Simonsays

Communicating protest: Some notes on police PR tactics - Part 1

First and foremost I want to set these blog posts into some context.

I posted previously about The Met's use of staged or managed events at the second student demo as part of its communications strategy and suggetsed I might write a follow-up post to examine some of the Met's more conventional PR tactics to shape media coverage and public opinion.

Also, as part of my PhD I'm planning on using my blog as a way of keeping notes and sharing thoughts that will come in useful as my research progresses. These posts are part of that iterative process. 

In addition to the above, these posts will also hopefully serve as a handy - if modest and incomplete - reference guide for journalists to help them undertand and decode some of the communications tactics employed by the Met and thus potentially improve the depth of questioning and breadth of coverage.

Part 1 - How 'framing' media stories is used for effective political policing

In US academic, Robert Entman's, book on the way issues or stories are 'framed' (that is how relevant information is gathered and edited into 'news') by the media he asserts that by establishing the terms of a potential story, strategic actors (in our case, the Met) can command and control the way the subsequent news is perceived and - more importantly - how it continues to influence future stories.

Specifically, in Projections of Power (2004) he outlines what Curran (2002) calls the "definitional power" of the media:

"A dominant frame [i.e an official way of interpreting information] in early news coverage of an event can acticat and sprad congruinet thoughts and feelings in individuals' knowledge [...] that guides responses to all future reports. First impressions may be difficult to dislodge." p.7 [my emphasis]

This theory can be used to explain the PR tactics adopted by the Met even before a demonstration takes place who you will often find issuing a briefing to 'define' the direction of the media narrative.

This happened ahead of the most recent student demonstration on 9th December where Commander Bob Broadhurst, the head of the Met's public order branch, told media they were expecting the student demonstration to be violent.

It also happened ahead of the 2009 G20 protests in London when weeks before planned demos Superintendent David Hartshorn, who then headed the Met's public order branch, exclusively told The Guardian the Met was: "preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions."

With hindsight these examples offer a useful opportunity to interpret the way they potentially shaped public perception of events.

Take the recent student demo as our first case study: telling the media they were execting violence firstly activates in the public's mind that the demonstration is goin to be violent. Whether it ever turns out to be or not this perception and mindet towards demonstrators is established. Secondly, it acts to legitimise police violence because, as the Met has aldready confirmed in advance, it was expecting violence so any brutality on its part must be a response.

This technique neatly reverses cause an effect of violent public order situations and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the Met.

The ' helped significantly by the news management technique of 'embedding' journalists within forces to help ensure the event is interpreted from a specific perspective - despite the best aims of 'objective' reporting.

Another 'set piece' in the police's PR toolkit to help 'frame' news from within protests or public order situations is the use - and reporting - of injuries.  

**Before I go any further, please note: I am not excusing or valorising any kind of violent behaviour or resultant injury to anyone. I am trying to explore and explian how injuries that happen within tense situations can be used to establish a particular perception in the media.**

The reporting of injuries can be used both qualitatively to reinforce the notion of 'violent demonstrators' and 'police as victims' and also quantitively to show how much of a battle the police won/lost (depending on the public's wider perceptions post-event).

As an example of the first tactic see this quote from a police spokesperson from Nottinghamshire police during the demonstration at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009:

"Throughout the day officers have been assaulted but police remain in control of the site. We have one officer who sustained head injuries at the protest. He was airlifted to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary where he is being treated. His wife has been made aware but we have no update on his condition.

"One protester also received treatment on site by police officers and was taken away by ambulance. His condition is unknown."

It would later transpire that the office didn't sustain a head injury - which, of course, was good news.

What is noticable is the formal and melodramatic reporting for the injured police officer (e.g. "his wife has been informed") that's clearly missing from comments about the injured protester - along with a more complete total of injured protestors which was much higher than 'one'.

Now, this may seem rather extreme: exploiting injuries to shape media covergae, but wider context and examples will hopefully illustrate the point further.

The injured officer airlifted to hospital was actually treated by a medic that was protesting on the day. From tweets at the time and emails I've seen subsequently it would appear that at the time the officer was being treated it was apparent that he was unlikely to be suffering from head injuries, as the hospital or police later confirmed.

The Guardian - as I understand it - was party to the development in the story, but of course by then it was old news and the public's perception had been set.

