Global PR podcast FIR co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz used Google+ Hangout to record a special FIR Interview show with Phil Gomes (Senior VP, Edelman Digital) and myself discussing current initiatives to improve how public relations professionals can work with Wikipedia.

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In my post calling on Wikipedia and PR to work it out I said I’d raise the issue at the next meeting of the CIPR social media panel. Well since then things have moved a bit faster than that and today the CIPR issued a statement about its intention to work with Wikipedia to provide guidance to members on how to interact with the Wikipedia community. I’ve pasted a copy of the statement below.

Another development this week is that Tom Watson MP tweeted Phil Gomes (who published an open letter to Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia) and myself  offering to broker a meeting at the House of Commons between Wikipedia and representatives of the public relations profession. The CIPR social media panel is now liaising with Tom and Wikipedia to fix a date for this meeting.

Phil Gomes has followed on from his blog post by starting a Facebook group – CREWE Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement – to further discuss the issue.

CIPR to work with Wikipedia on clear guidance for the PR profession

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations is to work with Wikipedia to provide members with guidance on how to interact with the Wikipedia community.

This move follows the recent suggestions of undisclosed editing of Wikipedia entries by individual public relations firms. Although many PR firms who engage with the public through online communities have policies on editing in line with the CIPR’s Social Media Guidance and also follow community guidelines, there is a need to take action to further clarify the position specifically in relation to Wikipedia.

Commenting, Jane Wilson, CIPR CEO says: “The CIPR has clear ethical and practical guidance on the most appropriate manner for PR professionals to work with open, online communities such as Wikipedia. It is not only important they are upfront about who they are and their intentions, but they should seek to deal openly and honestly with the public at all times. This rules out any behaviour that sets out to hide the true source or motivation for any updates. PR without transparency is unprofessional. It has less to do with the ‘dark arts’ and more to do with the dark ages.

“I am delighted Wikipedia will be working with us on this. There is a need to develop understanding of the mutual advantages of open, transparent engagement with the public through Wikipedia.”

Commenting, Roger Bamkin, Chair of Wikimedia UK, the local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity behind Wikipedia, says: “Recent incidents highlighted by Tom Watson MP and in the national press show that in some parts of the PR profession, a lack of understanding on how to engage with the Wikipedia community persists. We will work with the CIPR to ensure that their members, and through them the wider PR Profession, have access to the clearest possible guidance on the best way to work with Wikipedia.

“We believe that attempts to mask the true identity of anyone seeking to edit the site are unethical as well as counterproductive.”

Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, added his support for the initiative: “Wikipedia is becoming the world’s first port of call for accurate, fact checked information regarding companies, services and people. It is therefore vital that the PR industry adheres to the highest standards when representing the interests of their clients. There has been a number of negative press stories that have not just harmed the credibility of the information contained on the pages of Wikipedia, but caused reputational harm to the PR and lobbying firms and their clients who were the subject of negative stories.

“PR professionals need clear guidelines in this new world of online information-sharing. That’s why I’m delighted that interested parties are coming together to establish a clear code of conduct.

“I’m delighted to help in any way I can with this important initiative.”

ENDS

Social media research company Altimeter has released a new report authored by Jeremiah Owyang that provides a good overview of social media management systems.

As the use of social media grows within companies and large organisations there is a need to be able to coordinate the management of a wide range of accounts with potentially multiple identities across several different social media and social network platforms. This helps companies to deal with issues such as governance and social media policies, as well as manage workflow across the multiple people within the organisation that might be using the accounts. Social media management system also have the potential of providing improved intelligence and analysis, as well as offering integration into other enterprise wide systems such as CRM.

It’s worth reading the full report, but in the meantime I’ve pulled out some of the most interesting points that I spotted on my first read through.

Altimeter Group’s research found that:

“companies have a whopping 178 discrete social media accounts in their global corporation”

In my personal experience of counselling global companies this proliferation of accounts is a particular problem for international organisations where even when social media policies are in place you find that they frequently are not followed or implemented correctly. In other organisations it is simply that they don’t even have policies or governance in place, or if they do it is one that is inadequate or inappropriate.

Another issue is that this is still a very immature market for the social media management systems, the in-house staff that use them and even the agencies and consultancies that advise them although it is in the latter category where most expertise is usually to be found. The Altimeter reports highlights the fact that most social media management are software and technical solutions with only five having a strong focus on service which is why

“brands often rely on agency partners for specialist support.”

You can see the full report here:

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Still in the midst of his highly successful campaign against News International UK MP Tom Watson has embarked on a second campaign – this time to sort out the relationship between the PR business and Wikipedia.

