Communication goes viral

Communication Goes Viral How the Network Society infects us all

Written by: Kasperi Aaltonen, Denise van der Lans, Cindy Man & Luigia Serbanescu

How the minor #GetConnected got us inspired for writing Communication goes viral Firstly, let us introduce ourselves: We are, Kasperi Aaltonen, Denise van der Lans, Luigia Serbanescu and Cindy Man, four students that started the minor #GetConnected at the University of Applied Science in Rotterdam.

Kasperi, an exchange student from Finland, normally studies Engineering. He loves to explore in international studies. Denise, Cindy and Luigia are students from the Netherlands all studying communication as last year students. Denise takes part in the honours programme at the HRO and has a lot of passion for internal communication. Cindy has strong believes about engagement and branding and tries to accelerate in these topics. Luigia has a lot of ambition to start an entrepreneurship and will make a start at the end of the minor.

During our minor #GetConnected we came across a lot of new and interesting subjects, but mostly we have met a lot of interesting people that really inspired us to write Communication Goes Viral. Within the #GetConnected journey we have met a lot of people on the Social Media Week in Rotterdam. We have gained very useful information from them, which helped us write this E-book. Our special thanks goes to Frank Janssen, owner of Frankwatching a big online marketing blog in the Netherlands, who pushed us in the right direction by explaining his view on the new role of the communication professional.

We are also very happy that we had the opportunity to speak with Henk Rietmeester, Ton Overbeek (both from LinkedIn the Netherlands) and Inge Wallage (IWA). At last we want to thank our teachers Komala Mazerant-Dubois and Monique Abbenbroek for not only teaching us, but also coaching us with a lot of enthousiasm.

With all the insights we’ve got from these people, our lectures and guest lectures, we think that there is a huge change in the communication world.

The next page will explain the storyline of our E-book.

Why is the network society infecting us all?

We live in a world where everything is constantly changing. Companies have a lot to adjust to, if they don’t want to fall behind. We think that the biggest change now is in communication. Everyone has access to it and everyone should use it.

This is also a case with companies, there should not be just one communication department, the whole company should be involved in the communication of an organization. This is important because nowadays almost every department has contact with the customers. This makes them the face of the company, but they are also the ones that hear what the customers have to say. We think that listening to the customers and letting employees involve this in to the organization, is the key to a succesfull company. To accomplish this, communication professionals should train the employees, or better said: infect them with communication that goes around them.

In this book we will guide you through the most important subjects in the network society and give advice how to incorperate this in your company with the help of the other employees. Instead of chapters we’ll be talking about the phases of a virus. Through out the whole E-book we will refer to the communication department by using the term PR- professional. We will do this because we think that internationaly the term PR- professional covers the most of the role of a communication department.

But first, meet joe:

Table of contents “Phase 1: Virus detected” - - - - - -

Basics of PR Engagement Online changes How do other companies deal wh this?

Why should everyone get infected with communication?

Vision

6 7 7 8 9 9

“Phase 2: The infection spreads” - - - - - -

Meaning of a network How is a network build The effect of social media in this network society Case study: Digital brand communities of Adidas New possibilities Vision

10 11 12 13 14 15

“Phase 3: Psychological symptoms” - - - - -

Basics of psychology Recognizing psychological effects in social media Neuromarketing in PR Case Study: Battle Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola Vision

16 17 18 19 20

“Phase 4: Investigating the infection” - An audience with an audience with audiences - Social media monitoring, what is it and what is the value of it?

- Social media monitoring tools - Vision

21 22 22 23

- -

24 26

“Phase 4.1 Results of the investigation”

Research Research outcome

“Phase 5: Accepting the virus and using it” - - -

The principals of influences Importance of engagement Vision

27 30 32

“Phase 6: Managing the infection” - - - - -

Conversation management Social media listening strategy The role of offline listening Reorganize communication department Vision

33 34 36 36 37

“Phase 7: Infecting other people” - - - - -

Social media engagement What is spreadable content?

Creating spreadable content.

Uncertainty of spreadability Vision

38 39 40 41 42

“Phase 8: Giving the virus borders” - - - -

Definition of ethics in PR PR -professional and ethics New influence of unethical behaviour Vision

Conclusion: “The virus is already spreading” “Sourcelist” “Appendix 1” : Research approach

43 45 46 47

Phase 1: Virus detected The influence of the online world in PR The world is changing into a more technological world. People share things online, companies sell things online and consumers search things online. A digital world full of information and new opportunities. This change also influences the field of communication. Communication is becoming more and more important.

In the industry we rather talk about the definition Public Relations. Barros Barbosa and Van der Linden say this is a planned and well committed effort to create mutual understanding between an organisation and its public. It is meant to be a reputation builder for a company. In this chapter we will explain why we think that employees should be more involved in PR. We are going to explain this by first explaining the basics of PR and engagement. Afterwards we will tell the changes from the online world and give some examples on how other companies deal with this. We will finish of with our vision and explain why we think that everyone should be infected with communication.

Basics of PR Strategic PR has to be completely in line with the business strategy and will enhance the strategic position of the company or brand. Bringing a business strategy consistently under the eyes of the public for a long period of time will build the reputation of the company or brand. It is all about building a relationship with the public by a continuing effort of engagement to influence perceptions. A continues development of this engagement is essential for organisations to maintain a strong position in the brain of their public. A strong brand shows itself by making clear promises and needs strong evidence to show that the promises will be true.

PR contributes to building a strong reputation by creating and making content that highlights those promises and consider both the functional and emotional benefits of a product.

Customers take both aspects in consideration before they buy the product. 1 To make this change in communication easier to understand, the following model, on the next page, is a visualisation of how PR can work nowadays with as goal to get ambassadors for the brand.

Model 1 The following model starts by listening and looking at current trends. Then communicate by inventing a strong concept, which could be carried through PR. Getting the attention from journalists and consumers would be the best result. This can create a feeling of engagement, which leads to ambassadors of the product/brand. Nowadays this should be a goal for every company.

1 De PR-Factor, C. de Barros Barbosa and C. van der Linden, 2013

Engagement A term that is used often within PR nowadays is engagement.

Trying to define engagement is difficult, because when is someone really engaged with a brand or organisation? There are hundreds of different definitions when it comes to engagement, some provided by literature others by interpretations of organisations.

For example Jay Henderson, director of strategy at IBM, gives the following definition of engagement: Engagement represents a two-way communication between a brand and consumers. But Matt Rednor, vice president of global strategy and analytics of MRY, claims that engagement is any action a consumer takes with the content provided by the brand. As well a like, as a view, as a comment or share. 2 Within these hundreds of definitions of engagement, there is also an humongous amount of different interpretations of employee engagement.

The web community, The Social Workplace ,gathered 50 different definitions of employee engagement. 3 One of the 50 people, that gave their own interpretation to employee engagement mentioned the name Daniel Pink. Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, has shared his view regarding to employee engagement. He states: Social tools and processes materially contribute to Employee Engagement by addressing and enabling the core components of intrinsic motivation. 4 Read more about what motivates people in chapter 7.

Earlier this chapter, the importance of employees for PR -professionals was already discussed.

The following definition of engagement includes the most commonly noted elements or marks of an engaged client AND/OR employee. Therefore we think the perfect definition of engagement for a PR –professional would be: Engagement is an obvious state of enthusiasm noticeable by effort, pride and passion, which enhances a mutually committed relationship between organizations and their audience, resulting in a continuous pursuit of organizational and personal goals.

Online changes As a PR -officer it is important to know how to go along with the changes of social media. The amount of active people on social media is huge. There are 1.317 billion people active on Facebook, 200 million people on Instagram, 255 million people on Twitter and 300 million people on LinkedIn. It is very likely that a company will find their target group in on one of these media. 5 A lot of people think that social media is especially for people till the age of 30, but some facts will change this image. The average profile age of the people on Twitter is 35, for LinkedIn this is 40 years old. Facebook used to be for the age till 30, now the users are most likely between 35 and 54 years. 6 Instagram maintains for the ages under the 30.

Social media is the way of sharing on the internet. On social media the amounts of sharing is a lot. For example, as said in the book Share This: the social media handbook for PR -professionals: every minute, 60 hours of video is uploaded on Youtube, there are 95 million tweets a day, 85% of the bloggers post more than once a week, and 57% of people talk more online then they do in 2 http://digiday.com/brands/how-brands-define-engagement/ 3 http://www.thesocialworkplace.com/2012/07/50-shades-of-engagement/ 4 The surprising truth about what motivates us, Daniel H. Pink, 2009 5 http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/2/ 6 Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR, Chareted Institue of Public Relations Social Media Panel

real life.

A companies target group is almost more online than in real life. That’s why it is important to start using social media for PR.

How do other companies deal with this?

KLM is one of the biggest airlines in the Netherlands, and also famous for their creative and good use of social media. KLM writes a lot of blogs about their way of handling social media, they do this because a lot of companies want to know what KLM´s social media strategy is.

The first thing they mention is that they not wanted to use social media because everyone else is doing it, but they wanted it to have a purpose. They actively started to listen and observe what their customers do online and they noticed that they communicate a lot with each other about their experiences. KLM wanted to be a part of this, with social media.

After the erupting in April 2010 of the Icelandic volcano, KLM really noticed how good it is to help customers through social media. A lot of flights in Europe were cancelled because much of Europe air was covered by an ash cloud. A lot of travelers had questions and needed information, social media was perfect for this. After this happening KLM set up a Social Media Hub, so KLM could always tackle a crisis situation using social media. 7 This Social Media Hub is formed by different backgrounds, so the team has a synergy of sharing their experts. The Social Media Hub of KLM is formed by communications, e-commerce, customer care, ticketing, marketing, operations and cabin crew. Not only communications or customer care is important, but almost every department. This is an effective way of working because all the information, experience and knowledge is in one team. 8 The blogs of KLM show that social media is not something you just do. It takes a lot of information and observation and more than just a communication or customer care department.

Because social media does not only need a communication department anymore, an interesting interview with Frank Janssen, owner and founder of Frankwatching, showed that a PR-professional could have a way different purpose in social media.

