The importance of Online Media Tactics for Effective Political PR campaigns that will Influence Voters between the ages of 18-25

The importance of Online Media Tactics for Effective Political PR campaigns that will Influence Voters between the ages of 18-25

Introduction

Political Public Relations communicators need to create awareness of the party and its policies and manage the relationships and the messages that they want their parties to convey. For general elections and referendums in Ireland, TD’s and political parties predominantly use traditional means of political communications and their public relations and is generally carried out by face to face house campaigning. They also use leaflets that they put in post boxes and fix posters on poles around the country. Professional communicators need to realise that publics are not that interested in the political parties themselves but instead the message that they share. It is important that we realise that the public needs to have a visual and informative image of the political party and of their policy issues which help to influence the mind of the voter.

The target age bracket that will be focused on throughout the course of this report will be from 18-25. 120,000 voters in this age category are not registered in Ireland to vote and for the up coming referendum on same-sex marriage in May. It is that demo graph of people who are most likely to vote yes. September 2014, a Red C poll, commissioned by the NYCI, found that up to 30pc of 18-25 year olds were not listed on the electoral register. (Youth.ie, RED C Poll, 2014). RED C is the most frequently published and respected political pollster in Ireland. They publish political tracking polls for our key client The Sunday Business Post on a monthly basis, as well as conducting polls for other media sources, betting groups, political parties and candidates. (RED C Research, 2014)

With the frequency of people turning 18 in Ireland since, that statistic has a very probable possibility of being higher. This is a distinct age bracket where political parties can target effectively through use of online media along with the traditional PR tactics they currently use.

Statistics from (Digital Training Institute, 2014) show that 62% of the population aged 15 years and above are members of Facebook and just over two-thirds of these account holders use Facebook daily. With the shift to social media and online use, our political parties are falling well behind the times in terms of campaigning for support, engaging with their publics and delivering their messages. (The Journal, 2014)

Through research both primary and secondary, I have complied a summary of recommendations to show how political parties can effectively target this age bracket by using traditional & new media PR tactics. 

• A revamp of the current style of face to face canvassing to target 18-25 year olds is mandatory to re-engage with this lost target age bracket. Canvassing online can help improve the communications of a political candidates message if canvasing is provided online. 18-25 year olds are not interested in face to face canvassing and it really only works for older voters.

• By using targeted marketing on social media networks, Professional Communicators can effectively pursue un registered voters and explain to them why it is important to vote. If PR communicators fail to see this gap in their current style of communications, the figure of 120,000 unregistered voters will increase. (Personal Communication, Irish Political Communications Survey, 2015).

• Timing and scheduling online messages out on social media applications at high usage times will help disperse messages from professional communicators. Using applications like Hoot-suite will aid in this delivery as all the different social media platforms have different times and scales of usage (Digital Irish Consumer Report).

  

  

  
  

• Taking inspiration from UK and American political PR campaigns like Clinton’s digital campaign will show how effective that broadcast can be when targeting 18-25 year olds. Imparting a speech on Youtube, declaring the launch of her campaign of Twitter and her usage of Facebook, created a Media Blitz. YouTube videos can be shared freely on Facebook, Twitter, Google and other networks, and posted to blogs or websites. This might grow organic views to a level where paid ad placement isn’t needed. By harnessing your supporters, and encouraging them to share your video online, you have the ability to reach your electorate directly in their homes and on their mobile devices. 

• Youtube is also another online social media application that to date is unused by professional communicators. YouTube tutorials are increasingly popular, with 31% saying they view regularly. An issue was highlighted in the Personal Communications survey 2015 by comments left by participants. Some found it very difficult to register to vote as there was no accurate guide to follow & there was no way to apply online. Another recommendation I would have for PR communicators would be to create an online medium for people to be able to vote and to share it by targeted marketing through social media. The ease of access would greatly increase the amount of registered voters in Ireland. These new digital PR communication techniques were used recently by Hillary Clinton.