On a Wikipedia talk page Tom says:

“The general point that I think is more important for the site. I suspect a number of PR firms have edited entries for their clients potentially breaching conflict of interest rules. I am going to write to the trade bodies to ask that they work with Wikipedia to issue guidelines.”

The UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations already has guidelines for how PRs should deal with Wikipedia as part of its Social Media Guidelines which were updated in mid-2011. As a disclaimer I should say I was involved in the creation of these guidelines as a founder member of the CIPR’s Social Media Panel that was responsible. The guidelines state:

“If a practitioner is looking to update a Wikipedia entry on behalf of a
company or a client, it is best visit the discussion/talk pages and work with an
editor to update the relevant page – all updates and entries to Wikipedia must be
neutral in tone, factual and verifiable. Please read the Wikipedia guidelines carefully
before submitting or editing an article.”

The most recent notorious example of a PR agency breaching these guidelines was Bell Pottinger. An alternative tactic that I’ve used in the past is to use my client’s website to publish a more accurate Wikipedia entry, complete with lots of citations and links to evidence, and then alert people to it asking that they make the changes on Wikipedia. This is something that Jimmy Wales has even advocated himself.

However, I believe that simply getting the PR industry trade and professional bodies to work with Wikipedia to issue guidelines isn’t enough. The CIPR shows that trade bodies are already trying to do the right thing, but I believe that it is time that Wikipedia put its own house in order.

Wikipedia is now so important (entries frequently rank very highly on Google and other search engines) that they can have a major impact on a company’s, individual’s or organisation’s reputation. The current Wikipedia stance against company representatives correcting an entry simply isn’t tenable or ethically correct anymore.

It isn’t enough to just be able to ‘make a case’ on talk pages in the hope that the incorrect entry will be corrected. The process simply isn’t fast enough as incorrect information remains on the page until it is finally edited. The Wikipedia guidelines for PR within its FAQ simply aren’t sufficient anymore. Campaigners and activists against a company, charity or organisation also have a vested interest, but have far more leeway to edit and ‘spin’ pages than those directly involved (frequently with the most knowledge) do.

So Tom Watson is right there does need to be open discussion between Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia and the PR industry bodies. But is must be two way with Wikipedia also improving the way it behaves.

I shall be raising this issue at the next meeting of the CIPR Social Media Panel.

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: It appears that while I was writing this post, inspired by Tom Watson’s Wikipedia talk page contribution, that Edelman’s Phil Gomes has written a similar, but far more detailed open letter to Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia. I’d urge everyone to read it and that this should become an international effort.

In my personal reflections on 2011 blog post I promised/threatened to write a post about my professional plans and hopes for 2012. If 2011 was the year that I decided to pursue a portfolio career, then 2012 will have to be the year that brings it all together.

Client / PR agency online PR and social media doctor

One consistent message that I’m hearing from in-house corporate communications and public relations professionals is that they recognise the importance of online PR and social media, but are reluctant to add yet more consultancies and agencies to their existing roster. What they’d really like is that their existing corporate PR consultancy, marketing PR agency, public affairs consultancy or financial PR agency be able to properly integrate and deliver online PR and social media as well as the specialist social media and online PR agencies do it. Unfortunately, far too often their existing agencies and consultancies let them down. They all claim to offer the same things as the specialists, but in reality are still too short of real experience and expertise.

That is where there is an opportunity for me. I want to work closely with clients to act as a bridge and facilitator for their existing PR agencies to help them deliver the quality of social media and online PR strategy the clients need.

The benefit for the client is that they can continue to use their existing trusted partners, but can now ensure that online PR and social media is properly integrated into the overall  communications strategy at a quality that is up there with the best of the specialists.

The benefit for the agencies and consultancies is that they get to retain and possibly even increase their fees with an existing client that they already have a good working relationship with, while eliminating the threat of a new agency coming in.

Online PR training and social media training

I’ve already delivered a few online PR training and social media training courses since leaving Wolfstar, both directly and through third parties. I’m very keen to do more of this as it is very satisfying to be able to share knowledge and experience and see more people benefitting from it. It is also good to be able to puncture some of the hype and myths that still surround social media and online PR. It isn’t rocket science and should be a core part of every single public relations professional’s core skills. Unfortunately at the moment it isn’t. In 2012 I’d like to play my own small part in changing that.

Non-executive director

I’ve have a couple of discussions with people about joining their boards as a non-executive director. Neither opportunity was quite right for me, but it has sparked me into thinking about it and I’m keen to do a couple of different non-exec positions.

The first is to join the board of a small and/or regional PR agency that is looking to grow and perhaps needs to bolster its online PR and social media capabilities.

