Comipidigest4 2014

International, Public & Corporate Communication Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News Issue # 4 - 2014 FOREWORD This newsletter is aimed at providing Public Affairs practitioners with a short selection of recently published stories, papers, etc. which may be useful to remain abreast of new trends or to stimulate a debate. External sources are linked and any copyright remains with the authors.

Proapaganda in the Social Media era Our facebook post that got more visits during the past quarter was related to ISIS, followed by one covering Russian propaganda. In both cases the main actors are using propaganda for rather new but different purposes.

ISIS’ efforts appear equally focused on scaring the oppositors and encouraging supporters to join their ranks, while Russia has successfully created an information clutter that has neutralised most of the efforts made by the western narrative to disclose their evil intent.

In this issue:

Why ISIS coverage sounds familiar

p. 2

Analysis of Russia’s information campaign against Ukraine

p. 4

How Russia Is Revolutionizing Information Warfare

p. 7

Social Media tips: How to Survive a Scandal p. 10 If You’re Reading This, You’re Part Of The Connected Class p. 16 5 Tips to Avoid Spamming Your Target Audiences p. 18 Can You Say “I’m Not Here To Talk About That Topic?” p. 20 6 Ways to Improve Twitter Engagement With Psychology Principles p. 22 Why did FBI urge US troops to scrub social media accounts? p. 26 Clueless about social media? Here are 17 clues for getting started p. 28

A fog of information has given visibility to the main failure by the western press: investigative, independent journalism is almost dead.

The editor

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Why ISIS coverage sounds familiar

that’s my point. The situation is not getting any better; it’s like a feedback loop.”

The evolving narrative about a new terrorist threat is reminiscent of the Iraq War

Like the media coverage that led up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, much of it is based on official, often anonymous sources, and a startling lack of evidence.

By Damaris Colhoun Twelve years ago, the media coverage that led up to the war in Iraq marched in step with an administration that was eager to go to war.

Today, “Threats and Responses,” the 2002 article in which Michael Gordon and Judith Miller claimed that the purchase of aluminum tubes was evidence that Saddam Hussein had a cache of nuclear weapons, has become a touchstone example of the failure of the press.

People watch smoke from an airstrike by the US-led coalition rising outside Kobani, Syria, from a hilltop on the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border, on October 23. (AP Photo / Vadim Ghirda)

In the months since ISIS beheaded two American journalists and released the video tapes for all the world to see, there have been reports of shadowy new terrorist cells in Syria, lone wolf attacks in the West, and the progress of the US-led airstrikes.

These reports belong to a larger narrative that is changing week to week, sometimes day to day, yet its pattern and tone are familiar.

Driven by a national outcry over the gruesome beheadings, the news media has focused on threats at home and abroad, while invoking the comforting myth of America’s military prowess. Like the media coverage that led up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, much of it is based on official, often anonymous sources, and a startling lack of evidence.

“We read the same things, we heard the same things about Al Qaeda,” said Yahya Kamalipour, who chairs the journalism department at North Carolina A&T State University, and the author of US Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception. “[ISIS] is an outcome of that really fundamentalist group,

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The wrong piece at the right time, it helped the administration justify war in a moment when the American public was reeling from 9/11.

This summer, the videotaped beheadings of the American journalists inflicted their own kind of trauma, especially on the journalism community.

The image of James Foley, kneeling in the desert, a knife against his neck, cannot be unseen. William Youmans, who teaches media and public affairs at George Washington University, worries that the outrage it sparked has given way to the same sort of solipsistic nationalism that transfixed the media in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He wonders what, if anything, has changed.

“There was a great deal of soul searching after the widely repeated, uncritical coverage leading up to the Iraq war,” Youmans said. “But I don’t know if that soul searching resulted in any fundamental changes in the relationship between the media and the political elite.”

The recent coverage suggests that this relationship is as close as ever. In the same week that Obama announced an open-ended bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the AP reported that a new terrorist cell had emerged that posed an even “more direct and imminent threat to the United States” than ISIS, in the form of the Khorasan group. With Obama administration

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officials publicly touting the group, the story flared through broadcasts and headlines on CBS and The New York Times, which quoted the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., as saying that “in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State”—despite there being almost no public information about Khorasan, or any concrete evidence as to who might belong to it. Two days later the first bombs fell in Syria.

Then in October the media glommed onto reports from law enforcement and terrorism officials that a series of violent episodes— including a slashing in Queens, a shooting in Ottawa, and a murder plot in Australia—may be evidence of ISIS’s capacity to catalyze terror attacks in the West. With congressional leaders calling for the military and police to be on guard, The Wall Street Journal described the attackers as “growing in number” and “hard to defend against.” CNN compared them to the shoe-bomber and other “lone wolves,” all of them Muslim, who had been selfradicalized in the West. Fox News called the American people “sitting ducks.” As was the case with the Khorasan group, the lone wolf threat was not based on evidence. Instead, it was based on messages that had appeared on Islamic State web forums urging “lone wolves in America” to plant explosives and target police.

Now that 1,500 additional US troops have been deployed to Iraq, a stunning development for an administration that had promised to drawdown the US presence there, it’s the coverage of the airstrikes themselves that is dominating the news. And with Khorasan largely debunked—by publications as diverse as Foreign Policy, the National Review, and The Intercept—and the threat of the lone wolf wiped from the headlines (Gawker had called it a “fairy tale”), a number of experts are wondering who exactly is driving the story.

According to Steve Livingston, a media scholar at George Washington University, media coverage since the Vietnam war has tended to privilege official sources, especially from the White House. “News coverage of war and

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foreign policy is indexed to the limited range of elite opinions,” he says, “at least in the short run.”

Lee Artz, who teaches communications at Purdue University, and the author of Public Media and Public Interest and Cultural Hegemony in the United States, said he sees these findings reflected in the constantly shifting narrative about the Islamic State. “The mainstream media in the US tends to accept uncritically whatever the US administration releases,” he says. “ISIS has been around for years, but according to the US it didn’t pose any threat to Western civilization until this summer. And then when the bombing campaign begins against ISIS, suddenly this group Khorasan appears as a more immediate threat, a more dangerous threat, although there wasn’t any background to it.” Artz says the threats that drew us into the Persian Gulf war in 1991, and Iraq in 2003, were similar. “In each case, intervention began with some threat that turned out to be convenient and useful to the US policy of intervention.”

A fog of information contributes to the problem. ISIS’s campaign of violence has made it all but impossible for American journalists to report on the ground in Iraq and Syria. And even though there are plenty of voices that are critical of the recent ISIS narrative, those voices aren’t reaching the majority of Americans, who get their news through national cable TV, and whose awareness of news sources is split along partisan lines. Youmans believes there’s still a shortage of sound international reporters and people who know the region very well, and that increased collaboration between Arab and American journalists could help enrich the national conversation.

A documentary released by Vice, in which reporter Medyan Dairieh embedded with the Islamic State for three weeks, is one recent example. The documentary sparked controversy for giving a voice to the jihadists, for its graphic, gruesome footage, and for possibly being illegal. But the reporter’s methods also captured the nuances of how the IS operates within the context of the region, in relation to other states, and its success in

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rooting out corruption in local markets— nuances that rarely surface in mainstream news outlets because they remain unknown, or do not fit the narrative. Youmans does not defend what the IS stands for, but says he is disturbed by the lack of nuance in much of the current reporting. “When the media starts erasing the bad things that good people do, and the good things that bad people do, that’s how we know it’s an information war.”

For now, without the benefit of hindsight, the recent coverage of ISIS and the airstrikes may only be notable for revealing just how little is actually known. Last week’s reports that the airstrikes were working have given way to doubt. Targets and alliances are shifting. Reports that US planes were passing through Syrian airspace and conspicuously not being shot at left many wondering whose side the US is on. This week, both The Washington Post and The New York Times ran pieces on the obstacles that are preventing the airstrikes from being more effective: Citing official and anonymous sources, the Post piece was framed around whether or not a key IS leader had been killed; theTimes described the bad weather, a lack of intelligence, and an inability to locate targets, positing that ISIS had gone underground. The Times piece appeared alongside another one by Ben Hubbard, who wrote that “the news media in general had perhaps given the impression that [ISIS] was stronger and more powerful than it actually is.”

Given the story he wrote last week, it almost seemed like an apology.

The reversals struck Artz as curious. “They send out bombing raids but they can’t find anybody to bomb. And again, this is the front page of The New York Times. So where’s the existential threat?” Meanwhile, a toolkit for journalists covering the airstrikes appeared on journalistresource.org. Complete with lessons from previous conflicts, including new data-driven research on how the bombings of civilian areas during the Vietnam war “systematically shifted control in favor of the Viet Cong insurgents,” the toolkit’s mission was clear: Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past.

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Analysis of Russia’s information campaign against Ukraine This report by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence examines non-military aspects of the crisis in Ukraine from a strategic communications perspective. The full report is available at http://www.stratcomcoe.org/…/NATO_PETIJUMS_PUBLIS KS_29_10.a…

Executive Summary The report analyses Russia’s information campaign against Ukraine, covering the period from the 3rd Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius (28-29 November 2013) until the annexation of Crimea (16 March 2014). It refers also to some more recent, important examples of the information campaign relating to events such as the MH17 air tragedy.

Over the years, Russia has been drawing lessons from different Allied operations and has worked on adapting its military planning to the realities of a modern conflict.

