•Bridge gap with bloggers, expert urges corporate affairs managers
Communication experts across the globe are finding it very difficult to control messages, making the task of corporations’ communication managers herculean.
Hardly can one find an organisation that is fully in charge of what it is reported about the business and the personalities behind it.
While the benefits of social media are many – opening a two-way dialogue with consumers, influencing word-of-mouth, building rich stores of data – the challenges for brands cannot be ignored.
In particular, brands must consider how to tell a coherent story across a growing array of platforms.
It is one thing to keep a brand consistent across television, print, and online; it is quite another to manage a brand across Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Twitter, blog, and whatever new platform emerges next month or next year.
Add the noisy chorus of consumer and competitor voices and it feels like the brand idea is stretched to its limit.
Bloggers in Nigeria are making every working day a nightmare for communication managers, particularly the corporate affairs managers of banks.
A media expert, Seun Oloketuyi, set up a forum called “What Does A Blogger Want From A Bank, And What Does A Bank Want From A Blogger?” in Lagos to try find a solution.
The key paper was delivered by former Skye Bank Corporate Affairs Manager, now Inline Image Chief Executive Officer, Kayode Akinyemi.
Internet relevance to PR
Research shows that the use of the World Wide Web by communication professionals has increased in the last few years, improving productivity and efficiency, two-way communication, research, and issues communication, thereby enhancing management role enactment and decision-making power.
Most scholars and practitioners agree that the internet provides enormous opportunities for public relations (PR) professionals in terms of issues management, relationship management, environmental scanning, story placement, and other key professional communication functions.
A PR measurement expert, Katie Paine, warned that companies which do not take social media seriously will soon go out of business.
Blogging menace
Blog pages have gained popularity since the early 1990s. It is believed there were 100 million in 2007.
A Caretaker Manager in FC Energie Cottbus, Heiko Weber, said more than 100,000 new blogs are created every day.
Research shows that 1.3 million posts are added to existing blogs every day, which shows the importance of the platform.
The most popular blogs have a readership that rivals small media outlets, and Johnson and Kaye’s survey of readers found blogs to be a credible source of information.
Almost everyone who desires to start something in Nigeria begins with a blogspot. It is difficult to differentiate between a blogger and a professional journalist; as even journalists, despite the fact that they keep paid jobs, also have blogs.
But some corporate affairs managers of banks complain that the platform has been turned into a tool of blackmail to force banks to part with advertisement or cash.
“Bloggers are not professionals. Most times the enquiry they make are out of place and you can’t connect it with any issue,” said United Bank for Africa (UBA) Media Manager, Ramon Nasir.
Another corporate affairs manager of a bank added: “Everybody believes a blogsite is a cash cow and this is because Linda Ikeji has made so much money from it.”
Unlike conventional media, bloggers do not operate under any rules and ethics. They hit the web with anything as long as it suits them. This does not go down well with communication professionals, whose duty is to control messaging and communication.
Way forward
Akinyemi stressed the need for partnership between the corporate communication arms of banks and bloggers, noting that financial institutions have not effectively used online communication to enhance brands and create marketing stunts.
He made the point at a forum for financial institutions and bloggers in Lagos, where he argued that the significance of new media in communication mix makes it imperative for corporate affairs managers of banks to accommodate it.
According to him, blogs have tremendous potential for online communication, reputation management, and for reaching diverse publics, thereby providing a unique and personal way for banks to communicate with customers.
By talking to people in a conversational manner, he added, a blog puts a human face on a bank, which is difficult to duplicate in any other way.
His words: “Blogs are 63 per cent more likely to influence patronage decisions than magazines because they offer bank customers the insight and the access.
“So far, Nigeria’s financial institutions have not effectively and actively utilised blogs and bloggers to build their brands and create viral marketing stunts for new and existing products.
“The marketing communication strategies of most banks do not factor in blogging as a critical component of online strategy.”
Akinyemi noted that over-reliance on traditional communication approaches, such as advert and other conventional PR activities as well as below the-line-campaigns, have not allowed banks to fully explore the potential of blogging and added values it may bring to their brands.
On the other hand, he charged bloggers to convince banks of the value that could be created through blogging.
He also urged bloggers to deepen their understanding of banks’ marketing goals and articulate clearly how blogging would impact on such goals and communication strategies.
“So far, banks-bloggers relationship is less than mutual and far from robust, relative to other traditional media platforms. There is need for a closer and deeper relationship between banks and bloggers, driven by mutual benefits.”
