PR agencies and privacy
I believe that — like Caesar’s wife — those who work in the public relations industry must be above suspicion when it comes to all online engagement (whether personal or professional.) Later on in this post, you’ll see how I’m hoping to use our social media policy to moderate our behaviour as a company, while freeing up our colleagues to experiment with social media. But I’m not expressing it well. What should I do?
Last summer I shared a draft of the Porter Novelli Social Media Policy that I’d been working on.
It’s one of those documents that some like and some don’t. A few people, for example, think that it’s too restrictive.
The sticking point for most people seems to be the bit that says (under 2.3.3):
Your profile must include an explicit statement that you work for Porter Novelli. Include the following minimum information: “I work for Porter Novelli, a global public relations company.”
For a couple of reasons, this item has popped up again. A few weeks ago, I tweeted that Porter Novelli people should disclose their full name and company affiliation in their Twitter bios, and referred to a post-and-comments on this blog that went some of the way to explaining why this should be. This tweet was picked up by a few people, some of whom commented. Willem (@hippowill, Ice cream for everyone!!) was probably the most eloquent, saying (among other things):
I’m not looking for work, but if I do I’m not interested in applying for Porter Novelli or any other agency that would feel the need to require my agreement to online guidelines, telling me how to talk, write and represent myself – and not the agency I work for – online.
So I’ve been meaning to get back to him, if nothing else. I feel that either I haven’t explained our policy properly, or he doesn’t get it — which amounts to the same thing. I don’t mind being wrong, but I do mind being misinterpreted. This stuff is important!
Yesterday, I had a brief conversation with some of our graduate prospects — young bright people who are looking to work for us. And it turned out that one of them, Anna Svensson (@svanna) had already written a post about it, asking Does your future employer have the right to control your online interaction?
In her response, Anna points out that (while she still feels that we’re “trying to control [our] employees a bit too much”) what we’re actually attempting to do is more “a form of issues management” (exactly!) It’s a good post, but it’s one of those that’s worth reading for the comment stream. I’d recommend you take a read.
But here, I think, is the big question:
Should a PR agency’s social media policy be different?
Different, I mean, from other companies’ policies? You see, I’d argue “Yes, they should.” I’m basing this on a lot of previous material. Wikipedia’s Conflict of Interest guidelines, for example, explicitly state that public relations is a “special case”:
Editing in the interests of public relations is particularly frowned upon. This includes, but is not limited to, edits made by public relations departments of corporations or governmental entities; or of other public or private for-profit or not-for-profit organizations; or by professional editors paid to edit a Wikipedia article with the sole intent of improving that organization’s image.
The italics are my own. Public relations (and social media relations) people are – I think – likely to be more distrusted than usual. Our errors will be held up to ridicule by our customers, and by our peers, and will live forever in the popular schadenfreude, achieving the mythical status of the fake blogging fiascos of 2007, or poor bloody Kryptonite/Bic Biro events of 2004 that still turn up in presentations and training workshops.
We’re also under more pressure to make mistakes. Between us, PR professionals around the world represent hundreds of thousands of clients, and several million campaigns every year. As the pressure increases in every region to take these campaigns online, mistakes will be made.
While I was writing this policy, I came across lots of policies from other organizations. Most of these were old-school “blogging policies” (Forrester’s Charlene Li posted a list ofBlogging Policy Examples back in 2004) and there’s a list at the NewPR Wiki.
We wanted to do something a bit different. As I state in the policy preamble, we wanted it to cover “Anything you do online where you share information that might affect your colleagues or clients.”
