinformation and disinformation from unreliable and even nefarious sources online. One example of the scope of the problem is the organized professional response, such as the Institute for Public Relations 2020 Disinformation in Society Report. So consumers are starting to weed out the nonsense and amateur punditry and look for actual news.

Here’s what this means for public relations professionals.

  • media relations rises in importance. The value of news releases and pitching stories to mainstream media was considered at least in part diminished when it was possible to do an end-run on reporters and get our information directly to publics via blogs, social posts and email blasts and other means that appeared alongside traditional media content in the user’s environment. But that may be less likely to be seen if people are only paying attention to a few sources. Or, if they do see it, they may not trust it. The old fashioned notion of “source credibility” as the primary value of earned media is returning.
  • don’t flood the market. We have to remember that even with opt-in email campaigns or engagement efforts on social media, the average person is overwhelmed. Less may be more.
  • reputation precedes content. The study shows trust matters more than ever. Public relations people who know what they are doing have always worked on building and maintaining reputation, not just awareness. Now that has to come first. People evaluate whether they read a newsletter, brochure, blog post or any other content from an organization based on reputation and trust. It does not good to simply push content without building a reputational foundation first.

The bottom line is to remember the public any PR pro wants to reach is likely overwhelmed. The strategy is not to add to the problem, but solve it by becoming among the few trusted sources of information that meets their needs, not just ours.

From the Journals–Defining ‘Public’, Social Media Influencers, Employee Relations

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Periodically I write a blog post about the latest articles and research in public relations journals. Too often, professionals disregard theory and academic research as too abstract to be practical. I find the opposite to be true—theory and practice are far more grounded in reality than isolated experiences, however valuable experience can be. Journal research represents the scientific examination of multiple experiences and/or deep and well-reasoned conceptual thought and can help us explain and predict phenomenon in the public relations field.

Here then is a brief recap of some recent journal articles I found particularly useful (some articles may require subscription or university library access to see full text):

What is a public?

In Looking back and going forward: The concept of the public in public relations theory by Magda Pieczka, in the September 10, 2019 Public Relations Inquiry, the old issue of defining “public” in public relations is addressed and extended. For more than 100 years, intellectuals and public relations professionals have debated the concept of “public” as a group of people. Is it a public or the public? John Dewey and Walter Lippman debated the nature of public and public opinion in the context of journalism and democracy in the 1920s, about the time “public relations” was first being used to describe the field. Pieczka’s article redefines the public in three ways: an audience as a public of shared spaces, a self-organized public of shared attention, and the public as a political and social imaginary. Going beyond defining publics by their relationship to an organization (eg employees, customers, investors, etc.) can expand public relations theory and practice in terms of both strategy and ethics in communicating to build and maintain relationships.

Social Media Influencers

A special issue of The International Journal of Strategic Communication is devoted to social media influencers. Articles look at the key groups within the process of strategic influencer communication: (1) influencer clients, e.g., client organizations and agencies; (2) social media influencers themselves; and (3) audiences. Takeaways include the need to be authentic, strategic, and ethical to avoid crisis and actually achieve objectives that go beyond attention.

Employee Relations

With an increasing number of public relations professionals focused on internal or employee communications, a study of leadership and message styles is helpful. In Relational Communication Messages and Leadership Styles in Supervisor/Employee Relationships (October 2019, International Journal of Business Communication), authors Alan C. Mikkelson, David Sloan, and Colin Hesse show that both for “intimacy” and “dominance” forms of messages are needed whether a leader is task- or relationship-oriented in style. For PR pros in employee communications, this can affect how to counsel managers and the tone of communications written for internal audiences.

A related topic in an article in PR Journal titled Employee Perceptions of CEO Ghost Posting and Voice: Effects on Perceived Authentic Leadership, Organizational Transparency, and Employee-Organization Relationships by Tom Kelleher, Rita Men and Patrick Thelen tackles the issue of PR pros ghost writing posts for CEOs on social media. The authors found that employees expected and tolerated CEO ghost posting, but the voice in those posts was more related to their perceptions of authentic leadership, which inb turn led to better perceptions of organizational transparency, and employee-organization relationship. In other words, employees assume CEOs approve of messages even if they don’t write them. Specifically, when CEO communication on social media was perceived as natural, engaging, personal, conversational, and relationship-oriented, employees tended to perceive the CEO as more authentic, truthful, and genuine and the organization as more transparent. The lesson for PR professionals is that the issue is not whether or not to ghost write, but to work on how you write CEO social posts in an appropriate voice.