The second is to join the board of a start-up, possibly in the tech or Web 2.0 space, but not necessarily.

Strategic communications consultancy and digital public affairs

I’m already talking to some corporate communications consultancies and digital agencies about providing some specialist support to their existing teams. Mostly this will be on the corporate communications and public affairs side as its far more interesting and challenging than simple marketing related public relations. I believe that digital public affairs is woefully underexploited at the moment and am keen to develop and implement some new ideas for how social media can be used to influence and shape public policy development.

University lecturing

While it is great to deliver training and share knowledge with existing practitioners looking to learn new skills, it would be even better to help students who are just starting out in the world of public relations.

So those are the paying gigs that I’m looking forward to doing more of this year (any opportunities gratefully received ), but I’m also keen to continue doing more voluntary, community, professional development and political work.

Public relations conference speaking

Last year I spoke at a number of great conferences including the United Nations Global Social Media and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Forum, the Future Digital Strategies Summit, Social Media in a Corporate Context in London and Amsterdam, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Social Media Conference, Reputation in Oil, Gas and Mining and Social Media Week.

This year I’ve already got tentative dates fixed up to speak at conferences in Dubai and London, but I’m keen to get some more conference speaking dates in the diary soon.

Politics

I’ve already found time to do more work for the Labour Party and am keen to expand on this in 2012. This will include continuing to do some work nationally and helping my wife locally.

Don’t be shy – get in touch

If you’d like to talk to me about any of the areas I’ve outlined then please get in touch by calling + 44 20 3239 1093, Skype stuartbrucepr, Twitter, email to stuart at stuartbruce dot biz or visiting my PR consultancy website.

This year has been one of the most tumultuous ever for me. It has had its highs and its lows. It has seen me make momentous decisions that have changed my life for the better.

The year started with several discussions with companies that were interested in acquiring or investing in Wolfstar. For a variety of reasons – some on their side, some on ours – none of these actually came to anything in the end. But what these discussions did do was make me start thinking far more about the future.

Since starting Wolfstar in June 2007 it had been a bit like a roller coaster ride. It was always going to be a challenge starting a new business in what soon turned out to be one of the most turbulent and pessimistic economic periods this century.

Despite this in less than four years we succeeded in growing Wolfstar into a PRWeek Top 150 Consultancy, a Top 40 Digital Consultancy (top of the table of specialist consultancies for the percentage of income derived from online PR) and Top 40 Technology Consultancy (the largest outside London).

We pitched for and won some fantastic clients including Sony Ericsson, First Direct, HSBC Unilever, PayPal, Discovery Channel, Philips, Carlsberg, GlaxoSmithKline, Smith & Nephew and the NHS.

We worked with the United Nations to produce the world’s first international research report into how FT Global 500 companies use social media to support their CSR (corporate social responsibility) strategies.

For a small PR consultancy headquartered outside London to provide international public relations counsel to such prestigious clients was quite an achievement. Especially considering that to win most of them we pitched against big, global PR agencies.

But then in March tragedy struck. Mark Hanson, my very good friend and the deputy managing director of Wolfstar, took his own life. It was a traumatic experience – for his family, his incredibly wide network of friends, his colleagues at Wolfstar and for me personally.

Life would, could, never be the same again. Hard as it was life had to go on.

Inevitably this also had a negative effect on the business. Mark was an exceptional individual who it would be impossible to replace.

It also made me start questioning what I really wanted out of life. The start of Wolfstar had coincided with the birth of my daughter Esme and for me there is nothing more important than family.

Although family is my first priority, work is inevitably important. Simply to keep a roof over your head and food in the cupboard it is where you will spend much of your time. But the most important thing for me about work is actually enjoying what I do and feeling like I’m contributing and achieving. One of the issues with starting a business is that the day to day realities of growing it and running it prevent you from doing many of the things that made it possible for you to be successful in the first place.

I feel pity for those whose happiness appears to be wrapped up in wealth and material things. Family and job satisfaction will always be far more important to me than a big house, a fast car, the villa in the sun or that holiday resort that is frequented by those who have lost touch with reality.

In May my heart was filled with joy and pride as my wife Karen defeated a Liberal Democrat councillor to become the first Labour councillor elected in Rothwell in the 21st century. She’s got off to a cracking start and I’m looking forward to her being joined by a second Labour councillor in May next year.

By June, after numerous discussions with my business partner, I finally took the decision to relinquish my 50% stake in Wolfstar to him so that I could focus on my family and actually doing work that I enjoy. The deal was finally complete in August.