I’d done a bit of quick-and-dirty internal research when I joined Porter Novelli. At the time (and even today) the great majority of our colleagues weren’t bloggers. As a result, any “blogging policy” would be irrelevant to them. And yet, at the same time, a majority of our colleagues were on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bebo, with some (mostly dormant) accounts on other social networking sites like Orkut, ASmallWorld, Hyves and the like depending on where they were coming from. A smaller number — while having no blog of their own — had commented on a blog or online news story, or posted in forums at least once in the past three months. Some of them were sharing photographs over services like Flickr, and (thankfully) a very few had — according to WikiScanner — anonymously edited Wikipedia (and, with one exception, always for non-client-related interests). Almost all had voted on something — even if it were only a poll — in the past quarter.
Some of these engagements were on behalf of clients, but the great majority were “personal business” — or as Willem might put it, representing themselves – and not the agency or clients for whom they worked.
The guiding principles for the policy
We were trying to keep things as simple as possible.
I rather like Comcast’s policy as quoted by Rohit Bhargava in his post Comcast’s Actual Social Media Policy No One Knew About:
Their official point of view is that their employees are allowed to participate authentically, as long as they disclose their affiliations, don’t divulge secret or proprietary information and don’t act as though they are an official spokesperson or allowed to speak on behalf of the brand.
That’s a lot better, I think than the often misquoted Microsoft “Be Smart” (taken out of context from a post from Robert Scoble” and a couple of often-quoted soundbites along the lines of “Our corporate policy is, be smart. We don’t talk about things we don’t know about.”)
Only the most arrogant would believe that “be smart” is suitable advice to include in a policy — instead it was a glimpse at the philosophy that underpinned the blogging policy that Microsoft were working on at the time. Scoble explicitly agreed with what Yahoo!’s Jeremy Zawodny says:
The only advice I have … is this: please make sure it’s abundantly clear what the rules are. You’re getting to be a big company. Don’t rely on unwritten rules or company tradition/culture to do the job.
So I was trying to keep it simple and flexible. Hence the guiding principles:
- The web is not anonymous. Assume that everything you write can be traced back to the company, if not you personally.
- There is no longer a clear boundary between your personal life and your work life.
- Do not lie or withhold the truth.
- The web contains a permanent record of our mistakes. But do not try to change things retrospectively.
Furthermore, I borrowed a philosophy from someone much wiser and smarter than I (and who was more fitted to our corporate culture than — say — Microsoft’s), Cluetrain Manifesto co-author David Weinberger who says:
All I can promise is that I will be honest with you and never write something I don’t believe in because someone is paying me as part of a relationship you don’t know about. Put differently: All I’ll hide are the irrelevancies.
So what’s the thinking behind Paragraph 2.3.3 then?
Well — there are several.
1. We’re proud of the people we hire, and we hope they’re proud to work for us
One of the most satisfying ways we recruit is through WOM recommendation from our colleagues, who have let their friends how much they enjoy working with us.
Because we think that our people are the best advertisement for who we are and what we do, we’d like to see them promoting their personal brands as much as possible. We actively encourage people to begin blogging, set up networks on LinkedIn, get on Flickr, Twitter, and the like. We don’t actively monitor these accounts, but do
2. It prevents us from forgetting that there’s no “private” anymore
I think that a good PR person is someone who manages their relationships well; who can tread the fine line between doing good work for their clients without abusing or exploiting their relationships. Who recognizes the value of their personal network, and their personal brand.
When I’m doing background research on someone I’m meeting, I’ll check Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Who are they? Where have they worked? Who do we know in common?
Have you heard the story about photos of Bono and “bikini-clad babes” turning up on Facebook? Have you every searched for Carpphone Warehouse on Flickr?
PR people (who work with them on a daily basis) are already aware that these tools are also a great tool for journalists. So only someone very naive should think that there’s a divide that people will respect (“Oh — I won’t look at their Twitter or Facebook accounts because that’s personal, and I’m only interested them in a business context”)
By encouraging our colleagues to label their accounts with their place of work, we are also encouraging them to be aware that (even in their private lives) they may be seen to represent us.
