Image and reputation in the age of digital communication

September 1st, 2010 / 11:00 pm

This morning I delivered this presentation to the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. We discussed the crafting and co-creation of persuasive narratives, digital storytelling through the newsfeed with stakeholders, the production and packaging of content for the new public mind, and how the art of PR is becoming more of a science.

View more presentations from Robert Pickard.

Categories: speaking platforms
comments(0) Tags: asia, digital, marketing, PR, public relations, social networks

Executive MBA lecture at Nanyang Business School

August 2nd, 2010 / 4:00 am

On July 27th I was honoured to guest lecture executive MBA students in Martin Roll’s class at Nanyang Business School. I talked about the scientific roots of the PR profession, putting the consciousness of corporations online through social media news streams, mapping data to design through digital storytelling, the worldwide rise of apology communications, and how with new crisis communications, anything that now goes wrong in a famous way is called a ‘PR disaster.’ This edited video is eight minutes long:

Categories: speaking platforms
comments(1) Tags: asia, b-m, digital storytelling, marketing, PR, singapore, social networks

Image and reputation in the age of digital communication

July 22nd, 2010 / 9:00 am

Today in Shanghai it was my honor to address the China New Social Media Forum on the crafting and co-creation of persuasion narratives, digital storytelling through the news feed with stakeholders, producing and packaging content for the new public mind. I also spoke about how PR is the key marketing discipline when it comes to both promoting and protecting image in the modern world of social networks.

View more presentations from Robert Pickard.

Categories: digital
comments(1) Tags: china, digital, PR, reputation, social networks

Guest lecture to PR students in Hong Kong

November 26th, 2009 / 3:00 pm

On November 10th, I was honoured to address PR students in the Communications School of Hong Kong Baptist University. I was invited and hosted by the distinguished Dr. Flora Hung as well as the wonderful Dr. Regina Chen. The theme of the speech was “Building modern PR campaigns and telling digital stories in the age of social technology.” Feel free to download a copy by clicking the screen shot below:

It was my best effort to ‘connect the dots’ between my own two decades of communications consulting experience and the ideas of thinkers like Gerald Zaltman (re. metaphors tapping into the unconscious mind), Martin Lindstrom (re. neuromarketing and ‘unconscious’ storytelling), Dale Carnegie (re. making people feel important in conversations) and Robert Cialdini (re. the psychology of persuasion).

These are the key points made in the presentation:

No brainer: the mind is the key issue when it comes to PR.
The unconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious mind.
The emotions of the unconscious mind determine PR success, not the rational logic of the conscious mind.
Metaphors communicated through storytelling tap into the unconscious mind where people make decisions.
PR pros need to design and conduct campaigns accordingly.
Unfortunately, the ‘storytelling zone’ of news journalism (which has also been the province of PR people interacting with reporters) is shrinking as the traditional news media business plummets.
So marketers and their money are migrating to the entertainment media and social media spheres, where stories can be told directly to consumers.
Nowadays every company can create its own content and tell its own stories, like a media company.
Digital is now changing narratives; new stories are actually being co-created via conversations with people online.
Understanding the ‘psychology of persuasion’ within networked contexts is a key skill for modern communicators.
PR people of the future must think like story writers and media content programmers.

Categories: blog, speaking platforms
comments(2) Tags: asia, carnegie, cialdini, digital storytelling, edelman, hong kong, journalism, lindstrom, media, persuasion, PR, psychology, social networks, zaltman

Signal to noise

October 30th, 2009 / 5:00 pm

When I was a kid, I was into electronics and shortwave radio in a big way, and one of the technical terms I heard about then was ‘signal to noise ratio.’ In the radio listening context, I took this to mean how much of the radio station you could hear versus the all the noise in the background (and there is no shortage of ’static’ on shortwave, as a dwindling band of fellow die-hard enthusiasts would know).

Bob's 1937 Troy 100 radio

These days, I notice that the signal to noise expression is being used all the time by people into social networks. In most cases, it seems to mean getting the content online that you want that adds value, as opposed to extraneous clutter information that wastes your time. It strikes me as an apt expression, party because there’s so little quality content these days and way too much junk out there.

I have certainly noticed that people really do appreciate quality content when they see it. On Facebook from 2007, and then Twitter from 2008, and now more recently Friendfeed, I’ve been trying to share what I think is ’signal’ from the media that I consume every day. Usually I’ll post what I regard as interesting articles in areas of personal interest (PR, psychology, media, propaganda, renewable energy, radio, maps and the environment), accompanied by a brief commentary reflecting my own opinion. So, I’ve basically been selecting stories for the ’front page’ of my ‘lifestream’ and drafting comments and questions, leaving the heavy writing to the authors whose articles I forward.

A few folks have proactively let me know that they appreciate this approach; here’s one example:

“Hey Bob! Thanks for bringing the collective IQ of my FB page up. As I scroll down the updates and see lines of ‘How well do you know so and so’ and ‘My kids just spilled the Q-tips’ I see your notes on the demise of the Aral Sea…like accidentally stumbling across NPR during a Jerry Springer episode.”

Lately, though, several people have been encouraging me to articulate my own long-form opinions, so this new blog is my way of transmitting some signal of my own rather than just relaying that of others.

I’m looking forward to sharing ideas and insights with you.

bob

Categories: blog, radio
comments(2) Tags: analogue, radio, social networks

Social networks and happiness

September 30th, 2009 / 1:41 pm

Birds of a feather flock together, says this interesting article which contends that happy and unhappy people tend to be connected with each other online. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: psychology, social networks