In this interview Frank was giving his vision about the role of a PR-professional. A PR-professional can not control the social media anymore. Communication is something that everybody could do, but a PR-professional has more experience and knowledge about the subject. This is why a PR-professional should not do all the social work, but instead train the employees how to involve the knowledge about social media and communications.

7 https://blog.klm.com/klms-social-media-strategy-part-1/ 8 https://blog.klm.com/klms-social-media-strategy-part-2/

Why should everyone get infected with communication?

We know that the role of a PR -professional is changing and with the insights from KLM and Frank Janssen we could confirm that it is not anymore about doing your function, it is about training the other employees and involving them in the process.

If employees involve this knowledge in their function, everything would be more effective. As KLM says, the employees with different backgrounds, knowledge and experience can give the best advices in social media.

Because, how do we know what the customers want without the employees?

To explain this even more, there is an example of a Dutch Hospital called Augustinus Hospital.

What they did there is that they gave every department a budget to spend on their department.

The funny thing about this was that every department did something else. The children department painted the walls into an aquarium, while other departments did something more serious. The thing about this is that the employees are the ones that really get to know the customers. They know them by name, they know what they want and how they are feeling during their stay or during their use of service or product. This makes the employees connected with the customers. A PR-professional would not know what these patients desire to see in a hospital.

And this is also with other companies, the communication department is not really connected with the customers themselves. So it would not be effective to use social media without knowing the customers. Therefore you need to involve the employees.

Vision This book will focus on the employees because they are nowadays the only ones who get an individual interaction with the customers. It can be through social media, through the phone, e-mail or even face-to-face. A communication department has a lot of knowledge about how to communicate with customers, but they are not really in the field themselves. An employee has interaction everyday with their customers and every department has different customers. It is not possible for a communication department to interact successfully with all these different customers. That is why we think that training your employees will be the new role of the PR -professional. This way the whole company will have a good communication with the customers and therefore the brand engagement and reputation will grow. In the next chapter about the network society we explain why this is important.

Phase 2: The infection spreads The network society Manuel Castells defines network society as following: “Network society is a society where the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information networks.” But how is a network build?

Nowadays a lot of networks are active on social media and customers use their network to achieve what they desire. As a company it is important to understand what a network is and how it is build. This way companies can use this knowledge to get customers in their own network.

Meaning of a network The basics of exploring and understanding the network society in this part is based on a theory formed by a sociologist named Mark Granovetter. In his explanation of a network he uses the phrases strong and weak ties. The definition “strenght” of a tie is a combination of the emotional intensity, the amount of time, the intimacy, and the reciprocal services which characterizes the tie. Each one of these are somehow independent from the others. The four characteristics together are sufficient to measure whether a given tie is strong or weak.

To make it easier to understand; a strong tie represents the people with close relationships, such as close family included mothers, fathers, siblings and bff’s.

A weak tie represents people who know each other, but do not see each other occasionally, teachers and neighbours for example.

But what gives a better outcome and works more effectively for a network society? The paper of Granovetter shows the usefulness of certain types of ties in certain situations within a network.

Based on a survey he took, it seems like 56% of people who got their jobs through contacts, saw their contacts occasionally, but only 28% said they saw their contacts rarely. This implies that finding a job through a strong tie is more common and maybe even more effective. It also shows that jobs contacts are a very close network.

On the other hand, in network societies, weak ties are more likely to link different groups together and provide a way of connecting the literatures on small groups or families with more macro-sized discussions of social structure.

This means that weak ties can amplify the network society much more than strong ties that are limited because of the close network.

The conclusion therefore might be that for a better diffusion across a network, it is the weak ties that are most valuable. 9

9 https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/the_strength_of_weak_ties_and_exch_w-gans.pdf

How is a network build A lot of people say that we live in a small world, they say this because they know each other through each other’s acquaintances. If people would use their network more often they would notice that they can reach a lot of people just by using the network they already have.

A theory to keep in mind is the theory of Six Degrees of Separation. This is the ‘small world’ study of Milgram which shows that two individuals anywhere in the world could trace the connections between them within five steps. 10 Within six people, a message can be all over the world. With the upcoming of social media new theories have been raised.

Social media and other digital networks makes connecting easier. There is no longer control over who receives messages anymore. There is also no longer an epicentre.

On Facebook people can see shared friends and on LinkedIn people can see how they are connected with each other. Through social media, it becomes easier to make a big network.

Research found that the average number of links from one selected person to a ‘stranger’ was 4,74.11 Twitter shows it is 4,67 steps. Figure 1.0 shows that there is a difference between the amount of people’s connections in a social network. 12 When the possibilities of digital networking grows, the network society will become stronger.

Getting information from all over the world will be easier with a wide network. For companies this is usefull while thinking of PR. A satisfied customer can lead to a lot of more satisfied customers, because his or her positive reaction can go all over the world.

10 Solis, B. ‘The end of business as usual’ 11 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/technology/between-you-and-me-4-74-degrees.html?_r=2& 12 http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/sixdegrees/

The effect of social media in this network society The changes in social media are getting more and more important in PR. The growth of the whole networking- and social media field has created new expectations, possibilities and challenges for the PR nowadays. In the recent years, PR in social media has evolved towards small active fan groups and core customers. These people combined create digital brand communities.

The digital brand communities consists of the most active customers of the brand. Members of these communities are absorbing news and information through different social media platforms. The most common platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

The main reasons why digital brand communities are so important for PR, can be summarized into two basic advices; focus on quality over quantity of fans and keep it simple and compelling.

Both of them are filled, because digital brand communities are already focusing on only the most important active customers and through social media communication has to be compressed and catching, in order to be effective and make it work.

There are various ways how to do PR in these digital brand communities. The most common way is simply advertise the products and/or services. However, if a company really wants to do effective PR work in digital brand communities,they should have a strategy, just like in PR. Some of the biggest companies have a real time social media team, who are always online and following the important events and happenings which are related to the company’s agenda. This team needs to be aware of everything what is happening, and they are reacting to it as soon as possible, to achieve the cutting edge compared to company’s competitors. The real time social team provides information to the digital brand communities within minutes when something is happening.

In overall, PR in digital brand communities is more about creating an image and feeding the certain lifestyle to the company’s biggest fans. The fans want to be the first to know about certain things considering the company and they want to maintain the strong feelings that they have towards the company and the brand. In digital brand communities, companies can offer almost anything from product sneak peeks to exclusive video chats with the biggest names in the scene, from “being an important part of the brand community” –feeling to discount prices and customized products. As a competitor in the market, a company should be able to offer more and more interesting and hooking things into the digital brand communities. The competition is hard nowadays and you have to be able to stand out from the grey mass.

The case study on the next page will give an impression of a branc community

Case study: Digital brand communities of Adidas Adidas social media campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2014 started through digital brand communities. Adidas was preparing the biggest social media campaign of their history years before the kick-off of the first match on June 12, 2014. They created the catchphrase; “all in or nothing”. This catchphrase was in the center of all Adidas social media marketing and PR work, and also in print paper marketing.

The catchphrase was shortened to the more suitable form for social media: #allin . With the hashtag, it is possible to connect and search posts and information which is related to the same subject. Through social media and especially digital brand communities, Adidas introduced their upcoming products, specially designed for World Cup months before the kick off.

With exclusive previews and sneakpeeks, Adidas offered the most of it’s loyal fans an inside peek, so that the fans are the first to know that is coming next month. Some of the world’s best and the most popular players are in team Adidas, they offered a unique way for the fans to get in contact with their favourite players through video chats and live chats.

Adidas used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to get in contact with all the different digital brand communities they have. Adidas had a clear strategy to use the same visual and textual style in all of it’s pictures, texts and videos they released. As Adidas is the main sponsor of FIFA, their products were used in the tournament. One of the biggest products they provided, was the official matchball, Adidas Brazuca.

They organized a huge campaign for the ball, opened up a personal Twitter page and even created an identity to the football ball. 2 months after the last game of the world cup, the Brazuca Twitter account had 3.3 million followers.

The World Cup 2014 social media campaign was a huge success to Adidas. Adidas was the most viewed football brand in YouTube, most increased followers in all social media platforms and their slogan #allin was the most used brand hashtag in Twitter. Product coverage was also success; both of the teams, Argentina and Germany, who played in final has Adidas as the main sponsor.

The best goal scorer and the best player of the tournament were also in team Adidas. 13

13 http://adage.com/article/global-news/embedded-adidas-social-media-team-world-cup/294016/, http://www. campaignbrief.com/2014/07/adidas-wins-battle-of-real-tim.html, http://www.businessinsider.com/how-adidas-prepares-its-world-cup-tweets-2014-7, http://www.dcmarketingpro.com/blog/bid/391135/Effective-Social-Media-Marketing-From-Adidas-At-The-World-Cup, https://twitter.com/adidas https://www.facebook.com/adidas http://instagram.com/adidas https://www.youtube.com/user/adidas http://news.adidas.com/Global

New possibilities Through the internet, everyone can be connected with eachother. Consumers use this big network to find more possibilities. For example collective networking.

Collective networking has grown more popular by means of digitalisation. Doing things collectively is easier, faster and most of all more efficient. Collective networking can be divided into collective intelligence and collective funding.

Collective intelligence The term collective intelligence can be used in many different fields of study. The definition for collective intelligence can be compressed into one sentence; Groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent. The main goal of collective intelligence is to be able to be more intelligent than a computer, a group or any individual can be. The two of the most important areas, where collective intelligence is used, are computer science/artificial intelligence and business organizations.

Collective intelligence is a very extensive and effective way to gather information and/or pursue towards specific function. It combines the best features of computer and human; unlimited data storage and high performance calculation from computer, and logic thinking and organizing from human.

Peer-to-peer networking is a common type of collective intelligence. In peer-to-peer network, the users are not in contact with centralized servers, but in straight contact with other users.

Every user connected in peer-to-peer network is sharing resources and data. File-sharing peer-to-peer networks, such as BitTorrent, user downloads the data straight from the other users, generally from many users at one time.