It tested these lessons in the recent August 2008 war with Georgia1 which marked the first use of cyber warfare and information operations in conjunction with a conventional military operation. Russia has also shown a

1

For a further reference on Russian military performance

during the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, please see the research paper “The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications” by A. Cohen and R.E. Hamilton: http://1.usa.gov/Zpdf1m

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willingness to modernize Soviet-era tools and adapt them to today’s complex information environment. Critically, it has been willing to afford information-based activities primacy in operations, using more conventional military forces in a supporting role.

Russia’s information campaign has to be analysed in the context of the strategic narrative of the Russian government, reflected in policy documents like the Foreign Policy Review of 2007 and the State Security Review of 2009, and supported by legislative initiatives like the Federal Law on the Russian Federation’s State Policy on Compatriots Living Abroad.

The notion of compatriots deserves particular attention as it allows Russia to legitimize the state’s duty to defend its compatriots abroad from any kind of threat to their rights or physical well-being. It also leads to the explanation of the need to sustain the socalled Russian World which implies maintenance of a unified Russian language information sphere beyond the borders of the Russian Federation (mainly targeting the territory of the former USSR).

The Russian government’s long-developed control over the mass media has been an important factor in the effective implementation of the information campaign against Ukraine. Russia’s narrative was instrumentalized with the help of concurrent messaging.

For example, the main Russian TV channels were actively involved in framing opinions about the situation in Ukraine from the very beginning of the crisis.

Control is exerted directly by the Presidential Administration, including also government controlled internet ‘trolling’ which is a growing, under-researched phenomenon used to support the Russian government’s narrative2. This control over the media has

2

The findings of research conducted by the NATO StratCom COE in cooperation with the Centre for East European Policy Studies provide facts supporting this statement.

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made it difficult for democratic states with free media to compete with the forceful, synchronized messaging of the Russian government.

The Russian narrative includes several dominant themes: positioning Russian Slavic Orthodox Civilization in opposition to “decadent” Europe; positioning Ukraine as integral to Eurasianism and the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union; promoting the Russian World which unites Eastern Slavs, implies that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation, and recognizes the natural supremacy of Russia; portraying Ukrainians as a pseudonation who are unable to administer their own country and sustain their statehood; referring to the Great Patriotic War thus bringing out the hatred of Nazism and relating it to the Euromaidan protesters who are labelled as nationalists, Nazis and fascists posing a threat to the ethnically Russian part of Ukraine’s population; dividing the West by utilising the differing interests of EU member states and positioning the USA in opposition to the EU; and using legal and historic justifications to legitimize Russia’s actions in Ukraine (including the Crimea Referendum).

The report identifies that Russia’s information campaign was central to Russia’s operations in Ukraine. The information campaign and related military action by Russia corresponds to the characteristics of a new form of warfare where the lines between peace and war, foreign military force and local self-defence groups are blurred and the main battle space has moved from physical ground to the hearts and minds of the populations in question.

Crimea may be considered a test-case for Russia in trying out this new form of warfare where hybrid, asymmetric warfare, combining an intensive information campaign, cyber warfare and the use of highly trained Special Operation Forces, play a key role.

The crisis in Ukraine has provided valuable lessons for the Ukrainian government, the countries neighbouring Russia (whose Russianspeaking communities were enlarged as a result of Soviet-era policy), and NATO and the EU as organisations.

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The following are the general conclusions of the report: • Russia was prepared to conduct a new form of warfare in Ukraine where an information campaign played a central role.

The characteristics of the new form of warfare which were implemented in Crimea were outlined by General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, nearly a year before the crisis in Ukraine. Analysis of the Ukraine conflict suggests that NATO and the EU must adapt to the new reality where information superiority, as opposed to military power, is becoming increasingly important.

• Russia’s narrative is largely based on historical memory. Russia’s thorough understanding of its own audiences – including compatriots abroad – was able to leverage historical memory: the Great Russian Empire, World War II and Nazi atrocities, and the might and collapse of the USSR.

West Ukraine and Kyiv, the populations of NATO and EU countries and the USA. • Deception is used by Russia as a tactic to distract and delay. Investigating and disproving the false information, different versions of events and even conspiracy theories rapidly disseminated by Russia requires a lot of time, effort and resources on the part of international organisations like NATO, the Ukrainian government, independent media, experts and even ordinary citizens.

Disinformation campaigns erode over time.

The evolution of the crisis in Ukraine beyond Crimea demonstrates that disinformation campaigns erode over time as more and more factual evidence is revealed to negate lies and falsification.

The analysis of the crisis in Ukraine should be continued from the information-warfare perspective as developments in the Eastern part of Ukraine seem to be diverging from the Crimea scenario.

• Crisis in Ukraine is a result of Russia’s long term strategy. Learning from the Russian information campaign in Ukraine, it is clear that early detection and analysis of those elements within the Russian narrative signalling potential aggressive behaviour is critical. The report also demonstrates that Russia’s state policy documents contain such indications.

• The role of the Compatriots Abroad policy is critical and should be considered carefully in the future. The security implications for countries neighbouring Russia are particularly serious. The kind of strategy that Russia has employed in Ukraine is likely to work best in areas where there are larger communities of Russia’s Compatriots Abroad.

• There is “another side of the coin” to Russia’s information campaign. Although Russia’s information campaign has been successful in influencing its audiences (the Russian population and compatriots abroad), it also bears a degree of counter-productivity as it has radicalized and alienated other audiences –

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How Russia Is Revolutionizing Information Warfare Peter Pomerantsev is a TV producer based in London. He is the author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, a forthcoming book about working inside Vladimir Putin’s postmodern dictatorship. Full Bio

At the NATO summit in Wales, General Philip Breedlove, the military alliance’s top commander, made a bold declaration. Russia, he said, is waging “the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare.”

It was something of an underestimation. The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cybersabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing.

The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space.

Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. There’s a flag and even a news agency (in English and Russian). There are several Twitter feeds. It’s like something out of a Borges story—except for the very real casualties of the war conducted in its name.

The invention of Novorossiya is a sign of Russia’s domestic system of information Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News – 4-2014

manipulation going global. Today’s Russia has been shaped by political technologists—the viziers of the system who, like so many postmodern Prosperos, conjure up puppet political parties and the simulacra of civic movements to keep the nation distracted as Putin’s clique consolidates power. In the philosophy of these political technologists, information precedes essence. “I remember creating the idea of the ‘Putin majority’ and hey, presto, it appeared in real life,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a political technologist who worked on Putin’s election campaigns but has since left the Kremlin, told me recently. “Or the idea that ‘there is no alternative to Putin.’ We invented that. And suddenly there really was no alternative.”

“If previous authoritarian regimes were three parts violence and one part propaganda,” argues Igor Yakovenko, a professor of journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, “this one is virtually all propaganda and relatively little violence. Putin only needs to make a few arrests—and then amplify the message through his total control of television.”

We saw a similar dynamic at work on the international stage in the final days of August, when an apparent Russian military incursion into Ukraine—and a relatively minor one at that—was made to feel momentously threatening. Putin invoked the need for talks on the statehood of southeastern Ukraine (with language that seemed almost purposefully ambiguous), leaving NATO stunned and Kiev intimidated enough to agree to a ceasefire. Once again, the term ‘Novorossiya’ made its way into Putin’s remarks, creating the sense that large territories were ready to secede from Ukraine when, in reality, the insurgents hold only a sliver of land. (For an earlier example of these geopolitical tricks, see Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012, when Russia’s decoy leader inspired American faith in the possibility of a westward-facing Russia while giving the Kremlin time to cement power at home and entrench its networks abroad.) *** The belief in the absolute power of propaganda has roots in Soviet thinking.

Jacques Ellul, in his classic 1965 study of the

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subject, wrote, “The Communists, who do not believe in human nature but only in the human condition, believe that propaganda is allpowerful, legitimate (whenever they employ it), and instrumental in creating a new type of man.”

give students a clear understanding: They are going to work for The Man, and The Man will tell them what to write, what not to write, and how this or that thing should be written,” he said. “And The Man has the right to do it, because he pays them.”

But there is one great difference between Soviet propaganda and the latest Russian variety. For the Soviets, the idea of truth was important—even when they were lying. Soviet propaganda went to great lengths to ‘prove’ that the Kremlin’s theories or bits of disinformation were fact.

When the U.S.government accused the Soviets of spreading disinformation—such as the story that the CIA invented AIDS as a weapon—it would cause howls of outrage from top Russian figures, including General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

The point of this new propaganda is not to persuade anyone, but to keep the viewer hooked and distracted—to disrupt Western narratives rather than provide a counternarrative. It is the perfect genre for conspiracy theories, which are all over Russian TV. When the Kremlin and its affiliated media outlets spat out outlandish stories about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in July—reports that characterized the crash as everything from an assault by Ukrainian fighter jets following U.S. instructions, to an attempted NATO attack on Putin’s private jet—they were trying not so much to convince viewers of any one version of events, but rather to leave them confused, paranoid, and passive—living in a Kremlin-controlled virtual reality that can no longer be mediated or debated by any appeal to ‘truth.’ *** Now Russia is exporting its reality-reinventing model through the hundreds of millions of dollars that it spends on international broadcasters like the rolling, multilingual news channel RT (Russia Today).

Domestically, RT helps convince Russians that their government is strong enough to compete with the CNNs of the world. In the United States, RT isn’t taken too seriously (if the channel manages to sow some doubt among Americans, all the better in Moscow’s view).