Since then I’ve been able to enjoy my daughter’s first term at school, contribute chapters to a forthcoming book, increase my level of political activity for the Labour Party, start some new strategic communications consultancy and online PR training work, resume writing this PR blog more frequently and meet some fantastic people to discuss opportunities for 2012 and beyond.

That is why as we enter 2012 I am far happier that I’ve ‘gone plural’ and decided to pursue a portfolio career. That will be the subject of a second blog post, early in the New Year.

Seasons greetings and all the best for 2012 to all my readers, with apologies for this rather personal ramble. A normal service of posts about international public relations, corporate communications, public affairs and social media will be resumed soon.

Edelman and StrategyOne, its global public affairs team, has just released the 2011 Capital Staffers Index which “analyses top trends in global public affairs and communications.”

It’s the third such annual report and is based on interviews with more than 500 senior staffers (legislative directors and above – not sure what job title this translates into outside of the USA) from cities in 11 different countries around the world including Washington DC, Brussels, London, Beijing, Ottawa, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, New Delhi, Buenos Aires and Brasilia.

“It tracks many baseline public affairs metrics first established in our 2009 benchmark study.

Although traditional public affairs components, such as grassroots outreach and fact-based messaging, remain critical to advocacy success, the results also demonstrate a meteoric rise in social media channels in shaping and influencing policy worldwide over the past year.

Specifically, policymakers have shown a dramatic increase in their use of Twitter, Facebook and mobile technology which underscores the importance of social media and the Internet in educating policymakers and galvanizing them to support a policy issue.”

I’m on limited power at the airport so don’t have time to pull out the UK and European figures, so take a look for yourself in the SlideShare deck:

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The irrepressible David Meerman Scott is back again with another great take on the fool’s errand of the quest to calculate the ROI of social media:

Just pulled together a quick Storify of how I followed and participated in the discussion and reporting around today’s Bell Pottinger Uzbekistan story.

It seems a month can’t go by without Bell Pottinger, the UK’s self-styled “leading” lobbying company, embroiling itself in a scandal. Today’s Independent article has certainly sparked off a plethora of criticism and commentary, much of it ill-informed and ill-conceived. It’s important to try and separate fact from fiction and cut through the spin on all sides of the debate.

Is it right for a public affairs or public relations company to represent a state like Uzbekistan?

Absolutely not, it’s a disgrace to even talk to a country that is run by such a despicable regime appears to be the thrust of the Independent’s article. But if you actually stop and look at what Bell Pottinger said then you’ll see that the first few slides of its presentation (embedded at the end of the post) are all about how a communications and influence campaign won’t work to improve Uzbekistan’s reputation unless the government makes real steps to improve its behaviour.

“If, however, the government is committed to real and lasting reform then there are many things that Bell Pottinger could do”

“… change is essential in order to change international attitudes.”

“But we must be able to show our target audiences that change has begun, that long term goals have been defined…”

“Once we have the assurance that genuine, verifiable reform is being introduced, we can put in place a communication and media strategy that tells the story of how Uzbekistan is changing for the better.”

That’s pretty unequivocal about saying that Bell Pottinger will only work for the Azimov Group if the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan cleans up its act. Surely that’s what we want it to do, therefore this is a good thing, isn’t it? The fact that Bell Pottinger’s strategy is to “tell the story of how Uzbekistan is changing for the better” recognises that the communications must acknowledge previous bad behaviour, otherwise logically it will be impossible to show improvement.

If the UK government under John Major and Tony Blair had taken the attitude of you don’t talk to or help bad people because they are beyond redemption, then we’d never have had peace in Northern Ireland. This is practical, real world politics. If you want to make the world a better place then you have to engage with people.

It appears in this case that Bell Pottinger was acting correctly. What isn’t so clear is how well it has behaved in the past with some of the clients it has represented. Looking at its track record it could be surmised that this is Bell Pottinger turning over a new leaf. If so, then surely a company improving its behaviour is something we should welcome.

Is it wrong to claim that you as a public affairs company can influence government?

One of the roles of politicians is to listen to what people want, weigh up the arguments and make decisions based upon the evidence available. A good public affairs consultancy simply helps to make the case on behalf of companies, trade organisations, charities, pressure groups and trade unions. It is an entirely legitimate process and helps to ensure that legislation and policy is effectively scrutinised and that the end result is better than if a decision had been made without the full facts available. It is a similar process to going to your local MP’s advice surgery to ask them to do something to support your favourite charity or special interest group. Frankly, I’d be alarmed if a politician said they weren’t influenced by the people they are meant to represent.