  In April 2015 she launched her political PR campaign via Social media. There was no press conference or media gathering and it was announced by one tweet and a Youtube video. The massive social media blitz sparked a huge response for Clinton and set her campaign off to a great start. The Americans have realized that social media has quickly become one of the most prominent ways for politicians to connect and engage with the public. Clinton and other candidates are now going beyond the ‘traditional’ channels of Facebook and Twitter, to others, such as Snapchat and Periscope, as they seek for broader ways to engage with voters. (The Journal, 2015)

• Measurement of the effectiveness of a Political PR campaign can be measured more effectively online. While there is no effective way of measuring the ROI of a poster campaign, there is with video – YouTube campaigns can also be tweaked within minutes ensuring you get the most out of the budget. Imagine being able to change where your poster appears at the click of a button, based off real-time data of how many people are looking at it where it is now. While there’s still a place for traditional forms of advertising, video commercials will be more effective in terms of being eco-friendly, cost efficient and in targeting a candidate’s electorate.

  Professional communicators can show results by adapting to online methods as they can gauge their measurement. Youtube videos will show how many views and also leave spaces for comments, which provides a facility where members of the public can respond back with comments. Video ads can be distributed through specific filters allowing refined audience targeting and video will attract 3 times more inbound links than posts with plain text. (Viddyad, 2014). Its important to deliver a message and give people the opportunity to communicate back. The public information model from Grunig and Hunts 4 models of communications, is currently the preferred method of communication for Political communicators. PR practitioners need to adjust to the two way symmetrical model and use two – way communication styles. This will enable professional political communicators to negotiate with publics, resolve conflict and promote mutual understanding and respect between the political party, member, representative or message to its publics. There is a high level of activism on social media and its users like to contribute. Grunig & Hunt, 1984).

Reference Section

Primary Research:

Online Survey 2015

1. Personal Communication, Irish Political Communications Survey, 2015, Results on request.

Secondary Research:

1. RED C Poll on Youth.ie: http://www.youth.ie/nyci/RedCNYCI-poll-30-young-people-aged-18-25-not-registered-vote
2. Digital Training Institute: http://www.digitaltraininginstitute.ie/social-media-trends-in-ireland-may-2014/
3. Red C Research: http://www.redcresearch.ie/polling#sthash.8WMjaVsz.dpuf
4. Video Blog: http://blog.viddyad.com/2014/04/28/case-study-irish-political-marketing/

Books Referenced:

1. Ronald D Smith, 2013.Strategic Planning fro Public Relations. Routledge.

2. Ellen Grunig, 2003. Public Relations a Practical Approach. Gil & Macmillan

Reports Referenced:

1. Shane O Leary, Irish Digital Consumer Report 2014

The Web Changes News – And PR – Forever

Introduction

Since the beginning of time humans have engaged in different forms of communication and its the medium of communication that we use, has changed. We started with gestures and developed verbal communication and then we learned to write. We have communicated the same way every time, the sender sends the information through a medium to the receiver. Within the last few years with the developments in digital communication, the medium for delivering news has shifted from printed news to online news. This has brought a major transformation in news paper sales firstly and it has drastically changed the way public relations management is controlled. People now have come to expect that along with an old media approach, that their will also be a new media approach. Many people would be of the opinion that the old style media, for example, a press release to a newspaper company for publication via print is dated. While I would agree some what with this, being a digital native myself, I still would firmly believe that we as PR practitioners should never rule it out completely because there is still a reliance on these means of communication to a certain demograph of people.

How ‘new’ media differs from ‘old’ media

The Internet in recent years has brought a revolution in how we communicate, which has summoned a transformation in how Public Relations is practiced. Before there was a heavy reliance in the print media press release and now we are seeing a steady shift to online press releases. With a rapid change in technology and digitisation, it initiated a shift where people are now currently moving away from printed text to digital text for news, learning and communication. PR practitioners now need to adapt their skill sets to be more relatable to the shift in the newer digital trends. Rupert Murdock in 2005 addressed the American Society of News Paper editors in Washington DC and tried to convince people, that the ‘traditional’ media, or as we know it now, ‘old’ media, is changing as people are now using different means of gathering news. (Guardian, 2005) 

“We need to realise that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from”.

