CorpComms Magazine

When the younger members of your team suggest you really should be taking notice of the growing influence of social media do you tell them to ‘blog off'? What possible influence on your corporate reputation can a bunch of teenage computer nerds have? You have more important fish to fry in the traditional media. Surely it's enough that you monitor the national dailies, your trade press and even a bit of broadcast media. The key to success as a corpcomms manager is, as well know, that you get to see the piece in the Financial Times slagging off Dullard plc before the chief executive.

PASSING PHASE

But chief executives get younger all the time - I saw one the other day who was young enough to be a policeman! - and know how to use a laptop and a Blackberry. They can use Google and even set up their own alerts. Some (heaven forbid) even have their own blogs! New media has arrived (on the chief executive's desktop) and the corpcomms manager cannot afford to ignore it.

Maybe you think it's just a flash in the pan. You recall that seminar twenty years ago where that nice salesman from BT told everyone that Teletext would take over the world and signal the death of the newspaper. Today, Teletext is about as new order as a Betamax video recorder. Is this the way for the new social media?

There are a number of indications in Planet Marketplace that lead me to believe the world is really changing. That barometer of social change - advertising - is experiencing shifts in the smart money. For example, a major multinational drinks company recently switched its above-the-line millions from commercial television to the Internet. Several others are reportedly following. True the particular brand is specifically aimed at the age group most likely to be going completely square eyed without the aid of a television. (I watched my son once writing an essay whilst simultaneously gaming with someone he's never spoken to in Kazakhstan, watching a movie and listening to MP3 music files. How his brain coped I'll never know.) Nevertheless, live TV audiences are dropping and with them advertising revenues  - as reported by ITV only a few weeks ago.

MEASURE SUCCESS

But what of the medium itself. How is that growing? There isn't much published or academic work yet. However, it's usually safe to say a trend is developing fast when the commercial conference operators pile in and add the topic to their lists. This is certainly not a new medium that can be ignored. At very least you need to know what is being said about you in the Blogosphere in the same way you monitor the conventional media. You never know - you may discover your brand has some friends out there. The flipside will be the pressure groups and campaigners who have made social networking a happy hunting ground. Specialists are now springing up with software solutions to this new monitoring challenge. They can help you know your friends and, more importantly, your enemies out there in cyberspace.  

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