What Bell Pottinger does appear to be guilty of is making exaggerated claims about and over-inflating the importance of contacts. Any really good professional public affairs professional will tell you that contacts aren’t as important as the uninformed like to think. But, let’s be honest what company, organisation or even individual hasn’t been guilty of that to some extent at sometime or other?

What is quite surprising is that Bell Pottinger’s major claim appears to be that it “got” the UK prime minister to raise the issue of intellectual property theft with the Chinese prime minister. My main thought on this is that it isn’t a very big achievement, as surely it’s David Cameron’s job to stand up for British manufacturing.

Now that my quick defence of Bell Pottinger is done, let’s move on to what I think it got wrong.

How could self-proclaimed digital experts miss the lack of a digital footprint?

It is standard business practice to do some basic due diligence on potential new clients. It’s inconceivable that a “magical” team of digital reputation experts would miss the fact that the Azimov Group, and the people meant to be involved in it, wouldn’t have a bigger digital footprint than its own website which is just a holding page on Google Sites. Ironically the proposal even highlights that “Google searches for ‘The Azimov Group; brings back only one relevant website.”

Given the history of journalist stings that should have set alarm bells ringing – especially if you claim to be media relations and reputation management experts. It’s kindergarten stuff.

Did Bell Pottinger offer the right counsel?

It is on the digital public affairs counsel provided that Bell Pottinger really comes unstuck. The first mistake is that it doesn’t appear to have done even the most basic digital due diligence. But its presentation includes even worse as it appears to advocate ethical malpractice and potentially even illegal behaviour.

Bell Pottinger’s recommended “Actions” include:

“Create and maintain third-party blogs which are used to seed positive content containing popular keywords that ranks highly in Google search results”

If this means what I think it does – that Bell Pottinger will create and run fake blogs pretending to be from genuine people, then it is not only unethical it is potentially illegal. It could be perceived that this would be pretending to be a consumer, which is illegal under the Consumer Protection Regulations 2008. It’s certainly not within the spirit of the law, even if it is within the letter of the law.

Creating fake blogs like this also doesn’t work that well! You can buy crude software tools that will automate the process for you so there is absolutely no need to pay a substantial retainer for a technique that doesn’t even work. It’s a technique that is used by unscrupulous and usually ineffective SEO companies.

“… we would create a dedicated and independent website e.g. www.uzbekistancottonreform.org…”

Let’s give Bell Pottinger the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume it would be 100% transparent about who was running and funding this “independent” website, although given the previous recommended action it’s hard to be certain. If it was a genuinely open and transparent site then the recommendation could be seen to make sense.

The Bell Pottinger team presenting didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory by sounding rather clueless about what digital reputation management and online public affairs actually is. Talking of a “magical” digital team and a team that could “sort” Wikipedia made them sound rather amateurish, rather than the professional image I’m sure they were trying to portray.

The lack of specifics when talking about “search” also make the proposal appear amazingly amateur. What terms are people actually searching for to find the negative coverage about Uzbekistan, what is the volume of searches? Both of these matter a lot and effect how easy or difficult it will be to achieve the desired result. Although even if search volumes are low it can still be very important if those searches are being conducted by key influencers such as policy makers, politicians, special advisers, political researchers or think tanks.

It also doesn’t make clear quite how Bell Pottinger would “sort” Wikipedia, but one would hope that it wouldn’t involve violating Wikipedia’s codes and best practices which would prohibit the team from making the changes directly themselves or masquerading as third parties to do so. A legitimate and effective way to ‘clean up’ Wikipedia entries is simply to use your own online properties such as a blog or multimedia newsroom to point out the inaccuracies and link to evidence. Legitimate Wikipedia editors and users will then almost certainly ‘clean up’ the entry for you. The Independent has already covered PR people unethically manipulating Wikipedia (including a quote from me).

The rest of Bell Pottinger’s claims, offers and recommendations are more or less what you’d expect although the Independent article tries to spin some of them to make them sound sinister. Simple search engine optimisation (SEO) activity is described as attempting to “manipulate Google”.

In conclusion, this episode once again hasn’t left the public affairs profession covered in glory, but neither is it as shocking or disgraceful as the Independent is trying to spin it. What is does highlight is the need for far greater transparency and openness about what is being done on behalf of clients. That way not only do we help to reduce and hopefully eliminate unethical behaviour, but we also start to rid the profession of amateurism and over hyped claims of what can be achieved.

UPDATE: The Independent now has a transcript of the video in which Bell Pottinger MD boasts “”We’ve got all sorts of dark arts. I told him he couldn’t put them in the written presentation because it’s embarrassing if it gets out because he’s so good at it.”

BellPottpresentationtoAzimovGp1

Thanks to Harry Cole for the embed.

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