But in Europe, Russian propaganda is more potent, working alongside the Kremlin’s influence over local media as well as economic and energy pressures.

The situation is tensest in the Baltic countries, whose large Russian populations are serviced

by Russian-language TVchannels like the Latviabased PBK, which receives Kremlin programs at very low rates. ‘‘Huge parts of our population live in a separate reality created by Russian media,” says Raul Rebane, an expert on propaganda in Estonia, where a quarter of

In today’s Russia, by contrast, the idea of truth is irrelevant. On Russian ‘news’ broadcasts, the borders between fact and fiction have become utterly blurred. Russian current-affairs programs feature apparent actors posing as refugees from eastern Ukraine, crying for the cameras about invented threats from imagined fascist gangs. During one Russian news broadcast, a woman related how Ukrainian nationalists had crucified a child in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. When Alexei Volin, Russia’s deputy minister of communications, was confronted with the fact that the crucifixion story was a fabrication, he showed no embarrassment, instead suggesting that all that mattered were ratings. “The public likes how our main TV channels present material, the tone of our programs,” he said. “The share of viewers for news programs on Russian TV has doubled over the last two months.” The Kremlin tells its stories well, having mastered the mixture of authoritarianism and entertainment culture.

The notion of ‘journalism,’ in the sense of reporting ‘facts’ or ‘truth,’ has been wiped out.

In a lecture last year to journalism students at Moscow State University, Volin suggestedthat students forget about making the world a better place. “We should

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the population is ethnic Russian. “This makes consensual politics impossible.”

In his research on how Bulgarian media covered the conflict in Ukraine, Christo Grozev, of the Bulgaria-based Risk Management Lab, found that the majority of the country’s newspapers followed Russian rather than Ukrainian narratives about events such as the downing of Flight MH17. “It’s not merely a case of sympathy or language,” Grozev says. “The Russian media just tell more and better stories, and that’s what gets reprinted.” Organizations like the Ukraine-based StopFake.org have been working hard to expose disinformation in Russian and foreign media. But for every ‘fake’ they catch, Kremlin-allied news outlets produce a thousand more. These news organizations don’t care if they’re caught in a lie. They care only about clicks and being compelling.

Like its domestic equivalents, RT also focuses on conspiracy theories—from 9/11 truthers to thehidden Zionist hand in Syria’s civil war.

Western critics often snigger at these claims, but the coverage has a receptive audience. In a recent paper, “The Conspiratorial Mindset in the Age of Transition,” which examined conspiracy theories in France, Hungary, and Slovakia, a team of researchers from leading European think tanks reported that supporters of far-right parties tend to be more likely than supporters of other parties to believe in conspiracies. And right-wing nationalist parties, which are often allied ideologically and financially with the Kremlin, are rising. In Hungary, Jobbik is now the second-largest political party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front recently won 25 percent of the vote in elections for the European parliament.

“Is there more interest in conspiracy theories because far-right parties are growing, or are far-right parties growing because more conspiracy thinking is being pumped into the information space?” asks Gleb Pavlovsky, a little wickedly.

The United States, meanwhile, is struggling with its messaging to the outside world.

America is in an “information war and we are losing that war,” Hillary Clinton told

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Congress in 2011, citing the success of Russian and Chinese media. *** Just as the Kremlin’s international propaganda campaign intensifies, the West is having its own crisis of faith in the idea of ‘truth.’ It’s been a long time coming. Back in 1962, Daniel Boorstin, who would later serve as librarian of the U.S.Congress, wrote in The Image about how advances in advertising and television meant, “The question, ‘Is it real?’ is less important than, ‘Is it newsworthy?’ … We are threatened by a new and a peculiarly American menace … the menace of unreality.” By the 2000s, this idea had moved from the realm of commerce to the realm of high politics, captured in the now-legendary quote from an unnamed George W. Bush aide in The New York Times: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

The pressure on reality from capitalism and Capitol Hill coincides with an antiestablishment drive in the U.S. that likewise claims that all truth is relative. In a Prospect magazine review of Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide, for instance, George Packer writes, “Greenwald has no use for the norms of journalism. He rejects objectivity, as a reality and an ideal.”

(Similarly, RT’s managing director once told me that “there is no such thing as objective reporting.”) Examining the sins of omission, biased value judgments, and half-truths in Greenwald’s book, Packer concludes that “they reveal a mind that has liberated itself from the basic claims of fairness. Once the norms of journalism are dismissed, a number of constraints and assumptions fall away.” The ties that bind Greenwald and the Kremlin consist of more than a shared desire to ensure Edward Snowden’s safety. In some dark, ideological wood, Putin the authoritarian gaybasher and Greenwald the gay, leftistlibertarian meet and agree. And as the consensus for reality-based politics fractures,

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that space becomes ripe for exploitation. It’s precisely this trend that the Kremlin hopes to exploit.

Ultimately, many people in Russia and around the world understand that Russian political parties are hollow and Russian news outlets are churning out fantasies. But insisting on the lie, the Kremlin intimidates others by showing that it is in control of defining ‘reality.’ This is why it’s so important for Moscow to do away with truth. If nothing is true, then anything is possible. We are left with the sense that we don’t know what Putin will do next—that he’s unpredictable and thus dangerous. We’re rendered stunned, spun, and flummoxed by the Kremlin’s weaponization of absurdity and unreality.

How to Survive a Scandal

By Michael Mechanic | Fri Oct. 10, 2014 5:00 AM EDT

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Bill Clinton, and Paula Deen.

AP Photo/Jason DeCrow (Goodell), Scott Olson/Getty Images (Clinton), Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images (Deen)

As co-founder and now CEO of the crisis management firm Dezenhall Resources, Eric Dezenhall, 52, has spent the past three decades defending the reputations of celebrities and major corporations. He's contractually prohibited from naming clients— although his role on Michael Jackson's legal defense team is in the public domain—but they include Fortune 50 companies (consumer products, food and beverages, drugs, energy), large NGOs, colleges and universities, and the occasional public figure. He's also written six novels—not to mention several books related to his profession.

His latest, out this week, is Glass Jaw: A Manifesto for Defending Fragile Reputations in an Age of Instant Scandal .

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It's not exactly general-interest reading, but I found his perspective fascinating. Just how do you defend yourself against a Twitter lynching? And when should you apologize, as opposed to strike back against your critics—or go into hiding? And should politicians really be bringing their spouses out on stage for those sex-scandal pressers? I caught up with Dezenhall, who cut his teeth as an aide in the White House Communications Office under Ronald Reagan, to chat (among other things) about the NFL, oil spills, and Larry Craig's "wide stance."

Mother Jones: "Glass jaw" is a boxing metaphor for the big, tough-looking guy who can't take a punch. What are some examples of this in your profession?

Eric Dezenhall: There's this phenomenon I call the "fiasco vortex" where you basically have crises now that are over before they begin.

Toyota got hit very badly, GM got hit very badly. You have this lean finely textured beef— it became known asPink Slime. In an instant these targets go down. You've seen it with Tiger Woods and with Donald Sterling.

You've seen it with what the NFL is going through.

What's different now is this combination of velocity, volume, and venom. Things go faster, there's more noise, and the nature of social media traffics almost exclusively in negativity.

Social media is dispersive and what I do is containment driven. It's much easier to spread a controversy than put one out. Right as they begin, people take to the airwaves and say, "Well, so-and-so should resign." One of the arguments I make is that we're reaching the twilight of damage control, simply because there's a lot less you can do.

MJ: In the book, you also point out that we treat scandals as a kind of spectator sport. But was that not always the case?

"You have these Mother Goose chestnuts: 'Well, you've got to get ahead of the story.' It's kind of like saying, 'Don't get cancer.'"

ED: Now you have the crisis and then you have the farce. Nobody would dispute that domestic violence is a very serious thing—what's going on with the NFL, there are some very real things there. But before Roger Goodell even

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gets on TV, you have people saying he's totally mismanaged this.

Human nature hasn't changed at all. What's changed are the physics of attack. The new playbook of crisis management is that there is no playbook, because why would the biggest, richest institutions and individuals in the world consistently botch their crises if there were a playbook? You now have shows like Scandal and Ray Donovan where the spin doctor is one part magician and one part criminal. They're just incredibly powerful.

That's a total swindle. The industry is really not that impressive. On the other hand, you have these Mother Goose chestnuts: "Well, you've got to get ahead of the story." I've been doing this for 30 years, and I have no idea what that means. It's kind of like saying, "Don't get cancer."

MJ: So what are your clients' most common misconceptions?

ED: Well, they sometimes believe the solution is hiring a consultant. [Laughs.] I only take 5 percent of the cases because most of them there's nothing I can do. Which shocks people.

Because what they expect to hear is, "This guy is so good—you watch me work, baby!" If I believe there is a counter-narrative to be told, that works. But one of the more amusing kind of clichés you hear [in PR] is, "We're going to help you tell your side of the story." A few years ago, I worked for one of the corporate sponsors of Tiger Woods. The pundits were saying, "Tiger needs to tell his side of the story on Oprah." Well, wait a minute! What if his side of the story is, "What you've been hearing is the tip of the iceberg"? Not everybody has a good side of the story.

Another example is over-responding. An average case of mine these days is five moms on Facebook holding a conglomerate hostage.

