At the start of this week, Facebook UK fan-fared what many critics believe to be the long overdue arrival of a downloadable ‘panic button’ targeted at 13-18 year olds. The app, known as the ClickCeop button, is provided by Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre – an organisation that up until this announcement was one of Facebook’s sternest critics.

Teenage Facebook users are being encouraged to download the app and then if they suspect that they are the target of unwanted online attention they can click the ClickCeop button and will be redirected to another online facility that enables the incident to be reported.

The initiative received widespread media attention including interviews with hand-wringing Facebook executives on major broadcast news programmes and largely positive write-ups in the national press. Monday was pretty far from a slow news day too, coming, as it did, hot on the heels of the Raoul Moat saga and the World Cup final.

The ClickCeop button is being supported by the Ceop Facebook page which links subjects that teenagers enjoy alongside links to questions about online safety. It sounds, for all the world, like a well-meaning church group and it is probably about as appealing to the average teen.

The media, with its polarised vision of society, can’t quite position teenagers. They’re either knife wielding hoodie-clad maniacs or the innocent victims of an underground army of sinister perverts. The things is, criticising the ClickCeop announcement, bearing in mind the potential seriousness of the dangers that the ClickCeop button is attempting to address, seems somehow wrong.

Unfortunately, the ClickCeop button will be about as effective in its purpose as Paul Gascoigne’s well meant attempt to talk Raoul Moat into handing himself to the authorities with the offer of lager and fried chicken. Still, Moat seems to have become something of a folk legend and all around local hero – not bad PR considering his actions and deeds.

Facebook, like the ISPs, has distanced itself from attempting to police its service. The popular social media site, like all social media and online sites, faces a number of wide-ranging challenges, not least of which is that there is absolutely no way it can (with its present sign-up procedure) police who uses its services.

There is a notional age limit of 13 for Facebook admission. However, the means of regulating users is left down to the subscribers entering their date of birth. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that kids will lie about their age to become Facebook members. And, it won’t be just kids that lie about their age either. That’s the thing with the people who use the internet inappropriately. They aren’t, generally speaking, upfront with their targets.

The ClickCeop button is more likely to become Facebook’s de facto means of snitchery, finger pointing and witch hunting as kids (and adults) seek to manipulate the service to suit their inappropriate needs. That teachers and youth group workers are better off not being online ‘friends’ with the kids they’re trying to help is a pretty sad indictment of the times we live in.

What’s more, it’s not as though children who thought themselves potential victims didn’t already have a means of reporting possible ill-deeds. That said, if you search for the police on Facebook you’ll be redirected to a page dedicated to the 80s pop group. Which, at the time of writing, has 615,779 more people who ‘like’ it than the Ceop’s page.

Still, here we are four days after the ClickCeop announcement and a quick Google news search reveals that the story was covered by over 700 online news sources. That’s pretty impressive coverage for Facebook considering it didn’t create the app and that an app that doesn’t really stand a chance of succeeding in its mission. It’s also great news for Facebook which the day after the ClickCeop announcement went public with yet another legal dispute over its own IP.

In addition, it is also a fantastic example of social media turning to traditional media in order to promote its wares!

 

Sean Jackson, Account Director

Since I first added my thoughts to PR Week’s debate about the ideas around online privacy mooted by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, it’s been something that been on my mind. Mainly, how can we as communications experts balance support for, and exploration of, new social communications tools, and a belief in data security and personal privacy?

This article in the Guardian is the latest in a long line of online comment on this subject. Personally, I’ve found myself agreeing with many of the things said by Jennifer Leggio, Christopher Breen and others.

A big part of human nature is the ability to share and to contribute to common causes. We have also, with the establishment of capitalist democracies, supported the rights of businesses to exploit information in the pursuit of sales and profits. It’s nothing new that companies sell the benefits of their technologies at the same time as downplaying the perceived risks; with the speed at which the online landscape is changing, few people have the time or the inclination to stop and really think about all the implications that putting so much data online for anyone to discover. What we really want to do is be the first in our peer group to sign up to new services, and show off the latest apps; no time to question just what they plan for the information given in return.

The fact that it’s newsworthy means that more people than before are thinking about the privacy consideration. Research shows that many people, especially teens, don’t understand the implications of putting a lot of very personal data online. Personally, I believe that the privacy of data will become a major issue over the next few years, as it cuts across not just existing laws of civil liberty and data protection, but also affects copyright, libel, IP and more. Government policies are not yet defined, leaving it to business leaders like Zuckerberg to take the initiative. Of course, a cynic would argue that he doesn’t speak for the people but for his shareholders.

Although not directly linked, the repercussions from the News of the World phone tapping scandal and Google’s revelation that it accidentally recorded personal data from WiFi networks will do more to shift the privacy needle than hundreds of millions of people sharing intimate information online. It will be interesting to see whether government and business can agree ways to protect privacy whilst preserving the kinds of meta data that services like Facebook, Gowalla and Twitter are defined by. Watch this space.

