THE PHILIPPINES, NOVEMBER 24, 2011: “PR through social media is new for everybody,” Bob Pickard, president and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Asia Pacific, said of this new mode of communication during a roundtable discussion with the media organized by Strategic Edge, Burson-Marsteller’s local affiliate, held last November 22 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati.
There is a struggle to understand and apply social media because the concept is new, especially for top-level management. Companies are wary of putting a lot of information online because transparency through social media platforms is a virtually untested concept.
This fear of transparency puts a damper to the power of social media for PR, according to Pickard. What companies should understand, however, is that secrecy is an outmoded concept – the list of confidential information is growing shorter and the public is looking more to social media networks to receive information about a business or an organization. Companies should therefore become used to sharing information to their intended market.
“We ask (CEOs and presidents) ‘Do you usually make presentations?’ They say yes, so okay, why don’t we put your slides on Slideshare? Or ‘Do you usually give speeches?’ Yes. So why not record it and put it up on YouTube?” Through this, said Pickard, it is much easier to put a “consciousness” in a company’s virtual presence and achieve transparency little by little.
The PR specialist also noted that it is easier to reach out to the consumers through social media, especially when something goes wrong. “Be prepared to apologize,” he said. If you are wrong, then admit to it, and then listen to what is being said so that you may know what should be done and addressed.
However, the “no comment” approach during controversial situations is not a good move. Social media is highly emotional and highly viral – negative emotions can spread fast and it might be too late to correct false impressions if you kept silent at the beginning. “It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, everything’s fine!’ but it’s much better to admit that something is wrong and you’re doing something about it,” advised Pickard.