Then you have someone that works for a big PR firm who says, "We must respond on social media." The problem is, every unit of response you offer when you're under attack can metastasize. I had one client who responded on Facebook to a critic, and the critic proceeded to go on Facebook and say, "This company is spying on me online!" Which was not accurate.

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"People in my industry would like people to believe we have ways to control social media. But that's one of the great swindles."

In fact, I argue very strongly in the book that social media is the problem, not the solution, in crisis management. It's a problem if you use it to communicate in areas where you're dealing with incredibly intense emotions and very deep conflicts. The NFL situation, for example, doesn't lend itself to social media.

People mistake their love of the technology for it being a solution. And the PR industry often recommends tactics for which they can bill, which is good for them but not good for the client. You've got to be smart about it.

MJ: In this era of Twitter lynchings, when should the subject of a scandal lay low and when should he push back?

ED: If there are allegations that are false and defamatory, social media can have some value, particularly if you are linking to something substantial—if you're filing a lawsuit or you have a comprehensive news story. The problem with social media is that people respond therapeutically. It is therapeutic to hit back against your enemies, but it is not necessarily strategically wise. McDonalds and JPMorgan opened up Twitter conversations that were taken over instantly by their detractors. People in my industry would like people to believe we have ways to control it.

But that's one of the great swindles.

MJ: You write that you've been increasingly disillusioned with a lot of corporate behavior.

In what sense?

ED: This trend toward insipid selfcongratulation—using pasteurized, sanitized words that don't mean anything. I had a client call me a few week ago, and I said, "Before I meet with you, you might want to huddle and figure out what your approach is going to be to this problem." So they called me back—this is the general counsel of one of the biggest companies in the world—and said, "We came up with the theme for our response."

And I said, "Would you like to tell me what you came up with?"

Dead silence. And then I said, "transparency."

And he said, "Yeah."

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And I said, "Let me tell you what else you came up with: diversity, tolerance, corporate social responsibility, sustainability"—those are words you use for self-congratulation.

And they're like, "Yeah."

"Now, why are you fighting labeling legislation for your products in all 50 states? That's the opposite of transparency."

"Well, we can't have that labeling legislation."

"Then you can't embrace transparency as your ethic!"

Most crises are not resolved through rhetoric.

They are resolved through operations. What's more ethical, doing what Exxon did and recognize after Valdez that the PR war was over—and then they spent 25 years investing in double-hulled ships and radically overhauling their safety procedures, and they've never had a major incident since—or do you do what BP did and spend half a billion dollars saying you're a wind and solar company? In a prior book, a few years before the BP spill, I pointed out that if there was ever a spill, there would be hell to pay.

So what's better, doing the right thing or using the right rhetoric? I've got a phone problem that Verizon cannot fix, but when I call and I'm put on hold for five hours, they tell me they deeply value my business. There's no more aggressive capitalist than I am, and I want to throttle these people!

Eric Dezenhall Amy Raab MJ: Have you ever found yourself counseling someone you know has done something very wrong? And in such a situation, do you view yourself as a defense lawyer of sorts?

ED: No. The Constitution gives you the right to a lawyer, but it doesn't allow you the right to a good reputation. I reserve the right not to work with clients I don't feel comfortable with. I turn down business constantly. A few years ago, a company had a fire. Dangerous waste was dumped into a river. And then somebody down Edited by ComIPI – www.comipi.it 12

river said, "Hey, nobody's going to know the difference between their waste and our waste, so why don't we dump ours?" I didn't take them. They said, "Hey, don't we have the right to a defense?" I said, "You have the right to a legal defense. You don't have the right to me."

But I made mistakes: When I was in my 20s, a client had a safety issue. I asked if it had been resolved, and they said, "Yes, we put in precautions." And then I made assurances in a public forum that the problem had been addressed, and it hadn't. I looked like the Machiavellian spin doctor. It's one of those things, even though it happened 30 years ago, you wake up at three in the morning thinking it just happened.

That said, there's a spectrum of guilt and innocence. For example, I do a lot of pharmaceutical work. I have clients whose drugs have side effects. I am unapologetic about working with companies that I believe have fundamentally good products. But there's a difference between a company that has a problem and one that decides to do something bad and then say it is other than what it is.

MJ: Like when a pharmaceutical company covers up bad clinical trials.

ED: Yeah, I think that's an example of where you'd have a problem. By the same token, I've worked on plenty of cases where a drug hits the market and out of 1,000 people who take it, 300 do really well, another 400 do a little bit better, and maybe 10 or 12 have a really bad reaction. That doesn't mean the company went into a room and said, "Let's knowingly and willfully hurt a few."

MJ: Can you think of any cases in which someone has turned a short-term reputation crisis into a long-term win?

ED: The Martha Stewart case was interesting.

One, when she was going through it, the pundit class was saying she needed to apologize. Well, her position in court was that she was not guilty. You can't say, "Let me take this opportunity to apologize for that thing I totally didn't do." The other thing, it happened at the same time as these big corporate scandals—Enron, WorldCom—and she dominated the news for a $40,000 trade.

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These people who made tens of billions disappear didn't get the coverage that she had.

"I've been on two calls today with two different clients where my question was, 'Is there going to be an iPhone emerging?'"

She hasn't ever returned to her height, but I think a lot of women felt, "You know what?

With all these massive scandals going on, the attack on her is disproportionate." I think a lot of women rallied behind her. And I think a lot of people felt that Bill Clinton was overattacked. My theory was that people did not like the idea of a prosecutor looking into the president's sex life. They wanted to hear about it, but they didn't believe the president should be removed from office.

MJ: As far as political sex scandals go, we've also had Gary Hart, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer, David Vitter, John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, Mark Sanford, and many more. What factors determine who survives?

ED: One is, do you have an operatic story?

With Larry Craig, you had an ultraconservative senator who had been against gay rights legislation having a "wide stance" in an airport bathroom. That's hilarious, okay? It's just too good [a story] not to do. It was such a farce, you couldn't make it go away. He was allowed to serve out his term, in my view, because the people on the Judiciary Committee said, "Do we really want to take a bat to this hornet's nest?"

John Edwards—to me one of the great sins is when you look at the American public and go [singsong voice], You're really stupid and I'm a lot smarter than you. Edwards' marriage was the ultimate John Hughes film— the good-looking guy marries the plain girl.

And they traded on that marriage as a core part of the campaign: They're madly in love and they're renewing their vows. And he directly lied. Not only that, he had a cancerstricken wife. I mean, you can't survive that!

Clinton survived because one, people like him, two, the economy was roaring, and three, would anybody like an investigator looking at our sex life? No. With Senator [Robert] Menendez it ended well simply because the allegations didn't pan out— the supposed underage escorts recanted.

Spitzer obviously couldn't survive, because this

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was a guy who brazenly prosecuted everybody for everything, and his whole brand was zero tolerance for picadillos of any kind.

MJ: What really bothers me is the way these guys trot out their wives for their mea culpa press conferences.

ED: I think it's going to change. Due to its farcical nature, there is a discussion about the trotting out of the wives, and people will be asking, "Why are they doing this?" It's excruciating. Watching Silda Spitzer's face made me want to curl up into a ball. I think you're going to see a lot less of it.

Elliot Spitzer announces his resignation as his wife looks on. AP Photo/Stephen Chernin, File

I think what's changed so much is the existence of the camera. One of the reasons Edwards got in trouble is that he was chased with cameras.

I've been on two calls today with two different clients where my question was, "Is there going to be an iPhone emerging?" That is now what's driving this stuff into the vortex. Thirty years ago you could say it didn't happen. You could stonewall. You could say, "It's none of your damn business." Now it's on tape somewhere.

An added problem I face with my clients is the industrialization of leaking. Now, every case that I get, the chances are 100 percent that there is going to be an email chain where someone says, "I know we want to introduce this drug, but I'm a little worried about this side effect." The truth is, you want there to be that debate. But the act of seeing that email: "Ohhhhh, they knew it wouldn't work!"

MJ: Let's break down a few specific cases, starting with how Tesla responded to itscritical auto review by the New York Times.

ED: I really admired how they handled it. The baseline is, they're making a product a lot of people are really interested in. Even though Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News – 4-2014

I've worked for petrochemical companies, I'm really excited that there's an electric car that seems to work. A few incidents have happened, and the Times made it seem like these incidents were extremely significant.

Tesla hit back hard, and I think it was extremely effective.

"Apple consistently violates every basic cliché of crisis management, but they profit from it."

But not everybody could have gotten away with it. One of the first things you learn in crisis management is that not all clients are created equal. Apple consistently violates every basic cliché of crisis management, but they profit from it. You're not supposed to be secretive; Apple has always been secretive. You're supposed to be empowering, and for years Steve Jobs was a pretty abusive guy. You're never supposed to insult the customer, but when they had an antenna problem a few years ago, Jobs basically said, "Learn to hold the phone right, you idiot!" Any other company that did that would have gotten nailed. People like their stuff, so they can do things an oil company could never do.

Sometimes the solution is not PR. It's your business operations. When the BP thing happened, I was on a show with some PR type who said what PR types always say, "You know, they really need to communicate better." I felt like smacking them. I said, "Look, the problem isn't that BP didn't use Twitter right. The problem is that there's a hole in the ocean!

And there's going to be direct and immediate correlation between when they plug that leak and this vanishing from the news"—and that's exactly what happened.

MJ: Yet one of BP's PR strategies was trying to keep reporters away from the oil-soaked beaches. That seems like a mistake.