John Ozimek 

The thing that's on my mind this week is salaries in the PR profession.  Attracting and retaining the best PR and marketing talent is what we all strive for in the agency environment.  I'm sure most agencies worth their salt have developed and introduced mature processes - regular performance reviews, mentoring and personal development, training modules etc.  Quite right too if they want to be regarded as good employers.
 
I'll admit to being a bit too much carrot and not enough stick as I have a generous nature and perhaps want to be seen to be doing the right things.  Ultimately though, it has to come down to how motivated individuals are to carve out a career in PR.  In the industry, we all know it's not a nine to five job, it's not a career you can do half-heartedly.  It's a full-on commitment and a career that demands passion and hard work.  But oh, look what you get in return.  Job satisfaction has to be high on the list of PR professionals.  No two days are the same and it's a career where you can definitely reap what you sow if you have the aptitude.  It's a career where you can really make a difference.
 
We publish our salary bands which are reviewed against Median's annual salary survey and are transparent with what is on offer and how PR professionals can progress through the agency.  We also offer benefits which are on a par with agencies much larger than Mi liberty because some things are easy to grant to loyal staff and we want to retain the best talent to take the agency to the next level. 
 
So, in summary - it's not really just about the salary, it's about the package and how it is communicated.  There will always be staff turnover, it's the nature of business life, but on the whole it's like a communications plan.  If you get the mix right, the plan will deliver.

How do you get attention in a multi-channel world where potential customers synthesise opinions from multiple narratives about the client?

As a PR professional you have to decide what is the best approach to this multichannel world for each client on a spectrum from frenetic bursts of fame to slow-burners.  You also have to closely observe what other narratives are forming around the client and attempt to shape them.  And that's shape, not resist.  Resistance is futile because it looks like denial and merely fuels contrary opinions.  Shaping narratives requires subtle skill.  Journalists clearly have a role in this shaping as influencers and this is the basis of media relations, but the other truism is that PR is required to build relationships with influencers, just as it has always been.  Certainly, companies can speak directly to their customers, or to journalists, but do they have the patience to build relationships and the skill to shape narratives?
 
Yes, PR's can do their job entirely electronically, but electronic communications are easy to ignore.  They are mostly textual and don't really convey the rich mix of communication that face to face or even verbal contact brings.  You can build a more powerfull relationship face to face than in 140 characters.  It's also easier for a journalist (or other influencer) to say no to an anonymous text or email or to decline a self-serving Facebook request.
 
So if you wonder how to get the most from the brave new world of social media, we've built a programme around Socialnomics.  It fits in with the traditional mix of communication channels so that it works where it is relevant.  Amazingly, we've got a book in hard format that explains more about this, but we've also got a video you can watch to get you thinking.
 
In a world suffering from attention-deficit disorder, relationships focus the attention, so don't assume that because it's electronic, the PR's job is redundant.  It's just as relevant, if not more so!

http://www.miliberty.com/SocialNomics/ best watched with volume turned up!

As I watch the plethora of technology PR agencies fight it out for a USP, is it too much to suggest that it's not in the tactical elements that they'll find it?  Of course not, that makes perfect sense as surely thought leadership is much higher up the food chain at a strategic level where it meets the business objectives of a clients' organisation.  Beyond that, it's the link between PR, Marketing and Industry Relations where this thinking will be successful and with it, the definition of communication campaigns that truly make the difference.  For vendors seeking support with promotion to IT Service Providers, take some tips from industry analyst firm, Gartner.  They've identified Thought Leadership Marketing as a powerful marketing asset and you can find out more in their report: "Marketing Essentials: How to Use Thought Leadership Marketing for IT Services Providers." The report is available on the Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1269713.

It's not new, but it's good to hear that it's found a marketing category - perhaps marketing and PR agencies will have found something to better their thinking behind the campaigns they recommend.

There's a lot of chatter about social media changing the landscape of the way we communicate in campaigns.  Certainly, the rules have changed.  So why is it that many companies still rely so heavily on the traditional press release mechanism to get their messages out to the media and other audiences they seek to influence?  For my money, traditional techniques will continue to apply and work alongside the "new" new media tools and will work together for the strongest effect.  What really bugs me is that I see less and less creativity in communicating, especially in business to business PR.  Press releases have changed and become social media releases which means that clever PR's can package up valuable assets to accompany the written news release and the recipients of such can select and use the relevant content according to individual requirements. So, old can become new with a little creativity and digital thinking.
 
I would think that by now, all of the communities who need to be informed and educated are more than a bit fed-up with the blandness of the material they receive.  Has anyone seriously considered how much of this stuff they get every day?  It's a very old story, but it hasn't changed in my view and it needs to.  If communicators began with creative thinking just imagine how much more interesting life would be for everyone, not just the sender and the recipient of information.

http://inconvenientprtruth.com/research/

Dee Gibbs