3. It prevents us from accidentally forgetting to disclose
OK — everyone should disclose where appropriate. We know that. But in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget. It’s particularly easy to forget when you have only 140 characters to express yourself “I work for Porter Novelli, a public relations company that represents brand x” will take up more than 50% of your available space.
4. It prevents us from “accidentally” “forgetting” to disclose
Imagine that sentence being read out with heavy-handed sarcastic finger quotes.
There are all sorts of schoolboy errors that we won’t be tempted to make if everyone who works for us is clearly labelled “Porter Novelli.”
Working in the nineties at media planning and buying agencies and creative agencies leaves me with an abiding memory of being asked to “click on any of our banners that you see while you’re surfing.” These days, thank God, technology and good auditing has put paid to this kind of abuse.
This kind of astroturfing (the term we use for faking grass-roots support) is the kind of behaviour we have to prevent. Leaving comments on forums and blogs, voting on polls, ‘seeding’ UGC campaigns with content or sending apparently spontaneous branded ‘consumer’ messages via Twitter or Facebook is exactly the kind of thing that junior staffers will be asked to do by people who don’t get it. The fact that all our staffers are marked with the equivalent of a digital watermark prevents people from us as a company asking them to misuse their personal accounts.
I talked above about “personal networks” and “personal brands” — it’s essential that we as a company don’t ask people to exploit those; we want to hire people who have good networks. We want to help our colleagues develop those networks and brands. But while they work with us, we want them to use them on behalf of our clients. You can see how easy it would be unthinkingly to ask them to abuse them. By asking our colleagues to put the name of our employer on their accounts, I think we take a step towards preventing that.
This is a complicated idea — but one I hope that I’ve now explained better.
5. It prevents us from accidentally astroturfing again
Remember, Porter Novelli is a global organization. Different territories are at different stages of their digital market development. This is both an advantage (we can better forecast and plan for what future developments will look like in those markets) and a disadvantage (we may be condemned to repeat mistakes we — or our competitors — have made in more developed markets.)
Does this make it clearer?
To those, like Willem, who think that we’re being too strict I’d ask — does this make more sense? Do you still believe that there is “public and private?” Do you think that we’re simply doing this to advertise ourselves and control our employees, or do you think that we are doing it (as I suggested) to moderate our behaviour as a company, and freeing up our colleagues to experiment with social media?
What can I do to improve this? Now you know what we’re trying to do, all suggestions will really be welcomed.
Mat — Rather in the way that unenforceable law is bad law, policies bound to be misinterpreted are bad policies. I think you achieve 89 percent of what you’re looking for if the policy (which you make widely known outside the company) states: “Porter Novelli strongly encourages its staff to disclose that they work for a global public relations firm in order to protect them against attacks for alleged failure to disclose client relationships when posting for business or personal reasons.”
Peter — I think that’s probably the kind of language we’re looking for — to explain to people why we’re doing it! Much neater. You think “strongly encourages” is enough?
It’s an interesting debate – and I think there tends to be an age divide on it (sorry Mat). In the old days, we used to say to employees: “If you’re out, whether on company business or not, and you’re mixing with journalists / prospects / clients in your own time, you should remember that you represent your company in their view, and behave accordingly.” Or something along those lines. It’s the same with conversations online.
I’m not sure I agree with having to disclose, but I certainly would be pretty hard on anyone who embarassed our company even in a ‘private’ conversation, wherever they were. I don’t think disclosure is the point necessarily. But I do think we should all remember that if communications is our job, then we will be associated with our job when we communicate. Employees who don’t get that should maybe think about a rather more public example – what if a cabinet member slated government policy in a ‘private’ Facebook post. Would s/he be held accountable for it?
