Written by Thilde Vesterby
Some time ago a comment on a blog post about Mindjumpers new employee (me) challenged me to account for my use of the word ‘people’ referring to the users of Social Media. It’s a topic I’ve been thinking about for quite some time, and Lasse’s questions about what I meant in regards to stakeholders when I said that I believed that new online platforms held great potential for companies to have intelligent conversations with people and learn from them instead of just mass communicating one way messages, made me write some of these thoughts down. Bear in mind – this is still a thought process in…process, so it’s not set in stone. Yet ☺
In a nutshell, I wonder whether or the shift in power between consumer and organisation has occurred to such an extent that the key stakeholders are no longer those who have direct links to an organisation. The shift is obviously one in communication, and its social media that are the root of this shift. They represent ongoing conversations between one and the world; interactive, democratic, allowing anybody to say anything to anyone. The doors for conversation have been thrown open. The whole shape of influence has changed, going from an essentially one-to-one, to multi-dimensional.
This multitude of sources is made up of thousands upon thousands of strangers, yet the information swapped is trusted. In other words, people can be so convinced of the value of peer networks that they will trust the advice of a total stranger – not to mention a good friend – over that of a professional marketer. Yet while this might spell the end of control for organisations, it opens up the doors to participation, interaction and listening. And these capabilities mean getting in touch directly with the consumer, talking to them, answering questions; being transparent. There is an excellent quote I’d like to use here, by Timothy Coombs (although he also claimed that social media wouldn’t revolutionise crisis communications – but that’s another story);
“In the future, rather than being focused on effectively communicating to the public, PR professionals will become increasingly involved in communicating with the public.”
This to me pretty much hits the nail on the head. Gone is ‘communicating to’, and here is ‘communicating with’.
The whole theory of ‘stakeholders’, or the stakeholder view of the organisation, seems to be becoming a little redundant because of this, and the changing shape of influence. Who isn’t a stakeholder today? Harder still is to pinpoint the key stakeholders. Is it the customer without whom there would be no profit? Or is it the friend of the woman who received terrible service who just happens to be an influential blogger? There no longer has to be a direct link between the ‘person’ and the organisation for them to be a stakeholder. It’s almost the dormant, unidentified stakeholder that has to be taken in to consideration, rather than the identified.
Clearly this is something that I’m still thinking about ☺ but I hope it explains my use of ‘people’ over ‘stakeholders’. I’m just not sure that the term can be used in the same sense as it was 5 or so years ago… As for the purpose, it’s to present to people the transparency that is so demanded today. It allows people to connect, question and engage the organisation, and allows the organisation to engage, learn and adapt.
I didn’t mean to imply that I thought new media was necessarily ‘better’, just that it holds previously untapped potential in terms of communication. I agree that you have to have a basic ‘message’ to put out, rather than just randomly throwing out information out there – that could well do more harm than good. But the key benefit I think is that essentially – it’s the potential of being in touch. It’s including all ‘stakeholders’, all of the time.
I’d like to point out that I have paraphrased some quotes from writers such as Timothy Coombs, and Paul Gillin. I’ll be happy to provide references if anyone should ask ☺
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