When Murdock put his voice forward in 2005, he was initially laughed at by his peers. Now 10 years later, the print media has succumbed to the demand for online news. Every paper available in shop shelves now have an online version for free or you can avail of a subscription online. People don’t just want to rely on one source of information when they are looking at the news. A lot of this could be due to the cynical nature of people nowadays, but is also to do with the fact that people want more opinions and versions of the same story, particularly if its of interest.

“What is happening is, in short, a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don’t want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don’t want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what’s important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel’ – (Rupert Murdock, 2005)

Carnegie carried out a report on how there is a definite migration of old media to new media between the ages of 18-34 on how people access news. The dramatic shift in how young people access the news raises a question about how the scale and the flow of information will interact in the years ahead. (Carnegie 2015) The report showed that in 2005, there were already trends to show where old media news was headed. By using internet portal sites, our phones, tablets, we are now able to source news other way than just print news papers. We can access, blogs, forums, news websites and social media. Each of these devices and functions have challenged the way we access information and process it. It challenges the way traditional media and its historic function and puts to question where traditional news media will be in the future. It’s also posed a challenge to who produces new. Citizen journalism, blogging sites are changing the nature of how we as PR practitioners manage our clients reputation and because of this, we are now using these tools too, to come before possible issues online.

The paradox between how new media is now used rather than the old types of media, is that, it was the digital immigrants who invented these technologies, but its the digital natives, who don’t see restrictions with new media uses are developing the mediums in which we view media. People born from the early 2000 on are described as the digital natives and the generation before are the digital immigrants.

Jeff De Graff, author and journalist for the Huffington post describes digital natives as Free agents:

‘ They view the world horizontally, in equalitarian terms. Rather than dividing the world into hierarchies, they see everyone as existing on an equal level. They embrace the benefits of sharing things and ideas with each other and, in doing so, they cross boundaries. They are driven by values. For this reason, many of them are distrustful of traditional cultural and social institutions: marriage, religion, government. In opting out of these institutions, they have declared themselves micro segments of one — free agents.’

In 2005 when Murdock addressed the American Society of News Paper editors, he received an aggressive response. Digital natives imagine a world with minimal institutional structure and are more open to diversity in cultures and backgrounds. PR practitioners who are still learning new technologies have an advantage now where they can learn from the digital natives and keep up with the new trends in PR and their clients reputation.

It is the opinion of Alyshia Kisor-Madlem, blogger and journalist, that it really comes down to numbers when you think about how the web has changed news today. For example, the traditional print media for the New York Times has a circulation of 2 million copies, while the online version has over 15 million visitors a month. (Blastmedia, 2012) .

I believe that while printed or old media still remains important and will do for at least the next 10 years, newspaper companies should be preparing for and gearing towards having a smaller printing demo graph and working on their online presence and persona. PR partitioners currently depend on old media trends like newspapers and radio to manage their clients retains with the mass public, but they also now have to include digital and social marketing services. Renatta Murphy, the managing director of Cameo Communications in Cork, Ireland, has been quoted saying that ‘If for example, if The Examiner in Cork, stopped or shut down, it would affect all Cork PR Practitioners work. It would make Clients divert their business to a part of the country where their was a large-scale news print’. (PR talk, 24.03.2015) I believe that currently, today businesses should and still do hold a lot of value in the old styles of media, but for a PR partitioner, it does depend on who you’re representing and what they need you for. Roderick Udo, event manager for Appelpop festival also said during his presentation for The Art of The event seminar in 2015, that while there is now a heavy reliance on social media to promote and inform members of the public events, you should never underestimate the power of traditional media like the press releases, articles in magazines and news papers as the target market will always have access to these forms of media. I do believe that it had added to the PR practitioners job, but I believe it has enhanced it. You can reach all types of audiences with editorials online and also with physical print copies from media sources.