ED: Well, in fairness, the media tend to always say the best crisis-management strategy is making us happy. [Laughs.] I don't always agree with this notion that if you're just you're nice and give the media what they want then they will treat you well. BP's problem was that the optics were so ceaseless: You literally had a camera watching the gusher for over a month, to watch the animals washing ashore, to watch livelihoods being ruined. That's an example of

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how, in the long run, you can manage the crisis but you can't manage the the drama.

"In the Judeo-Christian sense, you apologize, but then you suffer. The problem I have with clients is nobody wants the suffering."

The Toyota case was interesting: Their product was accused of sudden acceleration and they were vindicated by NASA, no less, with one millionth the fanfare with which they were attacked. It's a classic example of how you can't survive the fiasco vortex—but a year later, sales were up 73 percent. Just like with Roger Goodell, you couldn't stop social media and the mainstream media pundit class from saying, "It's being botched." One of the first things I say to clients when I take them on is: "The objective is not to make this look good.

The objective is to get back to business. But it's not going to happen before the next commercial break."

I have a chapter on the Three Apologies. The PR industry loves this concept that if you just apologize, the problem goes away. There are serious problems with that. Number one, I don't see evidence of it. The concept of apology is known in the Judeo-Christian sense: You apologize, but then you suffer. The problem I have with clients is nobody wants the suffering. They want drive-through redemption.

Then there's the transactional apology, such as Kobe Bryant's: If you believe what happened in that hotel room is different from what I believe happened, I can understand how that might be upsetting to you, so here's $4 million, and drop the charges. That's not a Judeo-Christian apology.

And then you have what I jokingly call the "marital apology," the one you give to get out of a hostile encounter. If you're the CEO of Toyota, imagine what would happen if you went before Congress and someone asked, "Do you apologize?" And you said, "No." But you have to pick what you're apologizing for. You can't apologize for knowingly making a dangerous product, because that's not what they did. But you can apologize for letting your customers down, or something like that.

MJ: Or you could be Ray Rice, and publicly apologize to everybody but the woman you knocked out cold.

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ED: Yeah. These apologies are fraught with peril.

MJ: So as you know, in 2012 Mother Jones obtained and posted that infamous videoof Mitt Romney making some extremely damning remarks at a private fundraiser. It probably cost him the election, and he's still trying to explain it away. Was there any way he could have responded to that?

ED: I think you got him! I don't think there was a magical way to put it, because the content was so problematic. And by the way, I think he meant it. And, this gets to my own worldview, but I don't think he was totally wrong. The question is, do you say it? But that was a kill shot, simply because it's hard to run for president and also claim that half the country has its hand out. The original sin is what hurt him, not his handling of it.

The 47 percent video "validated what a lot of voters already suspected, which was that [Romney] was one of the Omega guys in 'Animal House.'"

Part of the problem Romney had was that it validated what a lot of voters already suspected, which was that he was one of the Omega guys in Animal House. [Laughs.] You could sort of see Marmalard andNeidermeyer sitting around saying [adopts Thurston Howell affectation], "Well, you know, 47 percent of these people are on the take."

MJ: Okay, so what about Greg Mortenson, the Three Cups of Tea author, who was publicly outed by Jon Krakauer for fabricating parts of his story—and then it turned out that he mishandled funds from his nonprofit that builds schools in Afghanistan. For a couple of years, Mortenson all but disappeared from public view. Was that a good crisis strategy?

ED: Yes. One of the biggest challenges I have with certain clients is convincing them to take a vacation—metaphorically. You're dealing with egos, and with egos the answer to everything is "more me." Sometimes the situation calls for less you. In a situation like that, he's walking into a buzzsaw and I don't think it's winnable.

One of the lines in my book is, "You can't rebuild a house in a hurricane." You can't be going, "Yes, but…, yes, but..." Nobody wants to hear it.

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Whereas the old crisis management strategy was counter-punching, a lot of what we're doing more now is riding waves. The bad news is that you can't survive the first wave. The good news is that most targets survive in the long term. Paula Deen, even though race is the cyanide pill of scandal, is an example of someone who could come back on a smaller platform after a while. It's only a matter of time before Lindsay Lohan drives into a tree or a public figure makes a racist remark or Ferguson blows up or ISIS decapitates somebody, and we're on to the next thing.

[Laughs.] That's the good news!

IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU’RE PART OF THE CONNECTED CLASS

by Toby Daniels

You are one of three billion privileged people on this planet who are part of an emerging class system. Globally, more and more individuals continue to join.

I grew up in the UK. We had a class system. I never fully understood how it worked, but it existed and I guess it still does. It’s more fragmented today, and frankly, people are oblivious to its significance, but nevertheless, it’s there, omnipresent and overshadowing.

I don’t like class systems. I don’t like how they are used to define people. I dislike any system that requires me to put someone in a box and then judge them accordingly. I don’t care where you grew up, or where you went to school, or how wealthy your parents were. I only care about what you do. Not who you work for, but what you do; the contribution you’re making to society and whether that contribution is a positive one. It matters to me that you’re self aware enough to understand that what you contribute, no matter how small, matters.

It’s ironic then, that I am writing an article to introduce you to a new category of class, one which I believe has the potential to rise above all other classes and lead us to a better future.

As I said, I don’t like class systems, except this one.

This new category of class is defined by the potential to give people the capacity to contribute to society in ways we cannot even comprehend. It has nothing to do with capital, or natural resources, or geography or even whether you’re living in a stable, economic and political environment. This class enables people to transcend all of this, and I’m calling it “The Connected Class”.

Today, “The Connected Class” represents about 40% of the world’s population. There are about three billion of these connected

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individuals globally. We have access, we are connected, and we are digitally literate.

“The Connected Class” is more likely to be economically and socially prosperous because there are new opportunities online. “The Connected Class” will increase from three billion people today, to six billion by 2022, representing over 75% of the global population.

“The Connected Class” will likely be a leading force of growth in the global economy.

Individuals in “The Connected Class” will create more jobs, are more likely to graduate from high school and college and will live longer than those who are not part of this system.

Let’s look at the three qualifications of “The Connected Class” more closely: ACCESS Whether it’s through a fiber network, 2G, 3G or 4G or a comprehensive WiFi network, combined with affordable data and broadband plans, access is about having the infrastructure to support entire communities regardless of where they are located.

CONNECTIVITY Connectivity relates to individuals with access to the devices and software applications that enable them to connect with others, and establish profiles on the leading social networking platforms, websites and mobile services. These services offer a range of connection possibilities, whether it’s human to human, or human to device.

LITERACY This does not refer to reading, writing and arithmetic. I mean digital literacy. Having the comprehension, understanding and fluency to use the tools that allow us to utilize websites, download mobile apps and stream video. The key here is that someone without reading and writing skills can become “digitally literate” and still be successful connecting and communicating with others using mobile technology.

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THE RISE OF THE CONNECTED CLASS Identifying our new class is simply an attempt at highlighting one very important fact: If you are part of “The Connected Class”, you are significantly more privileged with access to more opportunities than those not a part of it.

You are disadvantaged if you do not have the access, connection, and digital literacy to use tools and technologies that are available to so many others. This means you are lacking some of the basic human rights afforded to the rest of the world. If education, access to affordable health care, food, and water are considered to be rights, then why not access and connectivity?

In less than ten years, three billion additional connected citizens will join us online. If we can provide resources that enable individuals to join “The Connected Class,” they will be more likely to educate themselves, connect with the world, access information and services, and form deeper relationships both online and offline.

THE FUTURE CONNECTED CLASS It’s conceivable that the majority of the world’s population will eventually be part of “The Connected Class”. How will this ubiquitous connectivity — the total interconnection of people, ideas, and products through a global digital network — change our world and allow everyone to achieve more? In what ways will connectivity empower citizens to take control of their own lives, health, education, and work? When everyone in the world is connected, what are the possibilities for bringing ideas to life, and creatively collaborating with people around the globe, regardless of geography, culture, and language?

WHAT’S NEXT After reading this, I want you to think about the rise of “The Connected Class” and how you can capitalize on the opportunities that we face with an additional 3 billion connected citizens. While it’s important to think about

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this, we encourage you to also think about how to design for this future, what tools we might need to connect, communicate and collaborate across cultural boundaries and how organizations will need to be structured in a future where collaboration can happen anytime and anywhere.

Throughout the next 12 months, my company, Crowdcentric, together with our global community will explore these questions through a series of conversations, articles, and conferences taking place across six continents.

We urge you to join us in this exploration, and help us understand how humans can achieve more in a connected world.

5 Tips to Avoid Spamming Your Target Audiences

by Allen Mireles

Are you spamming your target audiences? You might be. And you might not even realize you’re doing it.

We’re not talking about the canned ham product here. Spam, the term used to describe mass emails or postings of unwanted or inappropriate messages online, also applies to posting the same content on multiple platforms. Or sending the same pitch email to all of the journalists on your list. Something that’s easy to do inadvertently, especially when you’re busy and your boss or client is pressuring you to get the message “out there”.

Spamming your target audience (or anyone else) can have dire consequences. Posting identical content to many sites can make you, or your organization, look unprofessional and clueless. It can alienate the affections of your target audience, and, has been known to trigger punitive actions from Google.

In other words, don’t do it. And, if you have been? Stop.

“PR Professionals have a multitude of publishing platforms to consider today. The introduction of the LinkedIn publishing platform and medium.com this year just adds to the list of options, says Bob LeDrew, principal consultant of Canadian PR firm, Translucid Communications. “Finding the right platform to publish to, and avoiding sending the same content to each platform, can present real challenges for PR’s today.”

