Social Media: A Question of PR Leadership or Ownership?

The Council of Public Relations Firms “Firm Voice” blog post, “Owning Social Media” (October 12, 2011), raised some excellent points about taking responsibility for managing the social media function in the marketing and public relations sector. The post’s author, Widmeyer Communications Senior Vice President Barry Reicherter, issued a cogent call for public relations professionals, who need to assess the elements of their social media inventory in order to increase the effectiveness of their communication programs. However, I urge readers to think beyond Reicherter’s call for sole “ownership” of social media and consider the more important issue of strategic leadership in public relations.

Barry Reicherter

I am a public relations advocate but I’m reluctant to support Reicherter’s claim, “If public relations practitioners can acknowledge the primary elements that comprise social media, we can successfully claim ownership.” I agree that public relations practitioners (and students) need to develop expertise in social media tactics. Digital communication has become a core requirement in our profession. However, as they become more senior, public relations professionals should look beyond the tactical elements of social media and develop the expertise required to lead and manage the ways that social media activities are integrated in global marketing and communication programs at the strategic level.

Sabrina Horn

In another “Firm Voice” blog post on March 9, 2011, (“The Future of Talent: Building Best-In-Class Account Teams in the Social Media Age”) author Matt Shaw wrote, “The rise of social media and the erosion of boundaries between public relations and other marketing disciplines is rapidly creating the need for a new kind of public relations professional." According to Horn Group President and CEO Sabrina Horn, quoted in the blog post, that new kind of professional has to possess more than digital skills. “We’re already looking for people with a more well-rounded communications background—generalists who are capable of doing many things and floating between specialties, with digital skills as a central core area of competency,” Horn observed. “But the talent we hire just has to understand marketing strategy, because our clients are demanding that level of thinking as to how to build audiences.”

So, today’s public relations professionals (and certainly current students who will become our future professionals) must broaden their portfolios beyond expertise in individual functional areas. They must also be able to work with and manage other functional areas (marketing, business, research and analysis, etc.). Hence, social media might have many “owners” in a large corporation organized by departments or divisions (public relations, marketing, employee relations, executive communication, analyst relations, etc.). While public relations should “own” social media within its own functional area, I believe it’s more important that public relations “own” responsibility for integrating, coordinating, and leading strategic communication efforts (including social media) that span organizational boundary lines. This requires expertise in leadership and management as well as social media planning, tactics, and measurement.

ADM Mike Mullen

Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, an active user of social media, once warned about focusing too much on individual communication tools or concepts and not enough on the overall communication context and process. In 2009, then serving as the U.S. military’s senior uniformed executive, Admiral Mullen wrote, “As someone who ‘tweets’ almost daily, I appreciate the need to embrace the latest technologies. But more important than any particular tool, we must know the context within which our actions will be received and understood.”

In conclusion, I suggest that Reicherter add to his call for expertise in social media by encouraging public relations practitioners to develop expertise in managing individual tools, integrating social media activities, and leading communication programs that accurately communicate context and promote understanding of an organization’s actions.



Marshall McLuhan

As a postscript, I also wanted to comment on Reicherter’s A Clockwork Orange analogy that “social media is both organic and digital — humans connecting with technology as a conduit.” I’m a big fan of A Clockwork Orange, but, with all due respect to Anthony Burgess, I prefer Marshall McLuhan’s 1960s prediction of what’s happening today with social media. I believe that social media have become more than a connection between humans and technology. In fact, I think social media have become extensions of our human personalities, senses, and experiences. For as McLuhan described in The Medium is the Massage (1967), years before the launch of the Internet, “[Social media] are extensions of some human faculty – psychic or physical.”

Mexican Drug Wars and Social Media: Deadly Lessons

Read my latest post on the U.S. Army War College's DIME Blog at http://bit.ly/ppf5Xw. The DIME Blog is a product of the Army's Center for Strategic Leadership, where I am currently serving as the 2011-2012 Visiting Professor of Strategic Communication.