A further - and by now, infamous - example of the quantitative use of police injuries in PR is Kingsnorth Climate Camp.

During the 2008 Climate Camp gathering police used extreme measures to intimidate protestors, such as sleep deprivation and excessive stop and search activity. In addition, police revealed to the media and Parliament that a total of 70 officers had been injured during the police operation.

It wasn't until a FoI request from the Liberal Democrats that it became apparent not a single injury was sustained from protestors; rather records showed injujuries were mostly toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and "possible bee stings".

I won't labour the point, but you get the idea that by the time the reality of the situation has unravelled it's old news and the public perception has been crystalised.

For a good overview of examples of this, specifically related to climate change and climate justice campaigning, see Kevin Smith's post for the Guardian's CiF blog.

The next post in this series will look at post-demonstration tactics, the use of language and perhaps look at some of the additional reasons for the effectiveness of police PR and media management, e.g. the formalised news production processes and cultural values of the media.

 

Bibliography:

Curran, J. (2002). Media & Power. Routledge.

Entman, R. (2004). Projections of Power. University of Chicago Press.

Student protests, communication power and undercover police

I've been burying my head in books of late trying to map out my first PhD chapter. This has meant some fairly extensive reading around the subject of power.

It's fair to say that most scholars agree that power can be exerted through two complementary mechanics: violence (i.e. physical force) and discourse/communication (i.e. coercion, influence, etc).

So it was interesting to be on Whitehall last Wednesday during the student demo and to witness both mechanics in operation.

[Slideshow courtesy of ashleydmiddleton on Flickr]

I won't major on the resultant media coverage (which, is something that could be discussed extensively in another post) but suffice to say that hindsight, the traditional media's coverage was fairly standard reporting utilising the atypcial frames wheeled out for public disorder, (e.g. any violence is always the work of a "minority"; a false dichotomy is established between legitimate, peaceful protest and illegitimate, violent protest, largely unquestioning of police facts, press releases, etc - although to be fair, the latter is partly a problem with the formalised news production processes, than, say, undue influence).

But two things struck me as worth blogging about.

Firstly, I wanted to write down a personal encounter that got me thinking about the possible use of strategic policing tactics that were potentially used to manipulate the outcome of events and the subsequent media representation of the day.

Shortly after the kettle formed - and it was inevitable from the minute the march arrived at Parliament Square that it would be kettled - I was stood behind the police line when I witnessed a short man dressed in black, with a black hat (or possbly balaclava pulled up onto his head) be ushered through the police line after flashing something small and white resembling an ID card from a retractable lanyard at his waist.

He then disappeared between several police vans parked near the police line.

Now far be it from me to suggest that the police were using the same tactics as were used during the G20 protests when it was revealed that undercover or plain clothes police were being used as agents provocateurs, but the similarities between this scenario and the G20 struck me as a possibility.

Of course, it is apparently standard procedure to sue undercover police to gather intelligence at demonstrations but it would interesting to scour the footage of the first people to start trashing the controversial police van, allegedly planted as bait for riot porn, to see whether the same person was involved.

The second thing worth mentioning is that while a lot of people present on Wednesday were confident the van *had* been left as bait (similar tactics were possibly used during the already mentioned G20 protests when the only building left unprotected by horading was a branch of RBS, then the UK's most hated bank) most presumed that this angle to the story would not make mainstream news reports.

But in that assumption they were only half right. While the story didn't make any main bulletin,  Sky News' Frontline blog comes right out and asks the question whether the van was intentionally planted.

What's interesting to me is that here is a classic example of professional journalists using informal, social media platforms to publish stories not deemed sufficiently news-worthy to make the headlines - or at least mainstream headlines. Not only that, but this story actually challenges the dominant media narrative based on 'official' reporting of events.

So, what are the conclusions and implications here? I'm not entirely sure really. But it's worth considering the argument that the police don't just use communications strategies to best report what's happening, but rather stage-manage events to shape the communcitive outcome.

It's also worth bearing in mind that while big new outlets remain dominant in shaping the agenda, social media not only provides (potentially mutiple) counter-arguments it seems that this counter-voice can also come from within media corporations.

I guess this latter point seems like common sense, but it's always nice to spot and note a case study.

Is the ASA's new online remit a missed opportunity?

As has been widely reported, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has extended its remit to include online marketing communications.