Mat,
What a post. I must say I have very mixed feelings over this. Don´t get me wrong. I´m a proud PN´er, and in all of my digital presence, I´m open about it. As well on Twitter, my blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and the rest of the online-changebang I mention it. Why? Because I choose not to divide personal and work. Work is what I do, It´s an important part of my life, and most of my social contacts are intertwined. I have friends amongst co-workers and clients. So, I am a hybrid person. But I advertize my PN connection by choice, and because it is relevant, and more honest seen my lifestyle. I would not like it however if it was imposed. Say that a hidden part of me writes medieval poetry. A very private part of me. What has the “me” that writes those verses to do with my employer? Nothing. That would be a private, harmless outing on the Net of myself that I would not like to associate with my PN work. Eventually. I would not appreciate an employer that would enforce me to. Or someone who blogs about his passion as an amateur photographer, and want to be recognized as such by a peer-group. If those other peers do not advertize what they do for a living, why would a PN-er have too? And why would someone, , who leaves a comment, political, environmental, religious, etc… from a deep private conviction have to associate himself as a PN person?
What I´m heading at Mat is the following: if as a PN´er you feel it is important that you “out” yourself as a professional communicator, working for PN: by all means… you should. Often, your digital presence online has nothing to do with PN. Well, in those cases leave it to the personal feeling whether they do so or not. PN should not interfere with the personal part of peoples life. And granted, for mobile warriors like us, personal and other stuff is heavily intertwined. For some other PN people it is not, and we should respect them in that way….
Danny
@danny — perhaps you’re right. I’m thinking mostly about the “mass” social media sites that many of our colleagues are on (say Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed) and their blogs. Oh, and their SlideShare, Scribd, Discus etc.
I was trying to make it easier for people to adhere to (if we set out some complicated rules like “if this is only for personal reasons, and there is no way that people can link the Danny Devriendt who is into Medieval Poetry with the @dannydevriendt who is on Twitter who works for PN.” Now you might say that the Medieval Poetry issue doesn’t really matter (and I’d agree) but what about the (true) story I heard from someone a fortnight ago about an employee of theirs who was on a fetish community using their real name? Should we teach people how to maintain pseudonyms? Should we be teaching tradecraft? I don’t think it’s a good idea.
I don’t know — I just don’t like the idea of saying “here’s what you can do under the same name that you use when you’re working for us, and here’s where you should use a pseudonym that you never use when you’re working for us. It feels wrong for one thing. Should we really be specifying the difference between Medieval poetry and fetish sites? Telling colleagues what’s OK and what’s not OK?
It feels like it’s doomed to fail for another. To pretend that people aren’t smart enough to put information together and work out which is which is to ignore reality. Your medieval poetry persona and your Facebook persona and your Twitter persona and the persona that left the comment above are fairly simple to piece together. Anonymity/pseudonimity can lead to a misplaced sense of security.
Let’s take a slightly different question. As Porter Novelli we represent some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. As individuals, some of our employees (who may not work on our healthcare business) may be prescribed medication made by those companies (or their competitors.) They may want to take part in a conversation on one of the many disease-related communities that offer so much support to patients like them.
Question: should they disclose?
I agree that the boundary between personal life and work life is blurry online. But I’m not sure that you need to state that you work at PN if you’re participating in an online group concerning something that’s highly personal such as a private, health-related matter.
That said, I state exactly who I am and what I do on Twitter, my blog and Linkdin. But these are my business tools. If I had a personal blog re cooking for instance, would I say what I do for a living? Yes I would because when I post anything online it’s for business. But does this mean every PNer in every online situation needs to state that who they are and what they do?
Mat,
I do see what you try to do, and you do it well But fueling the debate: I think you go out on a (legal) limp to mingle in peoples online behavior that is not work related. In most countries, the personal life sphere is protected and shielded. Whether one is married, has kids, is gay, lives together, etc is part of the personal life sphere. Some people choose to share, fine, other people shield… as is their good right.
I do not shield, I´m straight, happily married. Open PN employee. I love offroading and fast cars. You know, my boss knows, clients know.
