Edelman and Hill & Knowlton PR Agency Vet Gary Goldhammer on Digital PR Strategy

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Aligning PR agency strategy with boardroom objectives, unique risks around promoting public companies, and engaging in controversial conversations with Gary Goldhammer, vice president at Digital PR firm Edelman Digital, at the Public Relations Society of America International Conference in San Diego.   

Gary has been blogging for five years about the convergence of journalism, reputation, and digital marketing at Below the Fold.  

00:55 – Aligning digital marketing strategy with communications strategy by researching public opinions and creating a promotional strategy based on existing perceptions.  

01:45 – What objectives cannot and should not be attempted via digital reputation management?  What cannot be achieved?  

02:30 – What are the risks public companies should be aware of when they launch a digital communication strategy, and what sort of guardrails should be in place before brands launch a product marketing campaign?  

02:47 – Adverse event reporting and what pharmaceutical companies are required by the Food and Drug Administration to do if someone leaves a comment about an adverse reaction to one of their drugs on the manufacturer’s Facebook page.  

03:25 – The duty to report the adverse effects of drug therapy extends beyond those pharmaceutical companies that maintain a social media presence.  It may still be liable if a company listens and engages in any other social media channel.  

03:50 – Recent SEC Guidance on the Use of Company Websites to Satisfy Regulation Fair Disclosure and the notion that nonselective disclosure for public companies using social media translates into nonselective engagement.  

05:41 – How a social media footprint impacts a public company’s duty to update, and whether or not hosting a corporate website on a third-party service is any safer than hosting the blog at your own domain.  

07:11 – The duty to update as a strategic communications imperative rather than a legal factor, and the idea of looking at social media engagement as an ongoing conversation rather than a one-time campaign.  

08:03 – How to decide what social media channels suit your organization based on where an organization’s most desirable community members interact online and building strategies around inputs instead of outputs.   

09:58 – The risks of segmenting communications by social media channel, saying one thing on Twitter and something else on Facebook, and treating social media as a broadcast versus an engagement channel.  

12:05 – Does dealing with controversy about a company exclusively on their Facebook page instead of at your corporate domain protect the organization from tipping off those disengaged from social media about the controversy?  

13:57 — The web has not always been social, but has all media become social?  Discussing the Motrin Moms case study as an example of media that wasn’t intended to be social and how it provoked an adverse reaction via social media.  

15:01 – Why using social media as a mass media channel is ineffective and testing pilot projects internally to establish a comfort level inside the organizations before launching initiatives in these channels externally.  

18:29 – The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer rankings, which listed financial analysts and business magazines as the most trusted sources of company information, David Carr’s recent article about the state of the business magazine category, and whether or not business magazines will retain that level of trust on the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, which at the time of release of this podcast was not yet available.  David Carr has appeared as a guest on this podcast before,  and his keynote speech at the Digital Impact Conference was also podcast.  

19:07 – The future of conventional journalism and the importance of niche and local news agencies.  

20:59 – End    

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