While an argument can be made for a need to extend the ASA’s remit to cover websites as well as online ads I’m not entirely convinced that the attempt to pin down marketing communications is the best approach to regulating social media.

The ASA's media release tells us that their new remit will cover:

• Advertisers' own marketing communications on their own websites and;
• Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under their control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Journalistic and editorial content and material related to causes and ideas - except those that are direct solicitations of donations for fund-raising - are excluded from the remit.

There are two things that need clarifying here:

1. what exactly is marketing communications
2. how does it differ from editorial?

Ask any PR professional how marketing communications differs from editorial and the they'll tell you that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Possibly, the ASA has taken marketing communications as overt communications marketing products, services or brands, e.g. "Buy this cream and it'll make you thin!" but then that risks taking a very narrow definition of marketing communications.

Further evidence for this comes to life in the IAB's FAQs on the ASA's new remit. They state that the guidelines won't cover "press releases or other PR material" - a notion that at best shows some vagueness about what PR is and does, and at worst reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the industry.

Even if the ASA has somewhere unpicked the finer points of PR then how can marketing communications (regulated) be adequately differentiated from 'editorial' (not regulated)?

Add to this the convergence of media in online social spaces and there's even more complexity.

For example, what happens when the public starts engaging with brands and discussing products or services on brand owned spaces? And then when brands respond with neither editorial or marketing communications - e.g. general conversation on Twitter - and what about passionate members of the public that are brand advocates and start evangelising about a brand or product - is that marketing communications?

The ASA's new remit, it could be argued, is a missed opportunity to truly understand and attempt to strengthen regulation of marketing activity in the online space - a worthy initiative given they claim websites were the second most complained about marketing channel last year.

Brand Republic says that the new guidelines are a "fudge". But it's a fudge that could have potentially been avoided – or at least – addressed directly.

Back in May, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Social Media Advisory Panel [Disc. I'm a member] approached the IAB which is represented on the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) to request that the PR industry be involved in development of the new code.

Given the centrality of ‘editorial’ and ‘marketing communications' in the new regulations we felt it was appropriate, if not essential, to input and have the vice of the PR industry.

While we were given the undertaking that the views of the PR industry would be heard it seems that this wasn’t to be the case. Of course, we could have gone direct to the ASA but a dialogue had already been opened.

The CIPR has issued a statement which articulates some of its major concerns, which I've pasted below.

But to me it seems that the ASA has missed an opportunity to think coherently about social media and implement an effective regulatory approach to the online space, not to mention a potentially naïve assumption by the ASA as to the role of PR, marketing communications and editorial in contemporary society.

Here's the CIPR's statement in full:

Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) policy statement on the proposed regulation of social networks/media by the ASA


The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) recognises the importance of protecting the online public from unscrupulous businesses and organisations, however the Chartered body representing the PR profession has concerns regarding the planned extension of the remits of the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to cover online communications.

The advertising industry is concerned with advertising messaging that is one-way.  Social networks involve dialogue and frequently ‘editorial’ content.   

We believe that the ASA's remit does not extend to moderating the freedom of speech so closely associated with social media such as Twitter, Facebook and websites   Any definition of advertising should be scoped so as to avoid censoring the ability of citizens and consumers to enjoy the free on-line dialogue they have come to expect.

The CIPR also has reservations about changes to the CAP Code and the way the ASA's new and extended remit has been planned. Any changes to the UK's current regulatory frameworks affecting how the public relations profession conducts its business should be developed through close consultation with the chartered body of the public relations profession. Given the significance these proposed changes will have for public relations, marketing and social media professionals, the CIPR believes that the ASA should be working together with the CIPR to develop fair and workable regulations that work with and supports broader, existing frameworks such as the CIPR Code of Conduct and social media guidelines.

The CIPR approached the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) which is represented on the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) in May of this year and were given the undertaking that the views of the PR industry would be heard.  "We are disappointed this action has been taken without our involvement.”  

CIPR Summer Social: is the PR industry falling behind SEO?

I’ve been very remiss in failing to mention and big up the CIPR’s Summer Social.

The Summer Social is a series of informal meet ups organised through the CIPRs Social Media Advisory Panel (DISC: of which I am a member).