But, can PN, through an online code of conduct mingle with my online life? DO we then force people that are single to use a pseudonym? If we represent a “green cleaner earth” association as PN, do I then have to ditch my Offroad Big V8 pictures from the net? Why?Is the fact that an employee –not referring to PN- is frequenting a (going back to your example) fetish site than wrong? And if they are not on the site, but frequent the local swingers club, does that than make it any better? And… (here we go), who will be the judge of that? We´re entering -as good Walter in the Big Lebowski woulds say- a world of pain. I agree, people should be made aware that what they do outside their online presence for Porter Novelli has an impact on their traceable reputation. But it still is their online life, their call. If their online reputation is so twisted/harmed/distorted that it prevents them to conduct their functioning as advisors to clients, measures should be taken. But that is way different than stipulating what and where true identity/pseudonyms have to be used. Freedom of speech does account to the net as well, as some legislation and rulings pointed out.
To answer your second question. If a employee has a disease, and wants to talk about it online, or wishes to comment… that is his or her good right as long as it does not interfere with one of the NDA´s that concerns them directly. They should do so as a private person, not as a PN employee. It is their personal business, we should respect that.
I know we will run into trouble when these comments might harm our clients interests… than you have a clash between the freedom of speech, and loyalty towards the employer. Extremely interesting debate, with rulings in different countries going all possible ways.
Great post. I think it depends a bit on how sure one is with his company.
If one’s happy, proud and feels safe at his office – he’ll palce his company name and logo everywhere even without reminder. But it’s rare today, people change jobs often and look for new business opportunities so it’s more clever to build personal brand than support your company on socila networks with all your best, while the company can use “crisis” matter to fire you or smth like that.
Social networking for business reason is social activity, like volunteering to choose birthday present for fellow employees of go buy cakes or arrange a place for corporate event. Some people just do it, some don’t…
I like Danny’s Medieval Poetry example, it’s interesting because it raises the question of online versus offline. One of the assumptions about the internet from the 90s into the 2000s was that you could pretend to be someone you were not. What you’re describing is the shift towards making online presences really mean something.
For the longest time there’s been this sense of “yes, but in real life” (online dating’s a good example). Now who you are online is not separate from who you are.
Also, I think one of the reasons people get so offended is the same reason they don’t want the FBI looking through their mail: we all say “Oh, I have nothing to hide so they can see whatever they want” but the notion of complete surveillance still makes us uneasy. Which is understandable.
I would say that because who you are online can no longer be separated from who you are, it’s reasonable to ask people to disclose what their biases may be. Personally I like to operate that way, clearer is better. I do get that people don’t want to be identified ONLY by their job, or a hobby, which is another reason people may be upset. And of course, yup, your Dungeons & Dragons friends don’t really hang out with your sports nut friends, and who would want them to cross paths anyway?
As someone who does not work for porter novelli, but has had an informational interview at the DC office, i find this topic extremely interesting. i can say that being someone who wants to work for PN, i would be proud to list porter novelli as my employer, however, at first, i didn’t quite understand the reasoning behind “forcing” employees to post that they work for “porter novelli, a global public relations company”. however, after reading mr. morrison’s post, i completely understand the reasoning.
in public relations today, the job isn’t just 9-5, it’s literally 24/7. meaning, when you leave work, your job as a public relations professional doesn’t end, and neither does your affiliation with your firm and the clients you work for. likewise, the internet is the same way. just a few years ago, facebook and myspace were mediums for people to express how they were personally, yet, now those same pages are transforming from personal and private displays to more public ones. while i was in college, just a few short years ago, we were lectured several times on the “appropriateness” of our facebook and/or myspace pages. we were told that anything inappropriate should be removed because potential employers might look at them. i believe this policy is just an extension of what my college professors were telling me a few years back.
i remember one of the first things to go on my facebook profile was my “pictures”. none of the pictures were anywhere close to being inappropriate, and most were pictures of me and my friends hanging out at football games, however, as my facebook page became more professional, i thought my pictures should become more professional too.