The most well-known use of collective intelligence is encyclopedia Wikipedia. The basic principle of Wikipedia is that everyone can share their knowledge and information through free encyclopedia. Users create articles or modify articles which already exist. 14 Collective financing Collective buying is getting more popular, customers are intrigued of the possibility to get big discounts compared to normal retailer stores. The basic thing about collective buying is that customers are in contact to each other’s through internet sites for example, and decide to buy a big batch of product straight from the producer or from the importer. Cutting away all the middle men, the price of the product is lower. There are websites which gathers people wanting to buy something together, and after it they will make an order to the producer. The principle of collecting sharing is almost the same as in collective buying. People who need products and/or services are associated with each other, and people who offer products are in the same network.

People in need can find that way products to borrow from someone who does not need it.

Collective funding, also known as crowdfunding, is a way to raise money for some practice. Crowdfunding means that various people fund something together, without knowing each other’s. Typical place to gather money is internet, there are sites where it is possible to tell about the product or practice or fundraising to different targets and advertise it.

14 http://scripts.mit.edu/~cci/HCI/index.php?title=Main_Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer http://edge.org/conversation/collective-intelligence

Vision Now we have shown the power of collaboration in the network society, for companies it is important to know that customers are more likely to work together nowadays to accomplish what they want. They are more willing to move their boundaries. Employees should keep that in mind and try to think with the customers instead of for the customers. Otherwise customers will try to solve the problem by themselves or search for other options. This could result in two competitors for companies, the collective network society and other companies. As you can see it is important for a PR -professional to changes with this net network society. In the next chapter we will explain how to influence this network society with psychology.

Phase 3: Psychological symptoms Psychological effects of marketing To get your customers attached to your brand or organization it is usefull to dive a bit deeper into the effects of psychology in PR. Psychologicly there are a lot of interesting facts why people choose a specific brand. These facts are usefull to keep in mind. At first we’re going to tell something about the basics and how a company can recognize emotions in social media. After that we dive a bit deeper with information from Roeland Dietvorst, a neuromarketing specialist, about neuromarketing and how this can effect PR.

Basics of psychology It is important to know that social media is about sociology and psychology more than technology. 15 It is not about using social media, it is about why people are using them. Social media is a way to communicate with the audience, but in real life, it is important to know why they are communicating with each other.

Tajfel developed the social identity theory that predicts intergroup behaviours based on the individuals perceived status in an intergroup environment. This theory focuses on the relationship between self-concept and group behaviour. People can act in different ways in different times. This is due to the situation of the group membership. 16 To make this more clear: when FC Barcelona wins a match, the fans are filled with pride and are extremely happy, as if they had played in the match themselves. Social identity theory also tells us that when Feyenoord loses, a true fan will look for other reasons why their team lost, without pointing the finger at their team. Due to the fact that a person has already been positively identified with their club, the fans will do anything to defend the club, so they do not damage their own self-esteem.

Figure 1.0 by Saul Kassin 15 Solis, B. ‘The end of business as usual’ 16 https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/PSYCH484/8.+Intergroup+Theories+(Integrated+Threat,+Social+Identity,+and+Social+Dominance)

Figure 1.0 shows how the need for self-esteem results into self-esteem. This self-esteem consists of personal identity and social identities. Throughout the course of their life people develop themselves into the way they are, this is called the personal identity. Social identities are the marks you receive because of your social groups. This can be divided in favouritism toward ingroups and derogation of outgroups. 17 There are different reasons why people connect to social networks, because the common divisor, altruism, hedonism and tribalism.

- The common divisor is about sharing the same interest, like online communities.

- Altruism is about doing something good, people think it is nice to give other people

advices or reviews.

- Hedonism is about having fun, people enjoy it when they do things online.

- Tribalism is about people wanting to involve social networks because they want to build

up their status.

These four reasons are important to keep in mind when social media is being used. 18 People want to be involved in groups because they have a need to belong and because of their self-conception. PR- professionals can take the social identity theory in account to build up a strong online brand community.

Recognizing psychological effects in social media Emotions have a big effect on people’s behaviour in social media. As a PR -professional, it is important to know how basic psychology works and how people see, feel and react to things in social media. To be able to do PR and marketing in social media, it is important to recognize customers their mood, how it affects the brain and the decisions the customer is going to make.

Different emotions make customers act differently in social media. New research from the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow shows that human emotions can be divided to only four different types; - happy - sad - afraid/surprised - angry/disgusted Knowledge and information from this research can be very helpful for PR professionals. 19 Happiness is a quite neutral emotion, but it is the most common one in social media. Joy and happiness is created in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain. It is a basic emotion, which makes us share content in social media. The most shared social media content, so called viral content, is most likely to be super positive and full of happy and joyful emotions. 20 Other side of the happiness is sadness and sorrow. It is created in the same parts of the brain as happiness. When feeling sadness, it is easier to connect and empathize with others. A study by Paul Zak shows, that when feeling sad, the brain releases neurochemicals such as cortisol and oxytocin. These hormones create the feeling of connection and empathy. Paul Zak about the research: “Our results show why puppies and babies are in toilet paper commercials, this research suggests that advertisers use images that cause our brains to release oxytocin to build trust in a product or brand, and hence increase sales.� 21 17 https://wikispaces.psu.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=104497879 18 http://www.dutchmarq.nl/psychologie-achter-sociale-netwerken-in-b2b/ 19 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/new-research-says-there-are-only-four-emotions/283560/ 20 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/science/good-news-spreads-faster-on-twitter-and-facebook.html?pagewanted=all

Fear is controlled by the amygdala, small part in the center of the brain. Amygdala is about basic instincts, what to do when we are scared or facing a scary situation. “The theory in the paper is that when we are afraid, we want to share that experience with others and when others are not present, we can successfully share that experience with an available brand.” – Lea Dunn of the University of British Columbia. It is possible to form a relationship with the brand, just like with other humans, and when scared, it is easier to get attached to something. 22 Anger and disgust is controlled by hypothalamus. Hypothalamus is in the core of the brain, which creates all our basic instincts from thirst to sexual satisfaction. Anger and stubbornness affect opinions. Rude and angry comments in social media makes people more certain about their opinions and beliefs. 23 To be able to do the PR work in social media more effectively, it is important to interact with the customers while keeping emotions and their reactions and affects in mind. It is possible to get that cutting edge advantage compared to competition by using social media PR effectively.

Neuromarketing in PR Now knowing that people get self-esteem from the need of self-esteem and knowing that different emotions brought up by a company can have an influence on how customers see the brand, neuromarketing will make PR more easy. Neuromarketing goes a bit more in depth.

Neuroscientist Roeland Dietvorst explains that neuromarketing is all about one part in the brain, the nucleus accumbens. An easier word for this part is the reward center. To explain something more about the brain, there are two parts; an ‘old’ part and a ‘new’ part.

The old part, is what every animal has. It’s the instinct to survive. The new part is the more developed part, this is the part that makes us human and with it we can think more rationally.

The nucleus accumbens is a part in the old brain.

Neuromarketing is trying to trigger this part. The thing with nucleus accumbens is that it is a instinct part of your brain, and it is hard control it. This part also drives our buying behaviour. So, it is very important to keep this brainpart in mind when thinking of a campaign.

For example the research of Pavlov; the trick with the dog. Whenever the bell rings the dog gets food. So when the bell rings and the dog didn’t get his food yet, he’s already drooling because in his mind he knows that he will get the food after the bell rings.This is a response in the brain.

This is also possible with humans. When they see a campaign they like, the nucleus accumbens will react when they see the brand name again. This is because the brand name reminds them of the campaign they liked, and this makes them want to buy the product.

What happens here is that the nucleus accumbens becomes active, because they get reminded of something they like (humor, a good looking person or whatsoever). When the nucleus accumbens becomes active, the person starts wanting things. At that moment they become less rational and they just want to reward themselves.

For companies it is very important to try to make the nucleus accumbens active by their target group. Because when they accomplish this the people will buy the products easily.

21http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101115160404.ht 22 http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/customer-loyalty-horror-movies.html 23 http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/fall-2010/the-physiology-of-stress-cortisol-and-the-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis#.VCgUODadDqo

A few tips to keep in mind while triggering the nucleus accumbens: -

-

Use a maximum of 3 arguments when you sell your product. Too much information shuts down the unconsious brain, this means that the rational brain gets involved and then it becomes harder to convince someone. So it is not the content that matters, but the amount.

Make the campaign in a way that people will remind the campaign as something very nice. This can be done for example with a funny campaign or a sexxual campaign.

The case study: Battle Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola will give an example.

Case Study: Battle Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola Neuromarketing has marketing in its name, but it has also a lot to do with PR and having a favorite brand. A case study of Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola will explain this more.

For the PR -professional it is important to build the strength of brand. Neuromarketing shows us how important this can be. A finding that is in accordance with the research undertaken in 1975 by Montague, shows how the brain works. 24 The study used two brands for research and it shows that branding really works.

There is an ongoing battle between the two cola brands: Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In the first part of the study there is a traditional blind taste test conducted. During drinking, the brains activity of the participants were measured. This research showed that more than half of the participants thought Pepsi tasted better than Coca-Cola. And this was also clearly visible in our brains. But in the second part of the research there was a real difference in outcome.

The researchers wanted to know what happens in the brains when people know what brand they were drinking. The outcome was not the same as in the first part of the experiment. 75% of the participants said they preferred Coca-Cola over Pepsi. This is far more than when they did not know what they were drinking. Even the brain activity was completely different than in the first part of the study. In the research, it was shown that in the brain there was another component activated, which is responsible for the reasonable thinking. There was an internal struggle in the brain between doing what people like and what they find delicious.

The race was won by Coca-Cola. The brains choose the brand over taste.

24 http://brainu.org/files/tn_whose_choice_montague.pdf

Vision Neuromarketing, used for PR can be a very successful tool to get your customers engaged with your brand. As the example of Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi tells, people don’t look at the product itself anymore but only at the brand itself. We think that employees have a lot do with this.