So how can you avoid spamming the people you’re trying to reach?

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It’s pretty basic. Follow the same steps you follow at the beginning of any communications campaign. Here are five tips to help you avoid spamming your target audiences.

1. Know what you’re trying to accomplish.

Every campaign should have both goals and objectives. You need to know why you are trying to communicate with your audiences.

According to Claire Celsi, director of public relations at Spindustry Digital, “A goal is simply what you’d like to accomplish…and objectives need to be measurable.” Claire points out an easy way to spot an objective: they start with a verb. “Here are some good ones: Increase, deliver, sell, obtain, find, decrease, speed up, entice, implement,” she says.

Make sure you know what your communications are intended to do and how you will know that you have been successful.

2. Understand what matters to the people you are communicating with.

Know your audience. As PR Coach Debbie Levin explains, “Knowing who your key audiences are, and understanding what is important to them, is essential if you want to attract their attention and engage with them in a meaningful way.”

What’s important to your audience and what do they consider interesting? Is the material you’re planning to share something that they will find value in? If it is, great. If not, don’t share it. You won’t get their attention and you won’t accomplish what you’ve set out to.

3. Include great visuals.

Today the world is eagerly looking for pictures, photographs, infographics and video.Including visual elements in your communications to grab your audience’s attention is essential. Link your content to the fuller document, if you need to. People who are genuinally interested in learning more will click through to read it.

Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Blogger and strategist Jeff Bullasstates, “Articles with images get 94 percent more total views and including a photo and a video in a

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press release increases views by over 45 percent.”

4. Find out where they hang out online.

Find out where your target audiences are hanging out online and share your content there. Be warned: you need to understand the unspoken rules and language used in each online channel. Do some investigative work to learn where your target audience goes to get the information they find valuable.

However, don’t be afraid to test new platforms. Just make sure you understand the demographics of the new platform and that the information you’re sharing is a good fit.

“You can’t always know all of the places your audiences are to be found online,” says Bob LeDrew. “Sometimes, you test a new platform to see if it will yield positive results.”

Testing a new platform or channel after doing the research and understanding what the people who use it are interested in is entirely different from blindly sending the same stuff across the web.

5. Tailor the communications.

In the same way that we personalize email to make it more engaging, tailoring your communications to fit a specific audience interest or channel makes it more likely to be seen and remembered and possibly shared or acted on. Altering your content enough to fit the channel also means you are less likely to be perceived as spamming and more likely to catch and hold the attention of the people you’re trying to reach.

Including these five tips in the planning stages of your online outreach will help you avoid spamming your target audiences and have a better chance of engaging their attention and interest. Content that resonates with people increases the likelihood they’ll take action— and that you’ll accomplish your campaign’s goals.

Image: Quinn Dombrowski (Creative Commons)

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Can You Say “I’m Not Here To Talk About That Topic?”

by Brad Phillips @MrMediaTraining Bill Maher, the host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, made some controversial comments about Muslims during one of his recent programs, during which he had a wellpublicized debate with one of his guests, actor Ben Affleck.

Maher’s responses made me think about a question we hear a lot during our media training sessions: What should I do if I’m asked a question about a topic I wasn’t originally booked to speak about? Do I have to answer it, or can I insist on speaking only about the topic we agreed to discuss in advance?

In that situation, you have a few options: 1. Answer The Question This is often the best option, particularly if the question is one that the audience would expect you to be able to answer. Deflecting a straightforward question that deserves a straightforward response often plays like this infamous 2008 interview, in which Sarah Palin refused to name the newspapers she reads.

A few days later, Maher was scheduled to give an interview to a reporter from Salon about a different topic—his “Flip a District” campaign— but the writer understandably wanted to ask Maher about his “spat” with Affleck. Maher made clear he didn’t want to talk about that; here are three excerpts from the interview: “Yeah, let’s leave that for a while. I’ve said enough about that.”

“You know, I don’t want to talk about this.

You just said we’re not going to talk about this and now we’re talking about it.”

“I’ll tell you something interesting — and then I am going to get off the subject because we’re here to talk about “Flip a District,” was my understanding.”

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2. Give a Short Response, Then Transition Away From It Maher used this approach, reminding the reporter that he had agreed to speak about a specific topic and insisting that they keep to the ground rules. He provided a short answer to the questions about his controversial comments, then moved away from them.

This approach can work for more experienced spokespersons—Maher used it well—but it requires a deft touch to avoid being portrayed as evasive. But there’s one problem with this approach: By giving even a short response about his controversial comments, Maher allowed Salon to run the exact headline he didn’t want: “EXCLUSIVE: Bill Maher on Islam spat with Ben Affleck: ‘We’re liberals!

We’re not crazy tea-baggers.’”

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3. Confront The Reporter In a 2012 Republican primary debate, Newt Gingrich was asked about accusations that he had asked his second wife for an open marriage. He deemed the question out of bounds—we’re here to talk about serious issues, and you’re asking me about a personal relationship—and went on the offensive.

Gingrich used this approach brilliantly, but he also deployed it in front of a supportive audience that shared his dislike of the media.

Generally speaking, this is a high-wire act that few people pull off well.

product, and I’m aware that if I comment on anything but that, the headlines won’t be about the product. So let’s get back to that…”

“You know, Janet, I’m surprised you would ask me that. Before we began this interview, we agreed that you would ask me only about this project, and now you’ve broken that promise. I’m happy to do this interview with you if we focus it on this project, which is so important to so many people. But if you insist on breaking your commitment, you’ll leave me little choice but to end this interview.”

The second option is similar to “confront the reporter” approach, but with one key difference—whereas Gingrich still proceeded to answer the question, the spokesperson in this example didn’t.

4. Refuse to Answer The Question Here’s where things get really tricky: Let’s say you agreed with a reporter in advance that the interview would be limited to a specific topic.

When the interview begins, the journalist breaks his or her promise. Cameras are roiling.

Do you refuse to answer it, perhaps reminding the reporter of your agreement, even if doing so risks making you look evasive to the audience?

Final Thought This post focused on what you can do during the interview itself. But you can also help reduce the need for saying “I’m not here to talk about that topic” by negotiating the ground rules before the interview, and you can register a complaint after the interview (and disclose that breach to your audiences through your blog and social media feeds) if the reporter breaks them.

The answer is “it depends”—on the context, the topic, the format, and the spokesperson.

This option is risky, and in my experience, only a small percentage of spokespersons have the media savvy and personal qualities to pull this off well. But assuming you do refuse to accept the question, keep these two things in mind: First, make sure your tone doesn’t convey even a whiff of defensiveness.

Second, you can refuse to answer the question with a response like one of these: “I’m not here to discuss that topic today. I want the focus to be squarely on our new Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News – 4-2014

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6 Ways to Improve Twitter Engagement With Psychology Principles

By Beth Gladstone

Want to discover how to engage more users on Twitter?

Have you considered using psychology techniques?

Using some psychology tips in your tweets can make your Twitter feed more interesting and your followers will be more likely to engage with you.

In this article I’ll share six psychology tips you can use to create tweets that’ll engage your audience.

Learn 6 ways use psychology to improve twitter engagement.

Why? The methods used to construct language and motivate customers often stem back to basic psychology, which is something used to persuade, engage and influence buyers.

For example, using rhetorical questions at the start of Twitter ads or general “sales” tweets might work well for you. The tweets will engage users and make them consider how your product or service could benefit them.

Here’s how you can improve brand recognition, catch the attention of more users and increase the number of clicks, retweets and favorites that your tweets receive.

organization are paramount to our wellbeing.

Psychologists say that there are three primary groups that people aim to associate with: groups to which they’d like to belong (aspirational), groups that share the same ideas and values (associative) and groups to which they don’t want to belong (dissociative).

The language you use within your tweets can help users identify with one of the three primary groups. As a result, they’re more likely to respond.

In the aspirational tweet above, a cheer team recognized that some of their followers might want to try out for their team. It uses that desire to influence them to join their Facebook group. tweet below from the Huffington Post uses the values of association to engage users and encourage them to respond to an article. The tweet asks if followers agree with a strong statement. Users will reply, retweet and click through, as they try to decide which side they are on.

#1: Take Advantage of the Bandwagon Effect Humans are innately social beings; we’re born with a powerful psychological need to belong.

This dates back to our ancestors who lived at a time when it was best to live in groups to ensure a higher chance of survival. Although society is different now, identification with and a sense of belonging to a group or

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The language used within tweets can also help customers make a dissociative connection to a competitor, and as a result, a better association with your brand. Technology companies often compare their product to a competitor’s spec or an older product, and receive excellent engagement.

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Jakob Nielsen, an expert in user interface design, explains that “a huge percentage of the human brain is dedicated to remembering and recognizing faces. For many, faces work better than names.”

Anyone viewing the above image from Samsung would want to associate themselves with the newer camera and improved image, rather than the old one.

Key Takeaway: Use Twitter to link your products and services to the three primary groups that customers respond to: aspirational, associative and dissociative. This will promote higher engagement, as well as cultivate users who have an affinity for your brand. #2: Use Image Psychology Many marketing and advertising studies have been conducted to see what type of images have the highest conversion or click-through rates. In nearly all studies, an image of a person, particularly a close-up of his or her face, increased the success of the ad or the web page.