So I'm making amends as of now and urging anyone in the PR, marketing and social media sectors to get along to this week’s event as it tackles an oft-debated and really important issue: where do the lines between SEO and PR blur? When is it right and where does it put your clients at risk?

The event takes place from 5pm - 7pm at the CIPR HQ, 52-53 Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HP. and is hosted by Speed Communications' Stephen Waddington who asks: "Has the PR industry failed to reskill for SEO - and will social media be the next missed opportunity?":



“Search agencies are increasingly packaging planning, content development and analytics, into a payment-by-results model. It’s a compelling proposition for a marketing director that is seeking guaranteed outcomes.



Now search agencies are starting to use PR tactics such as press releases, by-lined content and wire distribution to drive their campaigns prompting the scrutiny of the role of PR versus SEO.



This week’s CIPR’s Social Summer 2010 workshop will ask what the PR industry can do to regain ground on SEO. And whether social media, like SEO before it, will be the next missed opportunity for the PR industry.”

The idea of Summer Socials is to offer PR and marketing professionals the chance to learn and find out more about social media and a host of related topics.

It’s less formal and structured than traditional CIPR events or workshop which is a good thing as for the £10 cost we serve beer and nibbles and you get to quiz experts and fellow practitioners about the emerging media landscape.

Looking forward, future Socials include sessions from Wolfstar MD Stuart Bruce, MD of Tweetdeck, Iain Dodsworth and Julio Romo with guests form Channel 4 and the BBC.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

EXCLUSIVE: Dick Fedorcio, Met Police blogger engagement and my part in it...

 figures likely to show rise.....   Queen at First World War memorial.....   Childcare tax breaks revolt grows.....   DNA profile database plans unveiled.....   Washington sniper put to death.....   46% think war is increasing threat.....   Anti-monarchy demo on Charles visit.....   Pilot charged after airport arrest.....   Three more drug advisers quit.....   Social worker backlash after Baby P.....   

I published a blog post earlier this year in which I questioned the Metropolitan Police's approach to social media and criticised what I perceived to be the wrong organisational attitude.

Rather than looking to embrace social media, listen, adapt and respond to the public and earn the reputation it deserves, comments made by the Met's Director of External Affairs, Dick Fedoricio, in a PR Week interview suggested otherwise:

"If I was seeking to manipulate people, it would raise a question about how that reduced our integrity. To be leaning on someone to say "give us a good blog" starts to raise some ethical issues."

I wanted to return to this issue for a couple of reasons. Primarily, I was shocked (but unsurprised) to see that according the Evening Standard, the Met has now requested that all imagery of its officers hiding or obscuring their badges be removed from photo libraries and image databases (hiding numbers means officers can't be (easily) identified and is an illegal tactic usually performed to allow police to act with impunity while committing - often violent - offences against the public).

While the Standard accuses the Met of trying to "re-write history", a member of the public gets it right in a comment posted on the story:

"If people start uploading such images to Facebook and Twitter, will they get their collars felt? We seem to be heading in that direction."

Leaving aside the jusdgement of which direction society is heading, the issue of whether material incriminating authorities published publicly in the social web can be removed remains - as does the question: what power do authorities have to, in DIck's words, "manipulate" or "lean on" someone to force removal?

Following the G20 the Met has signed up 6Consulting and Radian6 to run social media monitoring for the force so it's very likely that any 'offending' material will certainly be identified. That said, I return to the point I made originally which was that this approach reveals a traditional command and control communications culture at the Met which will not fit in the distributed, complex, networked world in which we now live.

I mentioned there were a couple of reasons I wanted to blog about this topic again. That's the first, the second is much more personal.

After my previous post in which the Met's Dick Fedorcio told PR Week that he will "not go as far as interacting with bloggers" he went right ahead by 'interacting' with me.

So how did he interact with me? Was it a comment left on my blog post examining the Met's approach to social media? Was it an email explaining the Met's decision not to interact with bloggers? 

No. Instead Dick left me a voicemail on my work phone. Why he phoned me at work I don't know (especially given my blog states clearly it's a personal site and encourages contact via my personal email address).

Dick's voicemail was rather aggressive (I'm sure this was unintentional) and stated that he worked for Scotland Yard (again, this is confusing, but I'm sure he meant the Metropolitan Police).

He advised me, in a rather intimidating fashion, that if I planned on blogging about the Met againI  should give him a call in advance.