As a campaign is the tool for marketing, employees are the tool for PR. While a campaign can trigger a lot in the human mind, we think that employees do the same. If you have two different companies with great products, the customers will get engaged mostly with the company where the employees treat them well, or better said: treat them with emotions. If employees would interact more with their customers with neuromarketing in the back of their mind they would realize that they can trigger the nucleus accumbens very easily. Instead of buying a product, the customer will engage with the employees and therefore also with the brand.

Phase 4: Investigating the infection Social media monitoring This chapter will tell more about monitoring how the public talks about a product, brand or an organization. With this information companies have more insight on their online reputation. Companies can react on their customers this way or try to solve the problem within the company. Everyone in the company should be aware that messages go really fast through the internet, also negative messages. To monitor these there are different monitoring tools for social media.

An audience with an audience with audiences A few years ago a PR -professional had the choice to choose the audience. There was a choice to give a presentation for a specific group, or to send a message to a specific group and or to make an advertisement on a television station for a specific group. But nowadays a PR -professional has no longer the choice to choose the audience. Everyone can be the audience. There is a way how a PR -professional can still influence the audience: by training the employees of their company.

Employees are the ones who present the company, they keep in touch with all the customers and suppliers. Customers also have a lot of social graphs. Social graphs show how people are connected which each other. Figure 1.0 shows that one person can have an audience with an audience with audiences, so a message can go fast. All the employees, from every different field have to know what the ‘guidelines’ of the company’s communication are and they have to know what the consequences can be.

(figure 1.0)

There is a difference between an online and an offline audience. The combination of these two are very strong, they can easily double the audience. Brian Solis says that it is now about how it is possible to trigger the public to share something online. Research shows that people share something to receive reactions, because these reactions satisfy and reward the activity. 25 Companies have to be aware about what is going on in the social network. Social media monitoring can help a company to search on the web for a lot of information about their company. 26

Social media monitoring, what is it and what is the value of it?

Social media monitoring is a way to measure how the company is doing on different social media platforms. There are a lot of tools that can help monitoring this. 27 With social media monitoring a company can see what people say about their organisation, brand or even campaign. Depending on the tool, it is possible to search whether the posts are positive or negative. An example of a free tool is Google Alerts. When searching on a name of a campaign, Google Alerts shows news related posts, blogs that mention the campaign name and websites about the subject. This is a more effective way to search what other people say about the company or campaign than just using Google. 28 If a company wants to know more in depth about this and wants to know more about what people post about their company on social media, they can use different kinds of tools for this.

More about these tools will be explained later this chapter.

The value of social media monitoring is that companies know what people say about them, their brands and campaigns. With this information companies can not only develop themselves, but even more important, react on this.

Social media monitoring tools It is hard to keep track of all the things said through social media. Brands and companies struggle to get real data and information about what people are saying concerning them. Social media monitoring tools are made to ease this struggle. With social media monitoring tools companies can get accurate results of what is going on in the social media.

It is possible to compare, monitor, record and track all the data moving through social media with these tools. After analyzing gathered data, companies can keep an eye of the reputation of the company and build up marketing campaigns with the help of the data.

Monitoring Monitoring different social platforms can be done with one tool, but it is important to remember that the customer activity and actions are different when comparing Twitter and Facebook for example. Nowadays, the social media platforms are getting more integrated, which means it is possible to search content from only one social media platform and get results from various platforms: for example a tweet can be shared via Facebook.

This link visualises how social media monitoring tool works

25 Solis, B. ‘The end of business as usual, http://dionhinchcliffe.com/tag/social-graph-2/ 26 http://www.briansolis.com/2011/02/an-audience-with-an-audience-of-audiences/ 27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_measurement 28 https://www.google.com/alerts

Analysis All the social media monitoring tools/services divide the content into positive, negative and neutral. Therefore they are not 100% accurate, because computer can not recognize sarcasm for example. Human beings are about 73-85% certain in judging whether the content is positive, negative or neutral. Monitoring tools analysis accuracy variate from 70% to 85%.

Average monthly fee that companies pay for social media monitoring tools is around 100-500 dollars. With the higher fee, it is possible to get more features and more precise data. There are various different tools from which to choose when the company is looking for social media monitoring tools. The most popular and most common free social media monitoring tool is Twitter search. It offers all the basics functions needed to control and monitor social media content related to the company. With social media monitoring tools it is possible to get to know what people talk about the company in social media, and from the results it is possible to make marketing and PR work better in social media. 29 What to do with the results After monitoring social media, a company will have a beter view on how clients see the company, a specif product or the brand. If a company notices that there is a big need for a specif aspect, a company can react on this by storytelling. For example, Company X has a lot of clients that like their products but misses a bit of personality or a relationship with the company. They express this by commenting things on Twitter and Facebook like: “Company X could improve their customer service, I never feel like they take me seriously”. If more people express themselves like this, Company X should do something about it. If Company X would make a campaign with a story, the customers will have a more personal view on Company X. Storytelling is not only to give audience a more personally view of a company it is also a way to make them feel more connected, make them move and it helps to make the product of brand more rememberable. 30 The thing with storytelling is that you don’t know what the effect of it will be.

People can like it very much, or it is even possible that they won’t even notice your story. The power of storytelling is that people will share your story. This way a company doesn’t have to do a lot, the story will tell it self, if it is a success. Afterwards a company can see how the ‘campaign’ did. They can see this by following how much shares, views etc the story has. This numbers are not countable because it is not possible to find every clicks, but a company can have an image of how the story is doing. Storytelling can be used as a monitoring tool, but it can also be an answer to what a company has found.

Vision Only monitoring the public is not enough for a company. A company can do a lot with the results of social media monitoring. For example: storytelling, but also make a movement in the company itself. Chapter 6 will give insights about how to get more information from the public and “Phase 7: infecting other people” will explain what to do with this information.

29 http://wiki.kenburbary.com , http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/08/top-10-free-social-media-monitoring-tools/ http://social-media-monitoring-review.toptenreviews.com, http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/09/20-free-social-media-monitoring-tools.html 30 http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/the-power-of-storytelling/

Phase 4.1 Results of the investigation An example of social media monitoring

Our book is all about the new role of a PR -Professional, we tried to find out what the opinion of others is about this new role. We did this research online using the hashtag #DNCP (De Nieuwe Communicatie Professionals), which translated from Dutch means: the new communication professional. The results are shown on this page.

In “Appendix 1” you can find the research approach.

Renata Verloop is owner of the company ‘The New PR -Professional’. She has 2821 followers on Twitter and is a major influencer in the communication field. She says: We have too few methods in our field.

Evelyne Hermans has 1195 followers on Twitter. She is a text writer and a blog trainer. She says: Officials don’t have to learn how they have to use social media, they have to learn how they can work in a networking way.

Corine Jansen was Chief Listening Officer. She is a good example of the role of a PR -professional in the future.

She says: It is about hearing and understanding.

Debora de Laaf is communication manager of Aegon. She is also a good example of the role of a PR -professional in the future. She says: Aegon has closed the department of internal communications and switched to a more integrated approach.

Helène van Rijn has been a marketing and communication professional for many years in different companies. So she had also a lot of influence within these companies. Helène van Rijn says: ‘The future is back for communication.’

Janet Veenstra is a PR -professional, has 878 followers on Twitter and has a lot of experiences in the communication field. Janet Veenstra says: ‘PR -professionals should not communicate, but they should help their employees to communicate.’

Paul Tissingh is communication advisor for six years now and has 1064 followers on Twitter.

Paul Tissingh says: ‘If you have no feeling for online communication, you have to search for another job’.

Komala Dubois is professor at the Rotterdam University of Applied Science and has years of experience in the communication field. She is an influencer for students, who will become the future PR -professionals Komala Dubois says: ‘A new function in the communication field? besides CEO, CFO also CLO: Chief Listening Officer

Conny de Laat has 1593 followers on Twitter and has a lot of experience with communication. Conny de Laat says: ‘The core business of communication is to increase business relevant and meaningful contact moments.’

Tilleke Mul has been a communication advisor for many years in different companies. She had a lot of influence within these companies.

Tilleke Mul says: ‘You can not neglect online communication. Too much PR -professionals aren’t enough social involved.’

Lamar Communication is a content communication agency and has done many projects.

Lamar Communication says: ‘Toddlers of now could still be our future PR -professionals.’

The communication field will change, but won’t disappear Arjan van der Knaap is PR -strategist for more than 20 years now and he is an expert in social storytelling. He writes for Marketingfacts, a well known platform in the Netherlands. He writes a lot about the new PR -professional. He has 3999 followers on Twitter. So he is a big influencer.

He says: The classic communication model is dead, discover narrative networks.

Research outcome How will the PR -professional look like in the future?

The current PR -professionals say, that the classical communication model is dead because of the network society. PR -professionals don’t think the communication department will disappear, but it will change. They say: if you don’t like online communication, you can’t like your job anymore. This is because there are a lot of changes. Nowadays it is about narrative networks. PR -professionals have to learn how they can network instead of learning how they have to communicate content. It about connecting. PR-professionals have to make contact, real contact, with their stakeholders. They have to listen to them and they have to make a movement. Not only to their customers, but also to their employees. They have to integrate communication in the whole company, because everyone is a communicator. So the new PR -professionals have to learn the other employees how they have to network. At the moment there are too few methods for this new way of thinking. You can apply a Chief Listening Officer for listening or you can use the example of Aegon, because they have make this new way of thinking reality. There are a lot of challenging chances at the moment. The PR -professionals say: the future is back for communication!

Phase 5: Accepting the virus and using it Win clients through influence and engage them The best thing for a company is to get engaged with their audience.

That is the reason that companies have to influence their audience in a way that they feel obligated to engage with the company. Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University, has spent 30 years studying the ways people are influenced. He found that there are six principles of influence which companies can use for their strategy. These principles are reciprocity, scarcity, authority, commitment, liking and consensus. 31 This video gives a short introduction of these six principles. If a company wins clients through the secrets of influence, it is also important to engage them. Therefore this chapter will end with the importance of engagement.

