Public Relations with Tapuwa Nduku-Makurumure
The beauty of living in a world where information is seamlessly shared at the click of a button, across various platforms, within seconds, is equally the tragedy and nightmare of many public relations practitioners and consultants the world over. Information and communications technology (ICT) innovation and ingenuity, has led to many tech savvy people, creating free downloadable apps that, in the name of fun, are used to deceptively edit instant messaging (IM) conversations or create entirely new ones. More intricate apps can be used to edit pictures and videos, and as we know, we all tend to believe what we see.
This presents an even bigger headache, as we try to manage and repair unfairly damaged reputations. It takes a great deal of work and ultimately resources to make a huge public audience “un-believe” what they have seen or heard, or erase what they have read and internalised. Bad news always travels fast and wide, whilst good news or retractions have less (if any) viral traction in public and social fora.
What does this mean for an organisation or even an individual? At any given moment, a malicious tweet/post/video could be shared on any one platform. That doesn’t sound so alarming, one tweet in an ocean of 500 million, right? Wrong, that one tweet could be retweeted, shared on Facebook, Instagram and on WhatsApp groups many times over. From that one tweet or post, news stories are created and shared, citizen journalists write “factual opinion pieces”. Conversations are started, not only on social media but in combi’s, cars, restaurants, bars and homes, where measurement is practically impossible. Furthermore, those conversations may be picked up and shared by popular influencers or news aggregate sites (whether unscrupulous or respected), further fueling its longevity, virality and damage. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to get rid of all the fake videos, pictures and news which have been downloaded and safely housed on individual phones or laptops, to be shared over and over again.
To add to the fake news dilemma, is the issue of leaks. Over the years numerous documents and pictures have been leaked on social media, and especially on WhatsApp. As an aside, WhatsApp continues to be mostly excluded from marketing, media monitoring and social listening strategies, but is the most “viral” platform accessible to those who are not necessarily on internet based social media platforms.
Increasingly, we have been made privy to private and confidential information, such as leaked audios of meetings and even of private telephone conversations; documented minutes, private appointments and dismissal letters, and industry related discussions. The list is endless, and most assuredly, “Zwikileaks” (Zimbabwe’s version of Wikileaks) continues to thrive, pretty much unabated.
However, both fake news and leaks have a negative impact on an organisation and in brief can result in:
*A huge loss of trust and reputation damage.
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*Costly legal wrangles,
*Heavy penalties/fines being levied against the organisation or even in the blacklisting of an organisation.
*A crisis, which may include protests (internal or external), social media movements, and if managed badly will take an organisation back to point Number 1.
*An organisation losing its competitive advantage, especially if the information leaked concerns its future disruptive strategies or patents.
An organisation has an obligation to keep information highly confidential for various compelling reasons. As such, it is evident that organisations should take greater responsibility, from a corporate governance, security and risk management and reputational management stance, to ensure that each employee is made aware of the legal, financial and reputational consequences of leaking confidential information. This could be approached holistically, through the reduction in access to highly confidential information; an increased use of data centric security solutions, as well as the implementation and monitoring of reputation management policies and procedures. Most importantly, it is imperative that organisations have clear code of conduct guidelines and social media policies available for all employees to sign or familiarise themselves with.
How then can an organisation mitigate against fake news and leaks, once shared publicly. PR101 advocates for the use of carefully and honestly written press releases distributed via traditional, digital and social new media, direct e-mails, messages to stakeholders, clients, and the use of online reputation management tools.
*Tapuwa Nduku-Makurumure is the managing consultant for Vivid BCW, a boutique Integrated Communications company, and can be contacted at vivid @ vividbranding.co.zw.