i think the hardest part about the transition from a personal/private facebook page to a professional page is that facebook is losing some of its luster that garnered so many fans before. in college, facebook was about who you were as a person, and there wasn’t anyone looking over your shoulder to see if your page was appropriate or not, but moving into a career, people are starting to have to curb what they put on those pages and i think it’s hard for some people to let go of this once personal site. on a side note, this leads me to believe that sooner or later, there will be a new site, or an extension of an existing site to where only your “best friends” can view your profile. meaning, your profile is shielding from co-workers and clients, just a thought..
in closing, i totally agree with what mr. morrison is doing. i think it’s just hard for some people to realize that the line between one’s professional and private life is definitely blurred and that there really is no more line, it’s all the same, especially in pr.
@Joe — “Now who you are online is not separate from who you are.” Yes! Exactly!
There was a time back when Sherry Turkle was the the hhip thing to be reading where we could joke that “on the internet, no-one knows you’re a dog.”
Today, partly since my experience of you as a person is modified by what I discover about you via Google, and partly because an increasingly rich and rewarding part of all our lives is lived online, I agree that you can’t pretend to separate these selves.
I further suspect that the problem isn’t simply about the online persona(e) but that part of the sticking point for people is that they may perceive their WORK persona as somehow being less real than their “real life” persona(e).
As I’ve got older, my work life has become a bigger and bigger part of who I am — after all, I’ve now been in this “digital marketing” career for almost as long as I was in primary, secondary and tertiary education combined! Most of my close friends are people with whom I’ve worked, and I’ve worked with many of my close friends. But even today, I’d draw a slight (and I’d agree with you — imaginary) distinction between “me at work” and “me with friends and family” — and some how I’d argue that the latter is more real and more important than the former. A new question raises its head. Am I right to do so?
@christopher — I’d not worry too much about your Facebook profiles. Sure — people like me look at them when we can, but do bear in mind that we were young once, and that had there been Facebook pages around at the time, ours would have looked as bad if not worse. I thank God that digital cameras and cellphone cameras appeared after my time, and that the dreaded Facebook photo wasn’t part of my twenties.
Other than that, you and I agree so strongly that if I were a cynical man I’d suspect that you were after something. Like a job…
well, i certainly wouldn’t turn one down.
but, i am a bit confused. you said i shouldn’t worry about my facebook page, but if an employee had something inappropriate on their facebook page intermingled with the statement that they work for porter novelli, wouldn’t that cause a problem just as someone commenting on a blog, or writing something tasteless in their own blog? or are you making a blanket statement simply saying that anything you do online needs to be done with caution and with the best interest of porter novelli at mind?
I’m tempted to agree with Danny – I think that the disclosure thing needs work. If you want to anonymously write medieval poetry on the web, then I don’t believe that should be a problem – you should be able to discern when these things are and are not relevant to your profession. It’s too complex a thing to sum up in a few lines, unfortunately – for example, if I am posting an entry on a forum asking whether there really is a noticeable difference between my NVidia 9800 and my old ATI X1650, should I disclose that I work for a tech PR company? In this case, no – we have no graphics cards clients, nor indeed many consumer tech clients.
On the flip side – and using your example of the person using their real name in the fetish community – it’s a thorny one. Adhering to a strict ‘declaration’ policy online could force them into declaring where they work – and would that work for either your company or them? After all, we are all human, we all have different interests and there is nothing wrong with belonging to a fetish community. Whether the company sees it like that is questionable, but I’m certain that a company which forced its employees to act anonymously when engaging with such communities would quickly find itself mired in a fair few tribunals. I can see it now – ‘Gag Orders for Fetish Community’
Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules. There are times when transparency is absolutely essential, but I don’t think that laying those out in stone is easy, and perhaps even possible!
Christian — notwithstanding your dreadful gag I think I have to agree with you. In fact, there’s no-one here with whom I don’t agree at least partially.