Apply this research to your Twitter strategy. Tweet images with faces. And be sure tohave a nice headshot on your Twitter profile.

37 Signals conducted a test that looked at different variations of the Highrise home page to see which one converted the most visitors to paying customers. They found that a page where they included an image of a person created a 102.5% increase in signups.

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To make your brand more recognizable to your Twitter audience, head up your profile image with the face of the company, such as the CEO or founder. This will make that person more recognizable to the audience, which is an especially important tactic for a new company.

Even for a SaaS company, where there is no obvious “person” to sell, it’s useful to include images of happy customers within individual tweets, particularly those linking to blog posts or case studies. The effectiveness doesn’t really come from who is in the image, it’s more about what the image conveys to the reader.

Key Takeaway: Wherever possible, use an image in your profile picture to help users relate to the brand on a personal level.

Also include images of users, customers or staff members within tweets and articles. #3: Employ Self-Perception Theory Self-perception theory is how people develop attitudes based on their own behavior. For example, if you go to a few baseball games, you’ll probably decide that you’re a baseball fan. Then, you’ll act in a way that reinforces your identity as a baseball fan. You’ll buy baseball memorabilia and/or engage in conversation with other baseball fans.

On Twitter users will retweet or favorite a tweet that they feel is consistent with their self-perception. For example, people who work in customer service or ecommerce would retweet or favorite the tweet below from KISSmetrics, because it fits in with how they Edited by ComIPI – www.comipi.it 23

perceive themselves and reinforces their identity on Twitter.

Key Takeaway: Determine how your customers identify themselves and create tweets that are consistent with that vision.

For example, provide marketing tips for marketers or development resources and tools for developers. This type of tweet will increase engagement and sharing. #4: Keep It Simple If there’s one thing all great advertisers know, it’s to keep messages simple. The wonderful thing about Twitter is that you don’t really have a choice. A message has to be succinct to make sense and still fit into 140 characters.

To increase engagement even more, try the short paragraph trick. Twitter allows you to create line breaks within your tweet, as shown below.

The short paragraph approach can also be used to create humor and show a more human side of your brand. Take a look at what General Electric did when Twitter first released line breaks.

Humor can be a great way to identify with your audience.

Another simple trick is to repeat the language you use within your tweets to create a narrative that users can follow. Business-card designer Moo identified with and engaged users who have a side business through their hashtag campaign: #bynightiam.

Moo’s #bynightiam campaign is an excellent example of repetition done well.

When you use short paragraphs, it moves your reader’s eye down the page. This quickens the pace at which they read, makes your tweet look exciting and encourages a higher number of click-throughs to the article or image.

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Key Takeaway: Use short paragraphs to build suspense and gain more click-throughs on your articles. Also, come up with hashtags or certain phrases and repeat them throughout a series of tweets or for a specific time span to increase brand recognition. One only needs to think of hashtags like #throwbackthursday and Edited by ComIPI – www.comipi.it 24

#flashbackfriday to see how well a campaign like this can work. #5: Use Reverse Psychology While big companies often try to tell customers what to do or think, some of the most successful advertisers are those who do the opposite through the form of reverse psychology.

HubSpot is one B2B brand that utilizes this trick when tweeting links to their blog posts such as the one below.

Reverse psychology can be a great way to attract readers.

When you tell people not to read something, it’s likely that many more will be enticed to click through, regardless of whether they fit the criteria told to read it or not. Note: Don’t use this tactic too often or else you may be accused of click-baiting (giving the readers too little information in an attempt to get them to click).

Key Takeaway: When used sparingly, reverse psychology can be a great tactic to increase click-throughs and engage users. #6: Use Initial Caps for Readability According to a study by Conductor, when given a variety of ad headlines from which to choose, ranging from all caps to all lowercase to sentence case, 64% of users favored sentence case. (The study defines sentence case as where the first letter of each primary word is capitalized. It’s commonly known as initial caps or title case.)

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To engage readers, Buffer employs initial caps when they tweet blog articles.

The use of initial caps is also said to increase reading speed, so a user needs less time to take in your tweet. This is backed by a series of studies by James Cattell, in which letter and word examples were given to study participants for a very brief amount of time (less than 10 milliseconds). From this, he found that the participants could accurately recognize the words more than the individual letters, a phenomenon he named the “word superiority effect.”

Key Takeaway: Use initial caps in your tweet, particularly if the tweet is promoting theheadline of a blog article. This helps attract more readers and improves the speed at which your audience can digest the headline.

Conclusion It’s easy to always create the same type of tweets without thinking about why a user may click or retweet them. It’s more effective to take the time to formulate a Twitter marketing strategy and create tweets that speak to your users.

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Why did FBI urge US troops to scrub social media accounts?

By Anna Mulrine,

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned current and former service members to carefully weed their social media profiles for information that could attract the attention of Islamic State fighters.

BI Warns That ISIS Could Target Military

WASHINGTON — The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a rather dire warning to US troops this week, urging them to scrub their Facebook accounts of information that might help Islamic State fighters attack them.

The federal bulletin, sent to law enforcement agencies, tells current and former service members to “review their online social media accounts for any information that might serve to attract the attention of ISIL [ISIS] and its supporters.”

How significant is this latest alarm? In the Pentagon, at least, not very. Pentagon officials say that they are not aware of any new intelligence that may have prompted the bulletin, and in fact have long issued these same guidelines to troops.

but rather to be mindful of privacy controls that make sure these posts are only available for viewing by “family and friends,” Lieutenant Colonel Crosson says, adding that this is good advice for non-military folks, too. “Social media allows all of us to put our private life in public – we can post all sorts of information that, if enough of it is out there, can be pieced together and used against us.”

Before social media, such operational security warnings, known in military parlance as 'OPSEC,' focused on encouraging troops not to talk about brigade movements in public places, for example, or “not wearing a flag lapel pin,” says Jerry Hendrix, director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security. “Service members need to be circumspect about the nature of their family lives, their identities, and, quite frankly, where they live.”

For service members in particular, warnings about OPSEC have long been the subject of Armed Forces Network public service announcements for troops and their families.

In the wake of the FBI's and DHS's warning, service members “do well to take that seriously,” Dr. Hendrix says. “I think the fact that they’ve brought it forward suggests that there is some compelling evidence that such actions are being discussed or deliberated within ISIS.”

“I mean, this is something we’re always doing,” says Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, a Pentagon spokesman, which includes advising troops about “how to be smart on social media, with regards to upcoming deployments, travel.”

But this can be done easily, with a few simple measures, he adds. “We’re not telling people not to post family vacation photos,” Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News – 4-2014

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Why activists increasingly focus on online media strategy

By Lene Bech Sillesen

In July, a video featuring various Lego characters went viral on social media, but the rigors endured by the plastic toys suggested this was no promotional video for the brand. In a chilling doomsday scenario, set to a sloweddown version of the theme song from the recent Lego movie, the entire miniature world slowly drowned in oil.

The video was part of a Greenpeace campaign to make Lego divest from its decades-long partnership with Shell, a company that plans to resume drilling for oil in the Arctic. And the message didn’t go unnoticed: As the video reached more than 4.5 million views in its first week, now well over 6 million, the online media started picking up the story of Greenpeace’s well-produced, viral protest video, generating even more attention around the campaign.

On October 8, Lego announced that the company would not be renewing its contract with Shell, ending a million-dollar deal between the world’s most profitable toymaker and one of the world’s largest companies.

“You can send a press release, and it’s maybe not something media outlets will pursue as a story. But when six million people have seen it, they’ll cover it,” says Travis Nichols, Arctic communications manager at Greenpeace. The online buzz allowed the environmental organization to steer the media narrative without having to convince journalists that it was a cause worth covering.

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While media-jacking has long been an activism strategy, the digital age provides activists with growing opportunities to manipulate and take advantage of online media and draw awareness to their projects. A number of initiatives have sprung up in recent years aimed at training others to develop effective media strategies, and journalists may want to pay attention as activists smarten up online and get better at using the mainstream media to push their messages.

To some, that seems at odds with the values of progressive activism, but it’s effective nonetheless.

“Just because we’re telling the truth doesn’t mean we have to state it in boring ways that only policy wonks will understand,” says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff. He’s a professor with a new graduate program at Queens College in New York that blends media theory and activism strategy. “I couldn’t find anywhere that’s trying to marry strategic, purposeful media with trying to make the world a better place, even in media and politics programs,” says Rushkoff, who adds that many activists have been reluctant to think strategically about their work in the past as media strategies have been associated with advertising and commercial interests. But even outside the academy, they’re increasingly doing so.

“We do explicitly take advantage of the 24hour news cycle,” says Mary Notari, general manager and facilitator at the Yes Men’s Yes Lab, a platform for activist campaign development. “The Yes Men is all about hijacking the media narrative in the service of packaging it for a mainstream media audience.” Hoaxes and impersonation tactics are key strategies of the Yes Lab, such as the 2012 hoax carried out by the Yes Men and Greenpeace, who successfully manipulated the media into believing, and spreading, a fake story about Shell.

Yes Lab also recently launched a new online platform for activists who want to ramp up their campaigns, and is involved in a forum

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for activism at New York University, the Critical Tactics Lab. The Greenpeace campaign illustrates the potential of such strategies, which are far more involved than just releasing a video and hoping for the best. The trick is to always aim for young people, even if the target audience for a specific campaign is an older generation, according to Joe Wade, director of the creative agency Don’t Panic that produced the Greenpeace-Lego video.