Conor Barron, the digital Marketing executive for Bord Gais Energy, wanted to promote the Bord Gais energy Theater to a younger audience, and the vast majority of this PR awareness campaign was mainly promoted by new media means like the use of twitter, hashtags and google + hangout to appeal to the target market it was trying to reach. (The Art of The event seminar, 2015). The type of media predominantly used for this campaign was new media, if this campaign was carried out by traditional means of media, it would not have carried over the same effect as it simply would not have reached the necessary target market.

The impact of the web on traditional mass media

It used to be the case that with ‘old’ media, almost everybody in your locality would get their news from a few select newspapers, radio stations or television channels, and so we as PR practitioners knew which channels to use to reach the general public. The PR profession had mastered communicating through traditional media but the emergence of the web meant the tools and tactics we used to reach our publics had to be developed quickly or we would be left behind.

New media and communication technologies have had a noticeable impact on public relations, in particular how organisations are able to communicate with their multiple publics. A multitude of studies have examined the phenomenon of social media, and its impact on different types of organisations. (PRSA,2014).

Statistics from pew-internet show Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Linked’In. With multi platform use of social media, which is regarded as new media, on the rise, it’s now more important than ever for PR practitioners to adapt to using new media as well as the old media styles. Pew surveys showed that 52% of online adults now use two or more social media sites which is a significant increase from 2013 when it stood at 42%. It also showed that more than half of all online adults 65 and older (56%) use Facebook. This statistic represents 31% of all seniors that took part in the survey. Another statistic to take from their survey is that roughly half of the internet using young adults from the age of 18-29 use instagram and 49% of Instagram users use it daily.

Dustin W Supa, performed a qualitative and insightful study of how social media, otherwise known as new media, has impacted the PR practitioners job. The responses he received from interviewing 34 practitioners showed that many practitioners found that it gave them an advantageous approach to PR and carrying out their jobs and also found it easier to find out information on journalists. They also stated that their relationships with journalists have become more personal. The question asked, that provoked such a strong response was: “What impact has social media had on the media relations function of public relations?”(PRSA, 2014)

One practitioner responded:

“Definitely…it’s an opportunity to talk with reporters and establish a relationship in a less formal way. You can talk with them about anything from the weather, to a mutual favorite sport to the industry they cover. You can show them love by retweeting an article they wrote. Some reporters even tweet media opportunities that you can respond to right then and there…Overall, social media helps you see what kind of person a reporter is. It humanizes them, which in my opinion, makes it easier to talk with them when it comes to client work.”

The nature of new media also impacts news and how we consume it. Johanna Blakley gave a ted talk on how we are targeted by media and marketers and an interesting point I took from the video was that from their research carried out, it was females that are predominately social media networkers,  that use new media interfaces. Media companies believe that if you fall within certain categories that you are predictable in certain ways. Online media has also shifted the way that we are now demo graphed by media companies and we are much more refined as individuals now because of this. Traditional media demographics have changed. The TED talk is roughly 8 minutes long and below the video I took a few screen grabs of statics and their times on the video.

Reference Section:

• http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/apr/14/citynews.newmedia – Date accessed 15/03/2015
• http://carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter/single/view/article/item/124/ – Date accessed 18/03/2015
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-degraff/digital-natives-vs-digita_b_5499606.html – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• http://blastmedia.com/2012/11/06/online-vs-print-media/ – Date accessed – 22/03/2015
• http://www.prsa.org/intelligence/prjournal/documents/2014supa.pdf – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/Vol8/No2/ – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR4LdnFGzPk – Date accessed 25/03/2015
• http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender?language=en – Date accessed 25/03/2015
• http://blog.iain-tulungagung.ac.id/chusnulchotimah/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2013/11/Global-Purel.pdf
• http://www.academia.edu/3245711/Time_to_bridge_the_gaps_issues_with_current_social_media_research_in_public_relations – Date accessed 25/03/2015

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

What is this all about?