Now I'm sure Dick meant only well by his inadvertently aggressive and intimidating phonecall advising I seek permission before blogging about the Met, but it seems clear to me that the Met are doing blogger engagement, despite what they tell PR Week.

Plus ca change...

Technorati tags: Dick Fedorcio, Metropolitan Police, blogger engagement

Have we finally breached the symbolic 'real media' vs social media divide?

There's an interesting post over at the Journalism.co.uk blog where they are trying to crowd source the perfect press release.

The post offers some great press release-writing tips for people new to the industry and even acts as a reminder to those more seasoned PR professionals about what journalists really want to know about a story.

But what's interesting about the results is the inclusion of social mediia elements which are being specifically requested by journalists.

Maybe I'm wrong to be surprised, but when journalists are asking for "a headline have crossed over into ... short enough for a Twitter update including a link." then it seems we really have gotten over the online vs offline; 'real media' vs social media divide.

The only thing is.... while journalists are adapting quickly to a new, more real-time media environment have PR professionals? I still see a lot of "no-one really reads blogs" or "Yes, but what's the reach of that Tweet?" from PROs.

So here's the real incentive: even if you want to ignore that the media landscape and infrastructure is changing around you..... the journalists you are pitching stories to already get it and if you don't adapt accordingly then you'll be less effective at doing your job. Simples!

Tags: Journalism.co.uk, social media, press release

Online PR: book review to come...

Thanks to Martha over at publishers, Kogan Page, I’ve just received my review copy of Online PR by David Phillips and Philip Young.

I’m looking forward to having a read as both authors are smart guys: academics with solid practical backgrounds and experience.

I’ll be posting my thoughts here in due course. It’ll probably be done piecemeal as I go along, owing to a hectic work schedule.

Tags: Kogan Page, Online PR, David Phillips, Philip Young

Review: Social Media Insight 2009

An interesting report from a firm called Social Media Library came my way a few weeks back but I’ve only got around to blogging it today. First up my overall thoughts and then a break-down of some of the specific results.

The report, Social Media Insight 2009, offers a detailed analysis of the UK blogosphere, Twittersphere and ...er .... Forums broken down by ‘influencers’, sectors – and perhaps most interestingly, geographical location.

I put the term ‘influencer’ in inverted commas because I have long-standing concerns about the idea of online influence and especially from the perspective with which the PR, advertising and marketing likes to conceive the concept (IMHO we primarily perceive ‘influence’ as power, i.e. the ability to persuade people to do or buy things. But the concept of power in networks is still being worked out and is vastly different to traditional conceptions – anyway I digress).

My theoretical worries aside, Social Media Library CEO, Graham Lee, tells me that the report uses a proprietary methodology they call BlogScore (Twitterscore, etc) which uses two main metrics: “a blog's incoming links, but also, importantly, the number of incoming links that those links have” as well as “the performance of a blog on relevant keywords in search returns”.

Crucially for me the system gains credibility by involving both automated data mining and then analysis of each site by a real, live, human. This is important for two reasons: firstly Social Media Library should be fairly confident in guaranteeing each site is UK-based.This process is a significant improvement on purely automated tools which filter UK blogs based on .co.uk domains or UK-based IP address. Secondly it means that their geographical data break-down can again be fairly accurate.

So far, so good. My big question was: what does the data *really* tell us? Putting my cynical hat on I read the main findings of the report and the charts and while it is interesting to note that 38% of influential UK blogs are about consumer issues; or that 32% of UK B2B blogs are about the marketing and PR industries; or Coventry Twitterers have the highest average number of followers (594), what does his really tell us?

Graham’s answer was as follows:

“The purpose of the report is to help people get more of a feel of the social media landscape as it currently stands. Social media is immensely complex, and particularly if you are not immersed in it day-to-day, quite confusing. Add to this the fact that our shared English language with the US - making it exceedingly hard to garner actual engagement levels in the UK - and it becomes a difficult beast for people to get their heads around. ... One other breakthrough has been the potential to look at the spread of social media regionally, across the UK. Understanding this, I hope, helps people > better determine the scope for social media to help support regional campaigns and initiatives.”

While I definitely agree with Graham’s final statement my key take-out from the report is that it gives a real top-level ‘feel’ for the state of social media in the UK. A potentially useful tool for non-digital specialists - so I suppose I'm not necessarily the primary audience for this.

