DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Results of a survey undertaken by MSL Group

1. Social and digital media are widely used in Brussels, but need to better demonstrate their full added value to Public Affairs professionals. One-third of PA professionals are not yet completely convinced of the effectiveness and impact of social and digital media for their campaigns.
2. EU PA professionals, particularly those who were previously reluctant to do so, plan to expand the use of digital and social media in their campaigns. They are just now starting to make them a full part of their PA strategies.
3. The need for more original ideas and out-of-the-box thinking is most in demand among EU Public affairs Professionals. It is surprising to see how little attention, commitment and trust are granted to European Commission consultation, third-party independent research and think tank work related to EU policy and regulatory developments. By minimizing the role of evidence-base research and the new place taken by EU consultation and impact assessment analysis before defining new policy direction and legislative proposals, EU Public Affairs professionals risk missing the opportunity  to be more relevant to the EU decision-making process and impactful in terms of policy outcome that reflects their experiences on the ground
4. Digital and social media have the power to bring the ‘public’ back to the centre of public policy debate and reduce the gap between institutions and citizens, consumers, employees, business leaders and entrepreneurs.
5. Despite the widespread use of digital and social media in Brussel’s policy arena and internal communications, there is a need to improve governance of communication and public affairs campaigns and break down silos that can jeopardize their effectiveness from conception to deployment on the ground.
6. Many PA professionals struggle with metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that would help them assess the impact of their campaigns. This is an area deserving more attention that is currently the case.

Recommendations

Digital and social media emerge as complementary tools because the wide range of situations and policy issues often require more traditional communication strategies, especially personal contacts. There are very basic but fundamental action steps, too often neglected or poorly executed in practice, which remain essential for successful communication and PA operations.

1. Assess and align your PA and digital capabilities

• Update your internal due diligence and SWOT analysis of functional PA capabilities, allocated resources and accountabilities
• Empower a digital and social media PA ‘champion’ within the organization ensuring monitoring, coherence and timeliness of message development.

2. Build a broad and dynamic ‘arena map’ to understand how the scale, interdependence and policy-making context change.

• Broaden the analysis of decision makers, opinion leaders and stakeholders directly or indirectly impacted by the policy issue at stake.
• Assess their individual or group positions by attitude, ability to influence policy outcome and communication tools used.
• Regularly update the arena map taking into account personnel changes, the evolution of the position taken and adapt outreach tactics accordingly.

Digital and social media are tools for innovative campaigns that must be part of a holistic analysis and bespoke approach. Each campaign must have the right mix of instruments that mirrors business goals, corporate culture and policy issues at stake. Innovation should not come only from the tool used, but reflect a new way for organizations to engage policy makers, stakeholders, public opinion leaders and media.

3. Contextualize your campaign toolbox

• Be agnostic about tools and match them with strategic campaign objectives
• Contextualize your toolbox for each campaign and integrate relevant digital tools taking into account the target audience, expected outcome, timing and resources
• Widen and complement engagement tools without being afraid to explore new paths and tones of communication.

4. Fill the knowledge gap

• Identify and address the knowledge gap in areas under policy review which require more factual evidence to ensure more balanced decisions by policymakers.
• Inspire or sponsor original research by trusted people and organizations to develop new thoughtful analysis contributing to more informed decisions by policymakers.
• Contribute directly or indirectly to formal and informal consultations, and inform policymakers and stakeholders about your direct experience on the ground.

5. Promote citizenship engagement

• Explore the opportunity to mobilize and engage your business partners and suppliers in your campaigns by leveraging social and digital media toward inclusive and direct dialogue with policymakers and stakeholders.
• Create ‘passion portals’ to connect like-minded individuals and drive narratives on policy issues.
• Use social listening tools to track conversations and sentiment to inform and adjust messages to policymakers.
• Use low-tech vehicles to communicate to policymakers their constituents’ sentiments gathered through digital and social media.
• Ensure that the practice of stakeholder relationship is in line with corporate governance principles.

6. Improve internal governance

• Identify and engage with relevant stakeholders within your organization in the early stages of the campaign briefing.
• Set up a communication campaign steering team involving multi-disciplinary and multicultural experts from different parts of your organization and independent advisors to help design and implement the campaign.

7. Set realistic targets and measure outcomes

• Define what success means before campaign launch taking into account the policy and social context.
• Determine measurable and realistic indicators of performance that connect output to success for each action and range of activities and consider the potential risk and implication.
• Regularly assess cost effectiveness of each action and adapt accordingly.