The principals of influences Reciprocity The first principle is reciprocity. Reciprocity means that people will feel obligated to give when they receive. For example, if someone is invited to a party, the next time when they give a party they will invite this person back. If someone does someone a favor, this person will owe them a favor. People are more likely to say yes, to the people they owe.

This also happens in business. For example when in a restaurant the waitress gives a gift in a form of a mint or a shot of liqueur, the customer will feel obligated to give something back. This will be in a form of a tip. The way of giving this gift has a lot of influence on how big the tip will be.

The best way to give a gift is to be the first to give it, to personalise it and to make it unexpected.32 Reciprocity is not only good for marketing use, but also for PR. Instead of giving something back by buying a product (marketing), they can also give back loyalty or good reviews about a company.

There are several things a company can do to influence people with the principle of reciprocity: 33 -

Be the first to give something: it is important that a company gives a gift first, this means before the customer gives something to the company. This way the gift is unexpected.

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Offer customers ways to show their way of support: tell the customers how they can thank you, without costing this money. For example: tell your friends about the product, link to us on your social media etc.

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Keep the relationship going: to get a good relationship with customers, a company should try being more personal. Instead of saying “dear customer, thank you for your order’’, companies should say something more meaningful.

31 http://www.influenceatwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/E_Brand_principles.pdf 32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw 33 http://womeninbusiness.about.com/od/marketingpsychology/a/prineciprocity.htm

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Be the last to give: this is also a way to keep the relationship going. After a company gives a gift, a customer gives something back (buys a product or service), the company should still be giving gifts. Gifts like a free newsletter or coupons for extra discount. Customers will feel more special this way.

Scarcity Scarcity means that people want the things that are scarce. Scarce means that there is not a lot of a product or a service and it is difficult to obtain. If a company announces that they won’t deliver a service anymore, a product only will be in discount for a few days or if they introduce an limited product: it becomes scarce. 34 There are several things a company can do to influence people with the principle of scarcity: - If a salesman says that this week you get 25% discount on a subscription, people are

more likely to subscribe because they are afraid that they won’t find a better deal.

-

Websites that give discounts on dinners, trips, workshops etc. always show till how long they offer the deals. For example on the website Groupon you can see how many hours, minutes and even seconds are left. You can literally see how the deal passes by. 35

-

Products or services that are only available for a limited time. For example: Malibu has a new taste only as a winter edition. When winter is over, this bottle won’t be available anymore. 36

For companies it is good to keep in mind that people want things that are scarce. A discount may cut of some profit, but the amount of people that will react on this discount will be so high you won’t even notice it. Therefore it is very useful for companies to think of a deals or discount that have a limited time and also mention this limited time in their communication. Employees in a company should think of this while they communicate with their customer. If they are talking about the deal or discount, they should always mention that the discount only lasts for a few days. The customer will see that the product is scarce and in this way they will want it more.

Authority People respect authority. People seem to feel an obligation towards people in high authority positions. Strength of the tendency comes from society structure, where the majority of population are followers. Followers are the people who follow the pioneers in different types of fields. They join in the trend later on, when the trend is accepted by major population.

Authority can be exploited by materialism and titles. High titles, such as CEO in work environment, have automatically high authority and for them it is easier to control people in a social work environment structure. Materialism is a way of showing authority; expensiv e clothing and cars complete the image of a wealthy lifestyle, which increases authority. People who have authority, have also privileges for certain things that the followers can not reach. For example highly rated work estate and offices, and access to private gatherings and parties. The whole lifestyle of people who have high authority supplement their position in social networks.

How to use Cialdini’s principle about authority in PR and marketing? When the customers do not exactly know what they want or are uncertain what they want, authority comes in handy. They try to search the information from other sources than from themselves.

34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw 35 http://influence-people-brian.blogspot.nl/2009/04/principle-of-scarcity.html 36 http://www.maliburumdrinks.com/en/Products/Malibu-Winter-Edition/

The best way to provide the information is to give them an authority which influences their actions. Try to offer the customer something they look up for, for example a high authority person. If customers connect a company or brand to an authority they respect, it will have a positive influence towards the company or brand. In practice, in marketing, it is profitable to use a well known authority to advertise or recommend your brand. People can identify themselves as high authority persons by having a relationship with this brand if their “hero” / person they look up to is using the brand. Authority in marketing can also be for example recommendations or scientific research results. Customers value them more if they are from highly respected sources, such as a big and well-known company or government.

Commitment, Consistency and Loyalty In our society, consistency and commitment are highly valued manners. Every person is unconsciously or consciously trying to look consistent with their speaking, attitudes and beliefs.

Consistency is important for maintaining the self-image. People are likely to keep up with the task they have set themselves or agreed to. People want to do things they have agreed, so they can fulfill their goals and be a trustworthy part of the society.

Commitment is important for the brand. Brand loyalty comes from customers satisfaction and gets them to come back and buy the product again. Brand loyalty can be divided in 4 different stages according to Philip Kotler, Marketing Management 1991: 37 1.

2.

3.

4.

Hard-core Loyals - who buy the brand all the time.

Split Loyals - loyal to two or three brands.

Shifting Loyals - moving from one brand to another.

Switchers - with no loyalty

For the company, it is important to realize the different stages of their customers. Customers in different stages are looking for different things; Hard-core loyals will keep buying the product no matter what, so it is important for the company to keep them happy, satisfied and feeling like an important part of the brand and community. This is different for other stages of loyalty; companies need to lure customers in deeper. The goal is to get these customers more loyal and to have a bigger commitment towards the company. The earlier the commitment happens, the stronger it will be.

“Getting people to answer ‘yes’ makes them more powerfully committed to an action. For instance, don’t tell people: “Please call if you have to cancel.” Asking “Will you please call if you have to cancel?” gets customers to say yes, and measurably increases their response rates.” Robert Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 2006) Nowadays it is easier to make a small commitment towards company because of the use of social media. “The like button” from Facebook has made it easier and more simple to know when a customer makes a small commitment, it gives company the opportunity to hook him even more through targeted advertising. People who make small commitments are very likely to make a bigger one in the near future, such as buying the product or using the services.

Liking People prefer to say yes to people they like. People are more likely to buy from people like themselves, from friends, and from people they know and respect. 38 So it is important that clients like the brand. People like people who are similar, or who give compliments or who 37 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_loyalty 38 http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/six-principles-influence.htm 39 http://influence-people-brian.blogspot.nl/2009/04/liking.html

cooperate with them. But the most important rule is: it is not about how people can like us, but it is how we can like people. Because if you notice that someone likes you, in most cases you automatically will like that person too.

People have to look for things in common. If people who don’t know each other find what they have in common, they will have a subject to talk about. This make them more connected and they will feel more attracted to each other. 39 In nature, people like it to receive compliments. Our brain will give us a sign which make us feel good. In this way people will feel more appreciated by the other person.

People who work together to reach the same goal, feel the effort to set aside their differences.

When a person does not like the other person, but they have to cooperate to achieve something, at the end they will feel more connected to each other.

There are several things a company can do to influence people with the principle of liking: Make an online platform to bring people together to talk about a subject they like.

Give a compliment about something your client does. For example their way of doing social media.

Tell clients what the vision of the company is and ensure trust.

Listen to your clients on social networks to build your relationship with them.

Consensus The sixth principle is consensus. People will look to the actions of others to determine their own.

So if other people do something, people will do it rather than if they are the only one. 40 Another word for this principle is social proof. For a company it is important to show how many clients they have or how many products they have sold. Because when people feel uncertain, they will follow the mass. For example on the airport all people follow the mass to find their luggage. And also clubs make use of this principle. They let people wait outside to show a long queue which looks like the club is hip and happening.

But not everyone will follow the mass. There are people who want to be different. Research is conducted by Jonah Berger (social psychologist University of Pennsylvania) that illustrates when people do not follow the mass. Earlier in this book, the social identity theory is explained. People almost choose the same products as their in-group. But this depends on the product domain.

This is only the case if products signal people’s identity. But if the products are identity-neutral, they will rather follow their older generation instead of their own generation. But also within ingroups there are people who want to be different. That is the reason why there have to be different options or functions in a product. In this way people can choose for the same product, but still be different from their friends. 41 There are several things a company can do to influence people with the principle of consensus.42 Highlight the number of people using your product or service.

Encourage people to talk about the brand on social media.

Show the succes people achieve with your product or service.

Ask your clients for online reviews about the brand.

Importance of engagement Knowing how to influence a client is the first step, the next step is to keep this client for a longer period. This can be accomplished through engagement, referring to the definition of engagement explained in chapter one. Nowadays it is most important for every organisation to keep 40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw 41 http://www.influenceatwork.com/why-some-people-dont-always-follow-the-crowd-identifiable-but-not-identical/ 42 http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/six-principles-influence.htm

their customers engaged with the brand. Selling a product is harder than ever, organisations really need to sell the whole brand in order to reach their target group.

The perfect outcome would be when engagement turns the customer into an ambassador or fan. This person will represent a brand and embodies the company’s image in every way. The customer promotes the company and its products and creates a positive image for the brand.

Engagement has to lead to loyal customers. If a business has provided a very good service or product to the customers then they are likely to recommend this to other people.

If an organisation has many happy customers they could be spreading the good word about the brand to hundreds of people in their networks. This is a free way to gain publicity and promote the good image of a brand to their target audience.

A great example on how to use a digital channel for engagement is the dutch campaign of AXE. AXE always uses campaigns about women and seduction, just like this special campaign on Facebook. In this campaign people can rate if girls with beanies are HOT or NOT. 43 In this example someone responded with ‘not’. AXE commented on this reaction with a simple personal question, then what is your type of girl? This simple question will most certainly get answered by the commentator. As a result, not only the initial commenter, but also other people will get repeatedly be reminded with AXE as a brand. The brand will get a ‘top of mind’ position, this is how the target group gets engaged with the brand.