But this isn’t a criticism. Using social media effectively means getting down and dirty with data; finding relevant communities and immersing yourself in them. If the approach to scraping, measuring and analysing social media presented in the report can be tailored and drilled down into further and sliced in different ways then it definitely offers great scope for UK-focussed digital campaigns.

If you want to know more take a peek at their blog.

Tags: Social Media Library, Social Media Insight 2009

Fancy a paid digital PR internship at a smart London agency?

I've have a fair few emails each month from people wanting to get experience working in a digital PR environment. I do what I can but it's not always feasible to give opportunities to everyone or or sign-post them on to other contacts.

However, word reaches me from friend and ex-Edelman colleague, Amy Clark, that help may be at hand if you are looking for a pretty cool digital opportunity. Amy heads up the digital activity over at Splendid Communications and is running a rather smart campaign with their client, Big Yellow Storage.

Big Yellow Self Storage is running a competition offering one determined and talented individual the chance to win a month’s paid internship in Splendid's digital team.

Highlighting the sort of creative digital work you can expect to experience first-hand if you win, Splendid are running the competition through a clever social media mechanic.

According to the official blurb:

"The right candidate should be able to sell themselves via an online audition which will last no longer than 12 seconds.  We’ve teamed up with 12seconds.tv to run the world’s first speed-video job application. We’re looking for people to tell us in no more than 12 seconds why they’re right for the job"

Interested applicants can submit a video by heading over to the Big Yellow Storage campaign/12seconds website.  

Another really nice feature of the competition (IMHO) is the way the outcome is socialiased. By that I mean that while there is (can only be - due to resources and time) only one paid internship they have committed to "showcasing all entries to the industry in the hope that other talented hopefuls will be snapped up by recruiters". It's a cliche but evryone could be a winner.... so why not spread the word!

The competition is open to anyone else providing you're over the age of 18 and are eligible to work in the UK. I've posted the full how to enter details below.

How to enter:

Candidates ready to rise to the challenge and enter the limelight need to speed over to 12seconds.tv and upload their video interview in five easy steps designed to test the entrant’s social media prowess.

1. Register an account on 12seconds.tv/campaign/bigyellowselfstorage

2. Link your Twitter account to your 12 seconds account

3. Record your video 12 second video on a mobile phone, video camera or webcam and upload your video at 12seconds.tv/campaign/bigyellowselfstorage

4. Fill in the ‘submit my CV’ from and attach a recent copy of your CV

The closing date for entries is May 30th 2009. The winner will be announced on June 15th 2009.

Metropolitan Police's turn to social media after G20 policing scandal likely to fail, IMHO

As an interesting footnote to my post below about the need for the Metropolitan Police to make significant changes to its organisational communications culture the force's Director of Public Affairs and Corporate Communications, Dick Fedorcio, is interviewed in this week's PR Week.

From my reading and expert opinion form others Fedorcio's comments indicate that the Met is unable or unwilling to make the real changes necessary.

In a telling statement, Fedorcio, tells PR Week that he won't be looking to run a blogger engagement programme any time soon as:

"If I was seeking to manipulate people, it would raise a question about how that reduced our integrity. To be leaning on someone to say "give us a good blog" starts to raise some ethical issues."

This is a damning insight into the Met's current communications practice as it suggests that its media strategy is built on manipulation.

Commenting on the interview, Diffusion's Ivan Ristic, adds his expert comment that when an organisation has a "reputation of stonewalling" it "makes it difficult in a social marketing context." Too true. You need to tell your story as openly as possible and engage and empower others to help tell your story.

However, while what Ivan says is correct I disagree with his reading of the situation. The Met does not have a reputation to stonewall - at least in the G20/Tomlinson context.

Here the Met/City police and IPCC were extremely proactive in issuing media releases and briefings to frame the story based on what has emerged as an untrue account of events.

Admitedly organisational change isn't easy and takes time and resources - something Fedorcio claims is currently lacking. But stepping into the social media space without evening considering what adaptions you need to make to your corporate communications strategy is setting yourself up to fail - or at least be burned very publicly before you get your strategy right.

I wonder if Dick or the Met will ever monitor this psot and respond? :)

Tags: Metropolitan Police, Dick Fedorcio, PR Week, blogger engagement, social media strategy