The clause has to go. I don’t think we can have a policy that “recommends” or “suggests” — I think things need to be pretty black and white.
Perhaps we should abandon the policy, and just go with guidelines?
Mat I’d say you hit on the exact heart of things when you said it’s about perception. If there’s anything that drives social media it’s perception (often referred to as reputation). The recent Skittles stunt is a good example. Honestly I’d say it wasn’t incredibly interesting or smart, and who knows what the value of having Twitter traffic go through your site is as opposed to regular search engine/other random traffic.
But the perception on Twitter from many users was that while poorly executed, they really liked that Skittles was trying to get into social media and relate to people who are savvy social media wise. So there was a level of respect, which leads to opinions and impressions being formed, and a reputation for “being for the people.”
So when you talk about social media guidelines, you’re talking partly about managing how people perceive you. We do that every day anyway, why should our social media or work selves be exempt?
Mat,
You’ve written a very insightful piece and this is a fascinating debate. There are many potential issues with employees disclosing company affiliation on personal social accounts. The first is relevancy, would you wear a badge with your company name even when you go to the mall or on vacation? Probably not because it’s not relevant to the situation and everyone has a right to their personal life and privacy.
Blanket disclosures like that can also exponentially increase the company’s exposure to liability and there maybe some employee activities that the company doesn’t want to be associated with. I am in favor of disclosing company affiliation only when a) representing the company and/or b)where there is conflict of interest and/or c) potential impact on key stakeholder
I really like that you’ve gone to lengths to explain your policy. Initially, I read the bit about employees disclosing who they are everywhere and thought it was over the top, but after reading your explanation, I absolutely agree with you. We are all in a public forum, and it is important to have an awareness of that when writing something. It would also be too easy to point the finger at someone for not disclosing (indeed, I have done so loudly and publicly before). I like that you’re trying to do the right thing, and rather than be scared of social media, have accepted that it’s there and needs to be managed per se.
Did any employees have a say in developing the policy with you?
Mollybob — you should take a look at a post by a colleague of mine, Chris Nee over on Clicking & Screaming called The Presentation of Self in Social Media — some interesting points raised there.
We have a network of “ambassadors” across our many offices — all of whom have actively fed into this project. Everyone else; colleagues, clients and competitors have had a chance to share their thoughts on this and other blogs.
[...] PR Agencies and Privacy – MediaCzar (Mat Morrison) – This is probably one of the most detailed “train of thought” post about social media policy when dealing with an agency perspective I have seen. Thanks to Mat for detailing his thoughts. [...]
This blog is “over”? Do blogs have beginnings and endings?
I googled “I work for Porter Novelli, a global public relations company.” today and find about 9 links and a few tweets.
Does this mean the policy has been revised to no longer require this disclosure? Or does it mean that P/N has seen the wisdom of going underground? Or does it mean Google isn’t very good at finding this particular phrase?
Hope my email response got to you! In order of importance, here are some answers as I see them.
I no longer work for Porter Novelli, but I can tell you a little about the thinking behind the programme. This information will necessarily be somewhat out of date now.
People were, in fact, encouraged to come up with their own phrase; I don’t think we ever really pushed a company-wide disclosure statement. That would have been a bit small-print-y, and we wanted people to express themselves, and fit the statement to the context. If you search on (say) “I work for Porter Novelli”, you’ll find somewhere in the region of 3K search results. My own disclosure statement said something like “I head up digital planning at Porter Novelli, the global public relations company. If my opinions reflect those of the company, then I’m probably doing something right.” But it would change. On Facebook, for example, it simply said “Employer: Porter Novelli.”
“the global public relations company” thing was my fairly half-assed attempt to help our SEO rankings for those search keywords and qualifiers. If people were going to be lazy and simply copy & paste the disclosure statement, why not get some SEO benefit where possible?
Hope this makes sense.