43 https://www.facebook.com/AXENederland/photos /a.222808661069416.75957.127091800641103/978016315548643/?type=1

Employee engagement Besides platforms for customers companies can also use platforms for employees. Professional organisations are built on reputation, relationships and intellectual capital. 44 An employee that have a strong bond and a clear understanding of the corporate brand can be a company’s most valuable brand ambassador. But to create this type of enthusiasm and unity, employees must feel a sense of shared purpose, a fundamental connection to the company’s mission, vision and values. Employees have to understand how they contribute to the company’s success. They must be empowered with the right tools to communicate that brand externally, whether at a social gathering or a business function, through email, social media or a phone call. This is where employee communications and internal branding plays a huge role in maximizing the value of a brand.

Ultimately, the evolution from employee to brand ambassador is facilitated by the organisation.

Organisations that take the time to lay the foundation, providing employees with the proper training and tools and then sustain engagement overtime creating platforms that employees are most sensitive to, will get the most out of their branding and marketing efforts. 45 Conclusion PR -professionals have to know how they can influence others to win clients for the company.

But they also have to engage them. They can come to engagement through making use of the six principles of Cialdini. PR -professionals can also use this principles if they will train their employees to do something. They can put these principles in their strategy to be effective. It is not about a good selling story, but it is how you can influence human behaviour. It is more important to influence human behaviour, because than the clients and employees will unconsciously believe in you. They will become your friend and they will become your ambassadors.

And that is what companies want. To engage customers and your employees, you have to listen to your employees. The next chapter will go more in depth about this subject.

Vision PR -professionals have to know how they can influence others to win clients for the company.

But they also have to engage them. They can come to engagement through making use of the six principles of Cialdini. PR -professionals can also use this principles if they will train their employees to do something. They can put these principles in their strategy to be effective. It is not about a good selling story, but it is how you can influence human behaviour. It is more important to influence human behaviour, because than the clients and employees will unconsciously believe in you. They will become your friend and they will become your ambassadors. And that is what companies want. To engage customers and your employees, you have to listen to your employees. The next chapter will go more in depth about this subject.

44 http://www.cpcommunications.com.au/in-the-news/business-benefits-of-brand-ambassadors-business-review-australia 45 http://www.desantisbreindel.com/maximizing-the-value-of-the-professional-services-brand/

Phase 6: Managing the infection from sending to listening “Communication professionals should go from 90% sending to 80% listening� - Betteke van Ruler, PR -professional specialised in communicationmanagement.

PR-professionals should not only send information, but they also have to listen to the customers. It is important to get into a conversation with the stakeholders of a company through conversation management.

Listening to customers is divided by different strategies. To make this all more succesfull it is useful to reorganise the communication department. If companies would listen more to their customers and employees, they would know better how to improve their business.This chapter will give information how to do this.

Conversation management

Conversation management is creating an active interaction with the customer.

Within this network society, PR -professionals can not only send information anymore, they also have to listen. AtHand(brand activation agency) states that about 10% of what is said about the brand comes from the company itself, but 90% is based on the things companies do and what people have to say about it. 46 This fact is in line with the trend power of the people and it shows that listening has to be a part of a business’ strategy. That is why a successful company needs a conversation manager.

Conversation management is a term created by the author Steven van Belleghem, it is about listening and structurizing the message, in other words providing strategic conversations. 47 There are three different tasks for a conversation manager (Van Belleghem, 2010): 1. Observe Listening on- and offline, anticipate on consumer insights What is being said that could be of value for the brand or company? Observing has to be done online AND offline. Listen to what people have to say.

2. Facilitate On- offline need to be integrated A brand has to create an oppertunity to speak for their audience, as well as online as offline. It is very important that the PR-professional does not control these platforms, but only participate as a brand.

3. Participate This means that a PR- professional has to listen, ask questions, be personal and react like a human and engage into action.

Van Belleghem wrote an article about the future of social listening. He used a case of a duth bank Rabobank where Ruben Van Loosbroek, manager User Experience Team of Rabobank, remarked that social listening often involves a significant investment, that is why it is important 46 AtHand, brand activation agency 47 The conversation manager, Steven van Belleghem, 2010

to prove the relevancy and realizing the potential of social listening. So why should companies invest in social listening?

The goals of social listening can be divided in four categories: 48 - Enhancing knowledge Online listening increases the level of knowledge within the organization. Collecting feedback and gaining new insights gives organizations knowledge of the market. This should lead to better decision making.

- Adding the C-feeling to the company culture Social listening is not the responsibility of a team, the entire company should be listening. The Consumer- feelings are the feelings of the consumers based on the messages shared on social networks. Getting everyone in the company involved with social listening increases the C-feeling.

Companies often make decisions based on gut feeling. Social listening introduces consumer-feeling in the decision process.

- PR and building a reputation Reactive and proactive listening and doing something with the feedback creates an emotional connection between a company and a customer. Just by being personal/human and taking an interest in customers can be valuable to your organization’s reputation.

- Lifting the customer service as a whole to a higher level Because of the improved service in the online media, customers now also expect better service from the old media. Davy Kestens (CEO Twitspark) states that, in the future, the evolution of social media will force all customer service channels to go real-time. Online listening can be used for a faster and better customer service for a company.

The art of being a conversation manager is to listen to customers, but if one knows how to listen to customers, basically everyone can be a conversation manager.

Social media listening strategy As mentioned, active interaction with the customers has become a crucial part of PR. The PR -strategy has evolved from sending to listening and interacting. Because of the digitalization, new platforms for engaging and interacting with the stakeholders have embarked, which offers more possibilities to do so. On the downside, it is difficult to build up a complete and an effective listening strategy which suits exactly the needs of the company. Social media is one of the most important platforms to interact with the stakeholders. Creating content has been the most important part of social media interacting from the early ages of social media. For the past few years, the PR -strategy has evolved and nowadays creating content is not the primary way to work. Social media listening has grown in to a big part of interacting strategy for companies.

How to create and effective social media strategy which is aimed towards interacting with the stakeholders? With the knowledge provided in this e-book, it is possible to create a complete strategy for listening the stakeholders.

48 http://stevenvanbelleghem.com/blog/the-future-of-social-listening

Here are the basics that a PR -professional needs to understand to create a working social media listening strategy: Control your content Divide and organize your content; categorize the content to promotional, industry news and related to your company for example. Examine your content, there should be a balance between the content you share to get your strategy complete and effective. For example, only promoting content will lose it’s effectiveness.

Analyze your sharing Use analyzing tools to figure out what kind of content gets most responses. Look through different social media platforms which is the most effective way for your company. Adjust your strategy for different platforms and focus on to the most effective ones.

Determine, listen and engage your target audience After analyzing the interaction of your shared content, find out who is your target audience and focus on them. Listen to them, engage with them and reply to their posts. This is how you make a deeper engagement which will be only positive for your company.

Monitoring and responding Use social media monitoring tools to monitor what is happening in social media related to your company. (More about social media monitoring tools in Chapter 4 of this e-book) Monitor also forums, your company sites and other conversation platforms. Be active in many different platforms to reach as large part of you customers as possible.

Focus on the content To get as much leverage as possible with your content, focus part of your sharing to breaking news. Study made by public relations and social content agency Inkhouse showed, that 41% of the content we share in social media are breaking news. People are reacting and sharing breaking news more actively than other content, use it and share news related to your company or field. Acknowledge what type of the breaking news are and share them when appropriate. 49

49 http://www.ipsos.com/public-affairs/sites/www.ipsos.com.public-affairs/files/documents/understanding-stakeholders.pdf, http://inkhouse.com/downloads/watch_read_tweet.pdf, http://www.inkhouse.net/seven-tips-to-creating-a-social-media-listening-strategy/, http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/stratlisten.htm, http://www.strategy-business.com/article/03311?pg=all

The role of offline listening Nowadays there is a lot of information about online listening. When people think about ‘listening’ in communication field, they automatically will think of online listening, for example social media monitoring. But what PR -professionals do not have to forget, is the importance of offline listening. Several years ago, there was no other option than offline listening. PR -professionals have to keep in mind what the power can be of offline listening, because 80% of conversations are still offline. 50 The difference between online - and offline listening is the reach, because the reach of online listening is much bigger. So the best strategy is to combine online - and offline listening.

They both have the same target: learning what people are saying about the brand or industry to determine what they want. There are various ways to listen offline to the customers.

PR -professionals have to be active, they have to go outside where there customers are. They have to focus on the behaviour of their customers, but they also have to pay attention on the environment. What is happening in the environment? What are the trends? This is only about observing. But they can also engage into a conversation with their customers, or prospective customers. They can do customer surveys to ask them what they want. They can attend trade shows and conferences to be involved with the customers. But they can also organize event by themselves to get in contact with their customers. 51 So this explains, beside online listening there are a lot of options to offline listening.

Reorganize communication department Because listening is getting more important than sending, it is usefull for a company to reorganize their communication department.

The changes are all to improve the listening factor of a PR -professional The first thing that has to be changed is the way of responsing on customers. For example, a company gets a complain through Twitter. This is not what a company wants to see, so they react on it. The problem here is that they don’t listen to the complain, but just try to solve the problem only with an answer. An example told by Renate Verloop. PR -professional at DNCP: she tweeted NS (the Dutch railways) that the WiFi connection in the train is very bad. The railway responded with: well, that is because there are a lot of people in the train who use the same connection. But then, Renate Verloop mentioned that the connection is still bad when the train is almost empty.So basicly, the anwser from NS wasn’t correct. When she mentioned this to NS, they still responded with the answer that it has all to do with the people on the connection.

This results in a customer that has a complain, but the problem is still not fixed. She has an answer with she can’t do anything to solve her problem.

This example shows that NS responses to her complain, but doesn’t listen. NS didn’t come with a solution, they didn’t tried to solve it. This is a perfect example of a company that sends information, but does not listen to their customers. The employees beneath the webcare are well trained to respond on the tweets, but they don’t make a movement.

A quote from Renate Verloop: “If you work according to scripts, the efficiency will increase at first, but at the end quality will decrease because there’s no room left for the human factor soul.”

50 http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/06/online-fashion-retailers-tap-offline-opportunities.html 51 http://www.elevatemybrand.com/news-and-press/__the-importance-of-really-listening-to-what-your-customerhas-to-say

And this is true. A company has the possibility to know what customers think, through media. It is unfortunate if a company doesn’t take the complains in mind. Listening to your customers, but especially act to it, is very important to make a business better.