Here's a preview of my blog post, "Mexican Drug Wars and Social Media: Deadly Lessons in Information Power":

Recent CNN and New York Times news reports raise thought-provoking albeit disturbing notions about social media as a means to enable the information element of power. The reports about Mexico’s rampant drug war offer a case study of how law-enforcement, para-military, and military agencies need to adapt to the increasingly influential role of news and social media in power struggles.  



Late editor Maria Macias



The CNN report (“Mexican Editor's Death Linked to Work with Social Media,” Sept. 27) and three New York Times reports ("Mexico Paper, a Drug War Victim, Calls for a Voice," Sept. 20, by Randal C. Archibold; "In Mexico, Social Media Become a Battleground in the Drug War," Sept. 15, by J. David Goodman; and "Mexico Turns to Social Media for Information and Survival", Sept. 24, by Damien Cave") all described grisly murders of journalists like Maria Macias (right) and other social media users, allegedly by members of drug gangs, as a means to discourage Internet reports about gang activities.

A synthesis of these stories reveals how social media has become such an influential means of information power that adversaries are now battling for control of this space. In particular, a careful reading of the Times reports provides a sense of how strategic communication activities are becoming the center of gravity that Prof. Dennis Murphy wrote about in this blog on Sept. 14 (“Resources: How Important is Information as Power?”). Just as Murphy wrote, “Destroy the center of gravity directly then, and you defeat your enemy,” the Mexican drug cartels are attempting to destroy Mexico’s system of free speech and defeat the will of people to oppose their illicit activities.

First, social media must be managed strategically. According to Cave, social media can “create and destroy communities.” Veracruz’s State Assembly recently passed legislation outlawing use of social media to undermine public order. Also, the recent murders of online journalists exemplify the personal risks of reporting via social media in Mexico. Still, social media can promote public safety by warning people to stay away from areas where drug cartel violence erupts. According to one Twitter user quoted in Cave’s article, “People’s lives are saved with Twitter.”

Second, social media is pervasive. Many Mexicans see social media as essential for survival, and social media can unify citizens dispersed over large areas. Cave reported that there are more than four million Twitter subscribers in Mexico and, of more than 30 million Internet users, 95 percent have Facebook accounts.

Third, social media fills a psychological need. Many Mexicans see the traditional pillars of state and press as contaminated by organized crime. Social media authors on the other hand are viewed as independent and trustworthy. According to a doctoral student at the University of Texas quoted by Cave, social media in Mexico “fulfill the need for information in an immediate and accessible way and, on a deeper, psychological level, provide some knowledge or certainty in the face of uncertainty.”

Finally, social media can be a source of reliable information. News reports can be “bundled” on social media channels like Twitter, which contains streams of content organized by “hashtags” that connect tweets of similar content or subject matter. This bundling allows readers to aggregate information instead of relying on isolated, unconnected reports. Social media is also self-regulated. According to one researcher interviewed by Goodman, “Most of the information [on social media] is reliable and the information that is not often goes ignored.” Furthermore, a large percentage of tweets are actually retweets, which are “curated” by others and scrubbed for reliability.

For a deeper analysis of this issue and its relationship with U.S. policy on using information as an element of power read my complete post on the DIME Blog.

Marist PR Students Selected for Innovative Crowd Sourcing Program

Gaining an edge in today's global marketplace is critical. Marist College public relations students are learning this lesson first-hand by participating in an innovative program from Ketchum that allows them to tackle real client challenges as part of a worldwide digital community.

Seventeen students in Professional Lecturer Jennie Donohue's Public Relations Case Studies class are among those from top communication schools around the globe selected to participate in Ketchum's Mindfire program, an open innovation crowd sourcing site for students. Ketchum, one of the world's leading communication firms, gives students the opportunity to work together to provide fresh creative ideas for clients in return for unique incentives and prizes.

Currently more than 300 graduate and undergraduate students representing more than 30 leading colleges and universities in North America, Europe, Asia and South America are collaborating on domestic and overseas business challenges facing Ketchum and its clients. More than 60 of the agency's clients including Hertz, Wendy's and Frito-Lay North America have used Mindfire for creative inspiration.