Digital natives are the people who were born into a generation of technology and were born roughly from the mid 1990’s on. This generation is also referred to as the ‘Net Generation’. People born before this time would be known as Digital Immigrants.

Since time has begun, we have labeled each generation.

• The people who fought in WW1 are known as The Lost Generation.
  

• People born from 1916 – 1920 are known as The Greatest or The GI Generation as this generation fought in WW2 & the survivors that live to this day are honored veterans.

• The Silent Generation label was given to those born from 1926-1938 & they are known as the children of the great depression.

• The next generation from 1945-1960 was named The Baby Boom Generation.

• We called the next generation, Generation X which was people born from 1960 – 1982. This was a really nasty generation as families experienced lots of divorces and suicide and murder figures skyrocketed. However, this was the first generation to experience personal computing, gender equality and started more businesses.

• Generation Y came next which was people born from 1982-the mid 1990’s. My generation actually. We were the fortunate ones to be born during the big economic boom which was emerging through large developments in technology. They started ‘planning’ families with having deliberate children. Health care and education improved a bit, not by much depending on which country you were in. The USA & Europe would have had a similar change and advancement and some countries developed quicker.

• Digital Natives are the generation from the mid 1990’s and on to this day in 2015. They are the tech savvy’ist of us all. My kid cousin was born in 2008 and he is able to beat me by 204 levels in Candy Crush on his iPad & also fix the reason by iMessages aren’t sending? The Kid is 7 years of age and I just think he is wonderful. FYI he has been fixing my IT issues since he was 4 years old.

Digital immigrants include all those generations before generation Y and even some people in generation Y. Can the digital natives teach us? Will they take over from us? To be honest, to think about what way technology will be in 10 years time is interesting isn’t it? But is also a little scary. Just think, if my four year old cousin in 2012, fixed my iCloud back up & sorted the settings on my iPhone, with a limited verbal capacity & knowledge of the world, what will he be doing 10 years from then? Breaking firewalls, hacking Washington DC, controlling his own android robotic army?!?! these thoughts just cross my mind sometimes. Its really going to be based on his education that he gets now though isn’t it? The great Sir Ken Robinson gave a great TED talk into how schools kill creativity. Its really worth a watch.

The below video will bring you to youtube:

The link below will bring you to the TED website:

My only hope is that little Cian isn’t told to change and become a normal high achieving creature of the education system here in Ireland, that ends up with high points and does law, medicine or teaching. I hope he will be encouraged and led to a path of success by his teachers through life. Maybe a lot has changed now though. It might not be as unbalanced as what it was when I went through primary or secondary, where if you were good at art, and you exceeded all expectations in it, your maths grade decided if you made it to college or not. I hope that they will re address the system so he has a fighting chance of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Bill gates, Marissa Ann Mayer, Joseph M. Tucci or even the next Mark Zuckerberg.

The digital native himself the other day, skyped me to inform me that he has to scroll down through his game for a while in candy crush before he finds me….. on the level ladder & added that his mom is still getting texts from me from my iCloud email.

I don’t understand it at all, and this smug 7 year old is just itching to fix it. He fixed an issue I was having with internet connectivity on his last visit when he was 6 on the cusp of turning 7. The type of age that a person in born into, moulds the person for the future. With the right guidance, education & support, they can be who ever they wish to be. Although it is intimidating, knowing that the digital native is gaining more knowledge and is going to lead the way to future advancements is exciting.

Jeff De Graff, author for the Huffington post wrote a great article on his point of view between the digital native and the digital immigrant. Lastly see this great quote by Rupert Murdoch as he talks about himself as a digital immigrant.