Because a communication department isn’t the department that gets directly in touch with the customers, it is important for the communication department to listen to the employees. It is only usefull to listen to the employees who listen to the customers. It is a easy way to get inspiration on how to improve your business. Because the customers are the ones that you need to have a big business, so make them happy and listen to them.

Another way of listening to customers is through a Chief Listening Officer. This officer is responsible for listening to the customers online and offline.

It is possible to think of employees as a Chief Listening Officer. What a company should keep in mind is that employees are not that objective anymore. To solve this problem you should have employees that listen to their customers, because they get most of their messages. But, there should me an objective person that is also listening and tries to keep the messages that came through the employees objective.

Vision Everyone knows that communication is changing. It went from mass sending to individual sending and now interaction is getting more important. Listening is a very important factor in this. A company should always adjust to the needs of a customer, otherwise they will find the part that they want somewhere else. A customer won’t be loyal because your product is good or you made a good marketing campaign, these are just extra’s nowadays. A company should keep in mind that a product or service is not unique anymore, everyone can copy it. But if a company has good interaction with their customers and will give them the feeling that they are special and that they matter, then they will be loyal to a company.In this wat the customers will know that the company is really giving them a product or service that is made to help them.

And this is why listening is so important.

Phase 7: Infecting other people Creating spreadability Chapter 5 explained the importance of engagement for a brand, but thinking of the network society, social media engagement is also very important. How a company can bring a message into circulation via online media can be explained by the definition of spreadability. The next step is showing how to create spreadable content, this will help realizing what the effects and possibilities are. The obstacle of spreadability is that you can not control it, this brings a high level of uncertainty for a PR -professional

Social media engagement The impact of social media is very strong, so to strengthen the power of engagement with the brand, a PR -professional also has to engage their audience with the media they use.

The following strategy shows how you can achieve social media engagement within five steps. 52

The first step is about listening. Chapter 6 already explained why it is important that a company have to listen to their audience. A PR -professional has to monitor on which platform their audience is active, but also be aware of the trends that are playing in their field.

Step 2 is to react on this, by selecting the media for the company.

In step 3, a PR -professional starts with creating content for these mediums; posts, comments, etc. and people will share this. ‘If you show that you care about them, they will be more likely to show that they care about your brand.’53 52 http://www.crestmediainc.com/blog/meeting-demands-for-social-media-engagement/ 53 http://www.crestmediainc.com/blog/meeting-demands-for-social-media-engagement/

The next step is about creating spreadability. Unfortunately a PR -professional can not control this step. It is about the way content travels through social media.

The only way to lead it a bit is to build a community with your brand and to participate in the existing communities, which would be the 5th step.

What is spreadable content?

To understand the way spreadable media works, it is easier to explain by comparing this with viral content. Viral content is often mistaken for spreadable content. But there is a difference.

Viral content is about sharing content from one to many people. The difference with spreadability is that the content of spreadable media is continuously reframed and shared by different people. So the content of spreadable media contains of diversified experiences. This motivates people to shape and share. A PR -professional can’t control spreadability, because this is communication about a brand from any and all.

A good example of spreadability is the Ice Bucket Challenge. It went viral on social media during July and August 2014. It was the first time that so many people worldwide were doing something like this. More than ten billion people shared this on social media, not the official video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJCWjs6kYA&feature=youtu.be , but each time a personalized video. In this way the content was continuously reframed and shared by different people. 54 ‘The more shared something is, the more demand there is for it.’ (K. Thompson 2009).

The need for spreadable media Why do we need spreadable media? The culture we live in today, is called the participatory culture. Watch this movie for a short explanation by Henry Jenkins about the participatory culture: http://video.mit.edu/watch/what-is-participatory-culture-3027/. This culture illustrates that the world is changing from distribution to circulation on the internet. It is about shaping, sharing, reframing and remixing media content. People will make their own content using the content of a brand. So a PR -professional has to participate in this online world. But it is not just about participation, because what is participating?

To make the definition of participation more clear, the next few examples show some contradictions of participation in a participatory culture: 55 - Lurking versus legitimate peripheral participation: lurkers are the people who make use of an online medium, but only consume information, they are inactive. Legitimate peripheral participation means that they are active. A company has to be active, so they have to act with legitimate peripheral participation.

- Resistance versus participation: companies have to participate, instead of resisting online conversations.

- Audiences versus publics: An audience only listens, but a public do not only offers attention, but it also calls for attention.

- Participation versus collaboration: collaboration is more than participation, companies have to organise things together with their clients.

54 http://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/wat-je-moet-weten-om-de-ice-bucket-challenge-en-2014-te-begrijpen 55 Jenkins, H., Ford, S., Green, J., ‘Spreadble Media’, New York University Press, 2013.

- Hearing versus listening: it is not about hearing something, companies have to listen to their clients.

Consumers versus co-creations: companies have to create things together with their clients.

Consumers pay more attention to stories and shared things of their friends, than advertisements directly from a company. This is just as eWOM. eWOM is any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the internet (Hennig-Thureau, 2004).

People don’t believe in marketing actions anymore. The comments of users about products and services are more valuable to people. They allow themselves to be influenced by their friends of other users. 56

Creating spreadable content.

“Content is king.” – Bill Gates, 1996. A widely known phrase from the man who created Microsoft. Is it still an accurate phrase even when we are living almost 10 years after it? Huge part of the content shared nowadays is online content in social media. Online, it is important to grab the attention of a customer in few seconds, otherwise he or she will skip it. In those few seconds, the only thing a customer can see is the layout, a small part of the content and pictures. It is crucial to grab the attention of the customer because the customer will then go deeper through the content. Spreadability is all about the quality of the content.

Spreadability-wise, content is still the king. How why people share content online through social media? What are the main triggers of sharing content? 57 Jonah Berger and Katy Milkman (What Makes Online Content Go Viral?, 2012) highlighted three main points which influences positively of spreadability of content: 1.

Positive content is more spreadable than negative content How to increase the spreadability of the content? As stated above, positive content will get shared more often than negative. A content that uplifts the mind of somebody or an inspirational content is more likely to be shared.

2.

Practically useful content gets shared.

What makes the content practically useful? What do the people want after reading the content?

They want to know what to do next! Guide them towards the goal. If the company is membership based – guide them to sign up. If company’s goal is to get more orders – guide them to make the order. Use the power of text and write the last part of the content guiding the reader. Show the readers how to use the content in their lives and if they succeed they will remember it.

3.

Content that evoked high arousal emotions—positive or negative—is more spreadable than content without emotion.

How to activate high arousal emotions? The goal is to get readers to feel high arousal emotions, such as anger and surprise. If a content can evoke emotions, it is dramatically more sharable.

56 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996814000139 57 http://socialtriggers.com/content-is-king-myth/, http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p_1.html

“Read more about emotions in social media in “Recognizing psychological effects in social media” “ After all, when searching for spreadability and/or content going viral, content is still king. World has changed during these 10 years after Bill Gates used the phrase. PR strategies have changed a lot, but if one still wants to achieve high spreadability, content is the key. When knowing all these basics about spreadability and emotions in social media, it is possible to build an effective way to publish and share content online in social media. 58 Example of using facilitating spreadable content ( Case Pizza Hut) How can one make the content spreadable? As mentioned, it is impossible to make some content spreadable. It is possible to facilitate it, but not control the spreadability. Although, as the creator of the content, it is viable to give the reader the tools to share and spread it. All of the biggest companies have a way to give the tools for the customers and encourage them to participate. A good example is Pizza Hut. Their website is made for spreadable content, including competitions, news and other shareable content. Their goal is to get users to create their own content, normally as a video clips. At the moment they have a competition “The Happy Wall”, which is an online wall designed for video clips of jokes made by the customers of a pizza hut.

This is a great example of a company creating spreadable content. They also have a live Twitter feed on their page, where customers can see what people are writing about Pizza Hut in Twitter.

Uncertainty of spreadability Even though this chapter is about spreadability and the effect and possibilities that spreadability can have, knowledge about spreadability can not guarantee success.

The definition of spreadability is already explained earlier this chapter.

Jurgen Retra, director of interactive media agency RLVNT, claims that there is a change in istening by using motivational data, instead of behavioural data. Behavioural data is based on historie, the things people did before. But motivational data is based on why people do certain things. A company can predict why people would want to share content and information with their friends and family, but they can not predict what people actually do with the given content. This means that PR -professionals can listen to motivational data but can not control it.

(The following video is a good example of motivational data. It is called, What motivates people

by Dan Pink, author of Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us.

This uncertainty makes the job of a PR -professional almost impossible, because they used to control processes. Retra also said, that people can not change or influence consumer to consumer behaviour, only monitor and keep the conversation going.

The way a PR -professional should handle it is to: - Let people talk about the brand - Be transparent, honest and incorporate emotion - Facilitate online forums and communities - Support the clients to share But keep in mind, do not try to control it, as it is impossible.

58 http://socialtriggers.com/craft-contagious-content/, http://blog.scoop.it/2013/03/12/spreadable-vs-viral-what-is-actually-means-for-content/

Vision We know “Content is king’ and with the network society the impact of social media is very strong. To strengthen the power of engagement with the brand, PR -professionals have to create spreadable content. To create spreadable content you have to make it positive, it has to involve emotion and it has to be practical. Looking at spreadable content, spreadability is most valuable for companies, this motivates people to shape and share. But spreadable content will not guarantee success, changing or influencing consumer to consumer behaviour is impossible, only monitoring and keep the conversation going can be done.

So let people talk about the brand, be transparent, facilitate online forums and communities, support the clients to share, but the most important thing: don’t try to control it, try to facilitate it!

Phase 8: Giving the virus borders Ethics In this book we have explained the main tasks of being a PR –professional and how to work more effective. The last chapter of our e-book is about ethics in PR. Ethics come in handy when subjects divide moral opinions. We are going to tell you about basics of ethics and its definition in the field of PR. As the chapter goes further into ethics, it covers ethics from the PR –professionals perspective. The chapter also explains how to work in PR without breaking the ethical principles. What influences the unethical behaviour in a company? Ethical behaviour differs whether the employee is experienced or passionate. Afterwards, we are going to provide you our conclusion about what is the best and most effective combination of experience and passion in a company.