"We're excited that our students have been invited to work with Ketchum and its clients in such a unique way," said Steven Ralston, dean of the Marist College School of Communication and the Arts. "The Mindfire program allows our students to obtain hands-on, real-world experience that taps their creative, strategic thinking and digital skills in a student-centered, global learning environment – a hallmark of the Marist experience."

In addition to gaining valuable experience to add to their resumes, students participating on Mindfire may be eligible to receive career coaching, training and job alerts from Ketchum along with prizes provided by the clients that issue each challenge.

Courtesy of Marist College School of Communication and the Arts "In the News" (http://www.marist.edu/commarts/news.html)

Social Media: A New Information Center of Gravity

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2011 Social Media Summit (Wednesday, Sept. 14) at Harrisburg University. I accompanied my colleague from the U.S. Army War College, Dennis Murphy, professor of information operations. Professor Murphy, a member of the summit's Social Media and the Military panel, delivered a presentation entitled “Fighting Back: New Media and Military Operations.”

The summit featured a variety of other panels and presentations on social media and education, job searches, organizational policy, legal issues, political change, life sciences, intellectual property, and even disconnecting from social media. Click here for a complete listing and links to videos of the summit’s panels.

The summit provided an excellent opportunity to listen to experts, speak with colleagues, and consider the impacts of social media on our military profession and our personal lives. The day was brief but packed full of information – not unlike a 140-character message on Twitter. After deciphering all of this information, I identified a few themes that emerged during the summit.

• Social media is here to stay. Summit organizers provided a list of amazing facts that indicate social media is not merely part of a passing fad. Social media is, increasingly, fueling business practices. For instance, 80% of companies use social media to recruit and hire new employees; and 95% of those companies use LinkedIn. Even more impressive, in July 2011, 38 million people reported that social media influenced their purchasing decisions, an increase of 14% from only six months earlier.

• Social media is ubiquitous. Social media touches the lives of billions of people daily. Facebook attracted 500,000,000 users in 2011, or one in every 13 peopleon the planet. Also, 46% of the world’s humans access social media platforms – every day; and 57% of these people spend more time talking to each other online than they do offline. For example, in an average 20-minute period in 2010, Facebook recorded 1,587,000 Wall posts; 2,716,000 photo uploads; and 10,208,000 published comments.

• Social media is no longer the domain of youngsters. Adults in the 35- to 54-year-old age group represent the largest group of followers on Facebook. And our mobile society uses a variety of devices to follow each other more and more closely. Twitter members exchanged 50 million tweets daily in 2010, which pales in comparison to the average of 100 million tweets a day that have gone back and forth so far in 2011. And speaking of mobility, Twitter use on mobile devices rose 347% over the last year.

Upon returning from the summit, I published a post on the DIME Blog of the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College. The DIME Blog addresses issues related to the information component (I) of national military power, with the other elements of national power being diplomacy (D), military (M), and economics (E).

In the DIME Blog post, I elaborated on the influence of social media on military strategic communication activities, coining one of Professor's Murphy's descriptions of social media as a "center of gravity" in U.S. military operations. Click here to read and comment on the entire post.

*Follow tweets from the summit on Twitter, hash tag #HUSocialSummit

Taliban's Internet Strategy -- Information Power

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on its website late last week ("The Taliban's Internet Strategy," Sept. 9, by Bashir Ahmad Gwakh), that the Taliban is developing an increasingly sophisticated Internet-based strategic communication approach in its fight against the United States and other Western nations.

In its report, RFE/RL quoted Abdul Sattar Maiwandi, the web editor of a Taliban website, who addressed the importance of information in warfare and the influence of news media. Reportedly, in an interview with Al-Emarah, the official Taliban website, Abdul Sattar Maiwandi observed, "Wars today cannot be won without media." He then added, "Media aim at the heart rather than the body, [and] if the heart is defeated, the battle is won."