“Gradually, it filters down through the internet,” Wade says. “From Reddit to big blogs like Upworthy, from there it ends up on traditional media platforms, The New York Times and The Guardian. Once it’s there, the older target market will see it.” For the Greenpeace video, the agency used what Wade calls “easter eggs,” subtle references that only make sense to certain subcultures, like a Lego character from Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and the video game Halo. Don’t Panic then spread the video among digitally savvy online fan groups, hoping that they would pick up on the clues and share the video further.

“It’s definitely the case that if you get it right, you get a lot of media value,” says Wade.

Clueless about social media? Here are 17 clues for getting started

BARRY FELDMAN Just four years ago, I felt like you do. Social media was another language. Foreign.

Frightening.

Your insecurities are natural. Will I look lame?

Am I too late to the party? Will anyone care what I have to say?

Let ‘em go. Relax. Social media is a conversation. You can join any time. Join now.

You’ll be welcomed.

Social media is not a trend, it’s essential. Just as your customers rely on the phone and email, they rely on social media. It’s where you connect. To believe otherwise can limit and threaten the growth of your business or career.

I intend to help you blast through the hardest part: getting started. Right here. Right now.

Here you go: the essential how to guide, no experience required. I’ve created an e-book for you, which you can view here. Also, the blog post the ebook is based on is below for you convenience.

Be selective Your early foray into social media might seem a bit daunting and it can indeed quickly overwhelm you if you try too much, too soon.

Don’t make this mistake. There’s no need to dive headlong into a long list of networks, or even the top four, right out of the gate.

Pick just one or two. Each will have a learning curve, but none is so complex that you won’t be able to grasp the basics and begin.

Naturally, the question on your mind now is, which social media networks make the most

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sense for you? The answer: the networks your customers prefer. Dig in a bit to find out which networks they’re using. Visit their websites, or simply ask them.

Track competitors It’s likely your competitors and professional peers can steer you in the right direction.

Identify a handful of companies in your space that are active in online marketing.

Visit their sites. Are they blogging? The number of shares they get on their posts may indicate the most active media channels.

Do they have social media icons? Look for the f, g+, in, P, bird, and camera logos (that is, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram). These are the likely suspects.

Click through to their social media pages. Do they have sizable followings? Is there a lot of activity there or do things look a bit static?

You want to be where the conversations are happening. After looking into several competitors, it won’t be hard to figure out where the action is. Go along with the crowd.

Get started with the one or two networks where you’ve determined competitors and the market at large are connecting.

Take your profile seriously and do your best to fill it out completely.

Of course, the rules vary widely across social media profiles—from Twitter, where you’ll have only 160 characters to work with, to LinkedIn, where you can write a lengthy bio and post any kind of media you choose. So I won’t be able to give you specific guidance per the channel of your choice. However, consider the following when writing your profiles: 

Use the keywords that are most relevant to your profession to enable others to find you via search. Frequently, you’ll find hashtags (the # symbol) preceding keywords.  Be professional, but personable. Your profile plays a large part in swaying others to follow you (or not), so be authentic and interesting.

Factor in influencers In addition to competitors and customers, it’s helpful to consider the social media activity of other influencers. The most influential social media players are generally writers and publishers. Which websites, bloggers, and authors have authority in your industry? You might discover some are active with video and podcasting as well.

The experts in your field are likely to have established audiences, which should help you make smart choices—and provide good examples of how to interact in various media.

Create a thoughtful profile Every social media network offers you the opportunity to create a profile. You can get by with just completing the required fields, but you’ll be sabotaging your success if you do.

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

Avoid applauding yourself unnecessarily. Be humble, but confident.  Post links, where possible, to your website.

On his Twitter profile, marketing professional Michael Brenner wisely includes numerous keywords and links and presents a professional and friendly portrait.

Upload a nice photo Too many social media users are inappropriately creative when it comes time to post a profile picture. Do not use family photos, pets, landscapes, or any odd depictions Edited by ComIPI – www.comipi.it 29

of yourself or persona. Use a simple headshot of you looking into the lens, cropped closely.

In my opinion, you should also avoid logos, if possible. People want to connect with you. In a physical social situation, you wouldn’t introduce yourself by whipping out a picture of your dog.

 

Downloading an eBook or guide.

Searching for blogs which offer guidance from experts.

Start following members

This is a social situation. Show them your smile.

In the header of my Google+ page, I feature a photo of various Feldman Creative items to help reinforce my brand.

Upload headers and background images Again, you must play by different rules across the various media, however, most social networks have followed Facebook’s lead by offering you a space to upload an additional image that acts as a page header (sometime called “cover photo”).

On Twitter, you also have the opportunity to customize your page’s background.

Put some thought into this and your profile page will become that much more welcoming.

You might elect to show your city, workspace, or the like. Commonly, marketers will use graphics from their website or something representative of their brand, which is wise.

It’s unwise to neglect your header image because a generic one will be automatically placed there creating the impression you don’t care.

Learn the network’s features Yes, you’re going to need to learn how your network of choice operates. They have much in common, but all differ in significant ways.

Invest a little time in learning the ropes. You need not read books or enroll in a course (though you have that option). Instead, acquaint yourself with the network you’ll use by:  Asking for some help from a friend.

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Your path to engaging on social media begins by following others whose updates will appear in your feed when you sign-on.

Don’t overthink this process. You can always reverse your decisions later by unfollowing, so fear not and simply begin following folks.  Start by following people you know.  Most networks will suggest people to follow based on your profile. Go for it.  Enter keywords in the search tool to find people with common interests.  Follow influencers and bloggers in your niche.  Consider following those who follow the people you follow. (You follow me?)  Follow customers.  In a short time, people will begin to follow you. Follow them back.

Listen In social media, the word “listen,” really means “look.” Translation: though it’s tempting to being posting immediately after joining a social network, you’ll do yourself a world of good by observing how others behave and interact.

You’ll pick up on nuances of the network. You’ll form conclusions about what is good and bad protocol.

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There’s no formula for how long or how much listening you should do, but you will indeed learn a lot by watching from the sidelines to begin with.

links. Say thank you. Again, at its best, social media is a conversation and when you put something into it, you get something out of it.

It’s fun. Enjoy it.

Share

Join groups

The best thing you can do to build relationships via social media is to share the content you discover and enjoy. Social media is very much reciprocal. People will notice and appreciate you have taken the time to share their blog posts, images, video, etc., and will likely return the favor.

The social media you joined is a biiiiiiig network with hundreds of millions of members. You have the option to interact with more likeminded people by joining (or creating) far more focused groups, communities, chats (and so forth). Don’t hesitate to try them.

Along your journey, you’ll find some of the most valuable exchanges occur within groups and as result of your participation. opportunities continuously present themselves. Most social media offer opportunities to join or create special interest groups.

Social media experts often claim as much as 80% of your updates should be shares. I don’t wholeheartedly agree, but do suggest thoughtful sharing is a regular and large part of your social media activity.

Endorse Endorsing other people’s updates may be slightly less significant than sharing, but it’s thoughtful and won’t go unnoticed. It’s also easy and can be done with just a click.

Of course, the most well known of all endorsements is the Facebook “Like,” a thumbs-up icon. Each network has one or more forms of endorsements including a + on Google, like on LinkedIn, and “favorite” on Twitter.

Don’t endorse every update you read, but do it when you mean it. You’ll find plenty of content and comments worthy of a click.

Above is a sample of the many LinkedIn Groups I belong to.

Be consistent You need to budget time to do social media.

How much is up to you, but understand you’ll be taken far more seriously if you’re active on a daily basis.

Comment The heartbeat of social media is conversation, so while sharing and endorsing can be thoughtful and smart, commentary is better still. When you get rolling and your network grow into the hundreds or thousands, you won’t have the time to comment on every update you see. However, the best content you come across will provoke thoughts, just like any conversation.

Express yourself. Agree. Disagree. Answer questions. Ask questions. Cite examples. Offer

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Yes, you can shut it down for a day, weekend, or take a break without threatening your good standing. The caution I aim to make here is if you merely check in with a post now and then, you probably won’t be taken seriously.

Don’t pitch If you want to buy advertising on social media, do it. Most will accommodate you and many are quick to attest to its effectiveness.

However, outside of the “sponsored”

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opportunities some social media offer, relentless sales messages are not tolerated.

The more you pitch your products and services, the more you’ll be rejected.

However, you need not conclude social media isn’t for marketing. In fact, it is. The trick is to market with a utility mindset. When you teach, advise and help people, your contributions will be embraced.

Your digital presence is not a veil. Don’t try to be anything other than yourself on social media. Write as you would speak. When you let the authentic you come through you will attract the right people, make the right connections, and accomplish what social media is really for: building relationships.

Promoting an event, special offer, sale, new product or the like is all fair game. You simply need to strike a balance so as to not put people off. Your updates should be valuable. Try a softer approach to selling. Think of your offers as friendly invitations. It’s far more effective to pull than push on social media.

Promote your involvement Of course, as you surf the web you come across social media icons everywhere. And that’s as it should be. If you’re going to participate in social media, you’ll want to take advantage of every opportunity to let it be known.

Consider showcasing links (usually represented by icons) to your social sites across all customer-facing touch points including your:  Website  Online properties (including other social media)  Email signature  Newsletter  Business cards  Advertising Be real

Personal branding leader William Arruda says, “Be real before being virtual.”

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