Local Media Ad Slide is Concerning

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Earlier today I received an email from the Grand Rapids Business Journal selling its digital sponsored content option.

For $1,100 companies and organizations can place their own stories online, have them pushed as sponsored content on social platforms, and remain in a searchable archive. It’s also called “native advertising” or the old-fashioned “advertorial.”

Previously I wrote an online column/blog for GRBJ. Others continue to do so on topics ranging from media to law. It’s a win-win–local professionals establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry and the publication gets free content.

It’s also a sign of the times.

I subscribe to GRBJ, as I do other local media and trade publications, because I still like the experience of reading print. But also I feel a sort of obligation to patronize local media the way I do other local businesses, so they can stay in business.

Reading this week’s print copy of the GRBJ, after getting the pitch for sponsored content, I was struck by the ads more than the editorial. In a 16-page publication there are 12 total ads, with 9 of them being house ads from GRBJ touting its events, its subscription options, and other sister publications such as Grand Rapids Magazine. In this issue there are 1.75 paid ad pages.

This may be why they’re pitching sponsored content. I mean, even Forbes has been doing that in recent years. And a lot of the media planners are going not just to digital, but to bloggers, podcasts, their own content-driven owned media, and social platforms.

I’m hoping this may all be the result of light ad inventory post-holiday, or that the sponsored content push is just reflective of new ownership and not desperation.

As a public relations professional/professor and just a member of the community, I certainly hope it doesn’t portend the end of a vital contributor of community information. Perhaps the incentive for some of us to buy ads is not just reaching audience but saving the channel.

A Humble Proposal to Make Social Media Useful, and Journalism Better

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Initially, when it was new, social media was supposed to be a great equalizer. But it hasimages not worked out so well. What was supposed to hasten in an “Arab Spring” in some parts of the world has led instead to regime crackdown on technology. In China the government is using technology to act more like Big Brother to monitor every area of private life rather than to respond to citizen voices.

Here in the U.S., what was supposed to be “media democracy” has instead become more of a media cacophony, with multiple screaming voices and outright misinformation or actual “fake” news.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times asserts that social networks need to address this problem as a system error, and not react in real-time on a case by case basis. The article frets–as you might suspect from the NYT–that journalists should not have to do the job of policing the content on social networks. The social networks have that responsibility, and they are failing at it.

I’m not a tech guru by any stretch, but I have a humble suggestion to address the problem, to fix the “signal to noise” ratio, to return to quality vs quantity of posts, and to realize that on matters of truth and democracy, in our modern era the “marketplace if ideas” has become a third-world bazaar and we might appreciate a row of simple boutiques.

OK, maybe that’s a bad metaphor. But here is my thinking:

Social networks should start a separate channel just for news. This returns us to the old days when “bonafide” journalism was obvious to recognize by publication or network or program. Participants in this channel should be vetted as professional news organization, and this may include new media, but they must prove themselves to be legitimate in coverage of facts and to clearly label opinion where that is the nature of content (as the old op-ed pages in actual print do). They should ensure a non-partisan tone and focus on informing the public of facts, policy proposals, and straightforward information from business, sports, entertainment and other beats also. They could even hire journalists to do this.

Another channel should be set aside for brands. This would be where users could choose to see the content originally associated with pages. If people actually want to have a relationship and stay informed about a company, its products and services, or even its cause-related activity, this is the place for it.

Still another channel could be dedicated to causes. This is where nonprofits could shine, engaging users in fundraising, education, volunteer recruitment, and activism campaigns.

The government would have its own channel called civics. The White House, the state house, city hall, government agencies and office holders at all levels could communicate to constituents directly here.

Finally there would be a channel called, wait for it, social. This is where people could engage with their friends and family in a social nature.

If individuals wanted to share news, brands, causes or civics information, they could. But links back would take users to those channels to view the original content and engage in any discussion.

I don’t know if Facebook wants to try this and roll out the new feature for Christmas. Or, maybe there is an enterprising start-up out there reading this who can enter the market competitively by offering sanity with their social network. I don’t have the time, finances, or tech chops to roll this out myself. But if anyone wants to compensate me for the idea, I’m listening.
I’m also listening to what anyone else has to say about this issue.