Abdul Sattar Maiwandi seems to have studied well the strategic art of information in warfare. As I have learned here at the U.S. Army War College, victory in asymmetric warfare often means simply surviving. Despite the U.S.-led coalition's dismantling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, Taliban resistance continues and, some claim, is in resurgance in Afghanistan. If so, this development would support the notion that a smaller, more poorly armed group could outlast a more powerful force by avoiding destruction while it erodes the political will and means for that force to continue fighting.

This is not unlike the situation that Western governments now find themselves in, with economic conditions that are leading to reductions in military budgets and a refocusing of public attention from international conflict to domestic problems. At least in the United States, however, public opinion still supports the fight against terrorism, with nearly two-thirds of U.S. citizens expressing a willingness to give up some personal privacy and freedoms to continue the fight. Click here for more from AP.

Still, public support among Western nations seems to be at a tipping point, which increases the need for effective strategic communication efforts to counter and defeat Taliban propaganda. The reports of Taliban propaganda efforts are not new. News organizations like the BBC have been covering this story for nearly a decade.

But recent reports of the Taliban's use of social media and other emerging Internet-based forms of communication to prey upon willingness to fight further highlight the need to stay ahead of the Taliban in terms of employing information as an element of power. Organizations like the U.S. Army War College's Information in Warfare Group in the Center for Strategic Leadership are at the forefront of this effort. Visit the group's website for details of its information programs.

But more work may be needed to counter any increased investments by the Taliban in its information campaign. Just consider the alternatives. According to a BBC report in 2009, "The propaganda fight is intense because whoever wins it will gain the support of the people and stands a chance of winning the war on the ground too."

2011 Social Media Summit, Harrisburg (PA) University of Science & Technology

I'm looking forward to attending the 2011 Social Media Summit, held at Harrisburg University of Science & Technology next Wednesday, Sept. 14. I will accompany Professor Dennis Murphy, director of the U.S. Army War College's Information in Warfare Group, in the Center for Strategic Leadership. He will be a featured panelist for the Summit's 12:30-1:45 event, "Social Networks and the Military." Dennis and other panelists will discuss the difficult balancing act of using social media as an important communication channel while protecting against threats to military security as well as the safety and privacy rights of military members and families.

Prof. Dennis Murphy

Dennis is Professor of Information Operations and Information in Warfare at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership. He served on active duty as an Army officer for 27 years and has published extensively on information operations, strategic communication, network centric warfare and national security issues. He was the first George C. Marshall Fellow for Political-Military and Diplomatic Gaming at the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute in 1999. He also has vast experience in information operations (IO) and strategic communication in combat and peace operations. As a result, he is in high demand as a speaker and panelist at forums like the 2011 Social Media Summit.

Click here for more information on the Social Media Summit. Click this link for more information on Dennis Murphy.

Cyberterrorism: New Information Frontier

Jeff Caton

Congratulations to U.S. Army War College colleague Associate Professor Jeff Caton for his invitation to appear with author Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) at the Oct. 5 World Affairs Council of Philadelphia forum on cyberterrorism. 




Mark Bowden

Bowden has written a new book, Worm: The First Digital World War (Grove/Atlantic), due out this October. In the book, Bowden explores the dynamic interplay between our hunger for Internet access and the risks associated with viruses, security flaws, personal privacy, network attacks, etc.

Jeff, whose office is next door to mine, is Professor of Cyberspace Operations here at the U.S. Army War College. He served for 28 years as an active-duty Air Force officer and has authored 13 professional publications and many book reviews. He is has gained national recognition as an expert on cyberspace as well as space, missile, and nuclear operations. Jeff and I often debate the merits of social media and other Internet-based forms of communication versus the risks associated with such open communication and personal privacy in cyberspace. The conversation between Jeff and Mark Bowden should be fascinating.

For more information about Jeff's appearance at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia event on Oct. 5, check the council's website: http://www.wacphila.org/programs/center_city.html. You can also click this link for Jeff's biography.