Nowadays, companies and individuals are using social media for advocacy purposes and calls to action for issues affecting our nation. We asked John Cangany, Director of Digital Strategy for APCO Worldwide’s Washington D.C. office, what his thoughts are on the global usage of digital media. APCO Worldwide is a public affairs and strategic communications firm offering services locally and around the world.
Muck Rack: What is your digital background?
John Cangany: I lead APCO’s digital strategy practice, and my background is in building and managing communities online, particularly around environment and energy issues. At APCO, it has been expanded to building relationships with the community, bloggers, journalists, and mobilizing my efforts towards issues people care about. Whether it is about vaccines, a proposed merger, or acquisition I’m more involved in the social media aspect of it. What interests me most is how people advocate for issues they care about and how they choose to share information that they find important and recruit their peers and allies to participate as well.
MR: Do you connect with the community more via social media, or by other means of communication?
JC: I connect with most journalists and bloggers over email, but in terms of getting a sense of what they are interested in and the issues they care about, social media is critical. Particularly Twitter, it gives you a look into what someone will be writing about, the things they are thinking about, and the information they want to get. Increasingly, I spend a lot more time on Reddit. The News section has been teaming up with peers who are sharing information they find interesting, and journalists are participating in things like Ask Me Anything, which has really turned it into a hub of information on all levels. Just like on the internet, there is a lot of valuable stuff, and then there is garbage, so that’s true of Reddit too. Social media platforms primarily work well for this job because they give us insight into who truly cares about the issues that we are trying to advocate for or promote, and to tailor to them very specifically. Transparency and targeting for building relationships with journalists is important because the stakes are really high. If someone on my team sends a pitch that is not tailored at all, there are some very bad outcomes that can come from that.
MR: Have pitching methods changed over time?
JC: Some of it is different. A relationship now might be different than what it used to be perhaps when PR practitioners had to connect with morning and evening newspapers. The influential person today could be a mom or business person who writes about investment issues but is also someone who is employed by the industry and not just a journalist. The nature of the relationship is still very important about how we cultivate it. Whether it is through a cold pitch, which I think is less and less effective, or building a relationship that is honest and genuine, and getting to know someone before you have to pitch them on an idea.
MR: How have social platforms changed the business model on a global scale?
JC: I think from an accessed information point of view, Twitter is valuable wherever you go around the world. For a lot of people who want to find what is happening on an issue that is breaking right away, Twitter is the best tool for that. Getting instant access to how people are feeling or reacting to a crisis, some political issue, or a natural disaster gives you immediate information that is not distilled down by other parties. That is very important around big issues; you are getting everyone’s point of view quickly, and there are fewer gatekeepers. Especially on Twitter, from accessed information or information sharing among community members, having fewer gatekeepers is in theory a better way to get the truth about what’s happening.
MR: From your past work experience at PR Newswire, what is your view on the role of press releases today?
JC: For the disclosure rules of public companies and how they disclose financial information and quarterly earnings, I think the press release is becoming completely irrelevant, because the information that people want is not specifically contained in a press release anymore. That is distilled information that gets rounds of reviews, and from a social media standpoint, people like information that they can find easily, share easily and understand easily. The sharing part to a press release is probably its Achilles’ heel, because it is all text. There are better ways to deliver the information that a press release contains, which would resonate more with audiences, particularly if it is video or an infographic that could keep people more interested. I think the press release is not what it used to be, because people can get their information in different ways that are tailored to their interests. Twitter for example is great for news headlines and breaking stories, Instagram is great to visualize a piece of content, video is still really important, and a press release cannot do any of those things very well.
I think as social media platforms become more sophisticated and mainstream, my opinions will change. There is absolutely a time and place for press releases, especially if it is something more akin to a media advisory, but as social platforms mature and people get used to using them everyday, asking to read a press release that is housed somewhere on a platform they don’t go to normally is a pretty big request. One of the trends we have seen is a general eroding trust in institutions like government agencies. People are spending more time on platforms that they trust and like, such as Twitter and Facebook, and less time seeking out new things. There is a larger issue with that for journalists; are people getting access to information they do not know about, but can learn something from if they focus solely on the platforms that they like? From a user standpoint, I like what I like and if I get all these feeds that I’m interested in, why would I seek out new information from a press release.
MR: Where do you see the relationship between journalists and PR practitioners heading?
JC: I think being a journalist is incredibly difficult right now, because they get bombarded by a lot of pitches that they can either ignore or maybe they find one out of a hundred that is mildly interesting every day, in addition to writing a story which could go on a print edition of a publication or electronic version, that also needs multimedia content or anything interesting for their audience to like and share. Being a journalist is tough because there are very high expectations to reach a lot of people as fast as possible and also sift through information which could be valuable or invaluable. The relationship between a PR professional or a journalist is going to matter very much. There are a lot of demands on journalists from all sorts of places, so from my view, the more we can give good information up front and present it in a way that online audiences care about, the more likely journalists will be interested in taking a look at it, and hopefully by extension the higher the chances are that they will write about it.
MR: Does social media add to or detract from advocacy campaigns?
JC: I think social media is critical for any sort of advocacy; if you want to educate a lot of people quickly and mobilize them into doing something. The environmental community has done a really nice job over the last decade of communicating around issues such as drilling, habitat destruction, or even how our own food industry makes and distributes food. The advocacy platforms that environmental and non-profit organizations use and succeed with have the ability to reach a lot of people online. They can humanize issues very well with a video or blog post, and they can make simple calls to action on social platforms.
Social media provides an easy way to learn about a new issue and get up to speed about it, because there are experts from every field in places that are easy to find. The ability to figure out what is going on and participate is a lot easier than it used to be. When people rally around issues with the help of social media, it is peer driven because the people who are contributing to those platforms are not business people with specific agendas, they are concerned citizens. Not every issue will have a level of support in the tens of millions number, but we can more easily find the right audience and put the information out there for them to share.
MR: What are a few digital projects you’re currently working on?
JC: Right now I’m working with executives who are interested in issues related to business or healthcare technology, to basically boost their visibility a bit more as credible experts. This requires relationship building with journalists and bloggers who write on similar issues, introducing them to each other for potential guest blog posts, interviews, or videos. This is a way to generate content on platforms to reach a relevant audience and give organic visibility that our clients are looking for. We were hired by Sprint to stop the AT&T & T Mobile merger. If you come back from grade school and your teacher asked you to do a book report on how you spent your summer, how we spent 2011 was working on that campaign. We were able to focus on technology advocates and consumer rights groups to ban together to oppose the merger, send comments to the FCC, and voice our opposition credibly. That is why I like this kind of job in the first place; finding out ways to mobilize audiences online and getting them to talk about issues they already care about is very exciting.
Increasingly, these kinds of campaigns get managed like a political campaign. Having a committee of people dedicated to a project and the kinds of high stakes, fast-moving things where a lot of people can care about an issue, are things I like most about the work.
MR: Last thoughts?
JC: When building a relationship with journalists, people should really pay attention to what is being covered and read as much as they can. One of the down sides to social media is that more people are watching and sharing, and spending less time reading. The more that people read and understand all the players around an issue, the more important they will be. Find issues that you care about and spend as much time reading as possible.
-SP
This week on the chat we talked about how to break into journalism.