Definition of ethics in PR Ethics consists of a set of principles of right conduct. It is about the norms and values that people consider as good and right conduct. Norms are a guideline for right or wrong behaviour in a society. For example people are not allowed to lie or steal. Values are unwritten rules, this can be different for everyone. For example politeness and loyalty.

Within a company there is always a company ethics. This is about professional ethics that arise in business environment. What are the norms and values of the company? How do the employees have to behave and what is expected from their behaviour in the company? This is important for people to know if they work in a company. They have to know what acceptable is and how they have to behave if they work together. 59 But since the arise of the network society, it is also important to think about online ethics, especially for the PR of a company. It is good to think about how a company has to act online, because stakeholders expect different ethical principles from a company. This means that companies have a responsibility in social networks. Brands (1997), believes that responsibility should go with power. This means that companies, who are in positions of power, bear greater responsibility to take actions that result in the greatest good, instead of individuals, who cannot be held responsible for actions they have no power to change. 60

59 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_ethics, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/workplace-ethics-behavior-5239.html 60 Chen, S., ‘Corporate Responsibilities in Internet-Enabled Social Networks’, www.jstor.org

But still each company has to do research to the ethical principles expectations of their stakeholders (stage 1). This is the ethical baseline of a company as the pyramid of the Massey University shows. 61 After this a company has to to combine all the shared expectations of their stakeholders to make a plan (stage 2). They also have to choose which strategy they want to use (stage 3). If a company has chosen the way of ethics, they can evaluate the outcomes and they can check if they are doing the right thing (stage 4). 62 Within these stages, a PR -professional have to take into account which theory the company’s ethics is based on. The are four different categories of theories: 63 - Utilitarian This theory is based on the best for the greater good. A company only thinks about the consequences, for example the profit. This theory is not based on the principles of value. So to determine what is right or wrong within a company, a PR professional will take into account what is the best for the whole company.

- Egoism This theory is based on self-interest. A person only thinks about what is good for him or herself.

The word ‘egoism’ says enough. So to determine what is right or wrong within a company, a PR -professional will take into account the benefit for the company itself.

61 http://www.prismjournal.org/ethics_pyramid.html 62 http://www.prismjournal.org/fileadmin/Praxis/Files/TilleyPRINZpresentation.pdf 63 http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/08098.pdf

- Moral relativism This theory is based on culture. It is about an individual choice, but culturally based.

So to determine what is right or wrong within a company, a PR professional will take into account other companies and the society they live in.

- Justice This theory is based on fairness. It is more about rules than consequences. All individuals are equal. For example for this way of ethics the question is why there is a different salaries for men and women? So to determine what is good or wrong within a company, a PR professional will take into account how fair something is.

PR -professional and ethics “The practice of public relations is all about earning credibility. Credibility, in turn, begins with telling the truth. Public relations, then, must be based on ‘doing the right thing’ - in other words, acting ethically.” (Fraziel Seitel, 2007) But what is acting ethically in field of PR? How far can PR –professional go without questioning ethical principles?

The PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) Board of Ethics and Professional Standards created a code for PR –professionals. The Code consists of various principles of ethical practice: 64

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Protect and advance the free flow of accurate and truthful information.

Foster informed decision making through open communication.

Protect confidential and private information.

Promote healthy and fair competition among professionals.

Avoid conflicts of interest.

Work to strengthen the public’s trust in the profession.

When interacting with stakeholders, PR –professional needs to realize the ethical issues.

Nowadays there are popular trends which have a connection to ethics. Environmental questions have risen in the past few years, because people have concerns of the well-being of our planet.

Greenwashing 65 in PR shortly explained is that the company promotes its products, services or techniques as an environmentally friendly, but in reality they are not. Ethics and greenwashed promotion has been always troublesome. For example, if a company wants to do a PR campaign focused on greenwashing, but the company’s manufacturing process is not as eco-friendly as advertised, is it ethically correct to do the campaign? Another trend which has grown lately is transparency. People are demanding transparency. Stakeholders want to know what is going on with the company, and almost all the information should be available for everyone. For example some of the biggest online stores have got caught of fake reviews and feedbacks. 66Because of transparency this conspiracy was revealed and it had negative impact on company’s reputation.

All in all, ethics in PR are crucial for the company’s reputation. If there is something against ethic principles and it goes public, it will immediately effect a company’s reputation. These 6 points above will help to realize what ethics in PR mean in reality, and how to avoid being unethical. PR –professionals need to be aware of these unwritten ethics rules and principles.

64 http://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/ethics/#.VHISwBHF8VE 65 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing 66 http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/08/28/fake-reviews-amazons-rotten-core/

New influence of unethical behaviour Ethics mostly is a point of discussion in a company. The biggest discussion is whether the organization itself or the employees are to blame for unethical behaviour. Daniel J. Brass, Kenneth D. Butterfield and Bruce C. Skaggs compared this with an apple and a barrel. Does the barrel (organization) get infected by the ‘rotten’ apple (an employee that misbehaves) or does the apple get rotten by a not fresh barrel (an organization without a code of conduct, strict norms etc)?

This comparisment made a discussion among researchers like Granovetter, Trevel and more, this discussion led to a different cause of unethical behaviour: relationships between the actors. 67 This means that the focus is not on the character of the organization or the employees that work in it, the focus is on the relationship between the employees.

There are different types of relationships and different structures of relationships that influences the unethical behaviours within a company.

Types of relationships: - strong and weak ties - multiplex relationships - assymetric emotional relationships - status Structure of relationships - structural holes - centrality - density Types of relationships: Strong and weak ties: As described in chapter2 a network is build by strong and weak ties. The likelyhood for an employee to act unethical, is depending on how the employees see eachother.

Within weak ties there are less possibilities to act unethically and the consequences of acting unethically are minimal.

Within strong ties there are more possibilities to act ethical and the costs of unethical behaviour also increases.

Multiplexity Multiplexity means that if two actors are linked with each other by more than just one type of relation. The likeliness is less to act unethical.

Asymmetrical emotional relations Trust and emotional involvement between two actors are not equal. The likeliness is bigger to act unethical.

Status It speaks for itself, when someone has a lot of ´power´ within a company. The likeliness is bigger 67 http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.hro.nl/stable/259097?seq=1&

to act unethical.

Structure of relationships Structural hole See image: when the blue person knows the green and the red person, but the green and the red person don’t know each other there is a structural hole.

This can lead to more power to the blue person because he can act unethical without the green person knowing that he also acts unethical to the red person. This makes the power of the green and red person less than when they would be connected. 68

Centrality Individual person can reach to others in his/her network in just a few direct and indirect links.

The likeliness is less to act unethical.

Density Proportion of network ties compared to total number of ties.

The likelyness is less to act unethical.

Vision Ethics are about norms and values. It affects our everyday lives and our professional careers.

Every profession has it’s own ethical standards, and for the professionals working close to ethical questions, it is important to know them. Because the job of a PR –professional is changing rapidly, it is needed to keep yourself up to date in the trends which addresses both PR and ethics. When talking about ethical matters, the borders are usually indeterminated like in the apple vs. the barrel example.

Can ethics influence the employees? Yes, but it is not always a negative matter.

68 http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/leading_questions/competition/

The virus is already spreading -EpilogueEveryone knows that communication is changing. With the network society the impact of social media is very strong. A huge obstacle for the PR -professional nowadays is to let go of the control. Let people talk about the brand, be transparent, facilitate online forums and c ommunities, support the clients to share, but the most important thing: don’t try to control it, try to facilitate it!

A communication department has a lot of knowledge about how to communicate with customers, but they are not really in the field themselves. It is not possible for a communication department to interact successfully with all these different customers. Training your employees will be the new role of the PR- professional.

With the power of collaboration in the network society, it is important to know that customers are more likely to work together nowadays to accomplish what they want. Employees should keep that in mind and try to think with the customers instead of for the customers. Otherwise customers will try to solve the problem by themselves or search for other options.

PR -professionals have to know how they can influence others to win clients for the company.

But they also have to engage them. As a campaign is the tool for marketing, employees are the tool for PR. While a campaign can trigger a lot in the human mind, we think that employees do the same. To influence human behaviour, the employees need to treat customers well, or better said: treat them with emotions.

To engage customers and your employees, you have to listen to your employees. But not only listen, you have to make a movement! A company should adjust to the needs of a customer. If a company has good interaction with their customers and give them the feeling that they are being listened to, customers will stay loyal to a company.

“Be inspired to infect your company! “ Companies that are updated with this change of communication are already starting to infect their own company. Aegon, a dutch multinational life insurance company, is one of the first companies who announced that they are spreading the communication virus within their company.

Aegon stated the following: “We have lifted the disciplines of internal and external communication. The communications department is now working from a more integrated model. In addition to specialized functions such as spokespersons, copywriters and event managers we work with PR -professionals that assist managers and employees from Aegon through coaching, consulting and facilitation in their communication. “ Let them inspire you to infect your own company too!

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Appendix 1 Research Approach

Motivation We think it is really important to listen online what is said about your brand: social media monitoring. As a PR-professional, you need to know where the PR-professional stands nowadays.

We want to know how current PR -professionals think about the new role of a PR -professional.

DNCP is an important dutch understanding, it is an abbreviation for The new PR- professional.

With this research we want to prepare companies with the new way of thinking about the PR -professional.

Problem How will the PR -professional look like in the future?

Purpose of research We want to know how current PR -professionals think about the new role of a PR -professional.

Central question / research question What is online said by current PR -professionals about DNCP? Subquestions - Which influencers in the communication field are talking about DNCP? - What is the general opinion?

Research form Qualitative based research. We observe online what people said about the PR -professional.

Research method Social media monitoring: By using #DNCP on Twitter Research population We gathered posts from influential professionals in the communication field. The extent of influence is based on, the amount of followers they have on Twitter, the company they work for or how much experiences they have with PR.