Teh webs is serious business (for communication)

Pellacor has descended into what I described to someone recently as Sam’s personal playpen on the internet; but as outlets for creative activities and self-absorbed drivel go, I think it serves its purpose well. I am yet to hammer the voice into a cohesive and congruent whole but it is still early days and, to be honest, I already rely on this blog as an intellectual and creative stop gap buffering me from writing bad poetry and listening to power pop songs.

Occasionally, however, I stumble upon an interesting idea, one that is both insightful and potentially useful. I have mentioned meme theory before, and in this post will use it to explore the throw away comment in the last post likening modern communication to r-selection strategy using a metaphor for evolutionary reproductive strategy in biology to tease out some principles for successful communication in the world of the internet.

WTF is “communication” in this context?

Communication here is corporate communication, or communication designed to affect a business result and a business results can be any number of things relating to what an organisation does. Examples include:

• Getting people to buy more widgets,
• Convincing people it wasn’t the widget manufacturer’s fault some widgets have exploded and killed people
• Getting a political party elected by leveraging off the rampant anti-widget sentiment sweeping the nation following the recent spate of widget related deaths

This kind of communication is actually quite complicated and the amount of money spent in this area is probably going to frighten people who are unfamiliar with marcomm’s (Marketing and Communication) budgets. But the process of achieving strategic communication outcomes is well known and basically involves the following steps:

• Identify the business result
  Let’s use the example from above and pretend we are embarking on a crisis management exercise for the Widget Manufacturing Co following a spate of widget explosions which have led to numerous deaths. The business result would be to support the continual sale of said widgets into the local market.
• Identify the target audience(s)
  These are the people who you need to get your message across to: here the audience will be potential purchasers of widgets and also probably regulators who want to ban widgets based on their poor safety record.
• Define the target audiences’ current state
  This is what the target audience thinks now which is preventing the business result and in this example the current state is something like: Widgets are faulty and are likely to explode and kill people when used.
• Define the target audiences’ desired state
  This is what the target audience needs to think to achieve your business result. In our example the desired state is: Widgets are safe to use and perfectly harmless when used correctly/the recent spate of widget related deaths are just a coincidence or a result of operator error.
• Simple equation to uncover key messages
  The key message can is obtained by mentally subtracting the target audience’s current state from their desired state i.e.
  Widgets are safe to use and perfectly harmless/widgets are not to blame for recent widget related deaths
  MINUS
  Widgets are faulty and are likely to explode and kill people when used.
  EQUALS

  • Evidence of a long history of widget safety
  • Information relating to the quality control in the widget making factory
  • Evidence to tarnish the reputation of previous victims to support a theory they used the widgets improperly and are therefore responsible for their own demise

The three messages obtained from the target audience analysis are commonly known as key messages and, insofar as this post is concerned, can also be thought of as memes (I’ll come back to this later).

r-selection and k-selection again

If you really wan to find out a bit more about r-selection and k-selection for reproduction and evolutionary success I suggest you read the wiki article on it, however, basically r-selection and k-selection roll like this.

• k-selection - think koala bear breeding strategy
  k-selection involves having few off spring, but investing in them heavily to train them up with the skills they need to cope with a competitive environment. This is a strategy to use when you are reproducing into a stable environments and competition for resources is tight.
• r- selection - think fish or frog breeding strategy
  r-selection involves having a lot of offspring, not investing in them at all and letting your babies find their own way in the world. This strategy works best when faced with not very much competition, or when you are reproducing into a dynamic environment.

If meme theory is correct, and I think it is, cultural information (the information that codes for humans which isn’t contained in our DNA) evolves through the same process (natural selection) as genetic information (the information that builds your bodies) does.

Sorry guys, I know it is getting a bit tricky here, but bare with me

The process that shaped the development of a coffee mug is the same process that shaped the development of the human hand. This suggests strategies that apply to biological evolution will also apply to cultural evolution.

r-selection and k-selection as a metaphor for communication

The internet has totally and utterly revolutionised the marketing and communications business and what was previously a fairly stable environment with tried and tested methods has been replaced by a seething mass of new connections, communication methods and mechanics, all evolving very quickly.

The way communication use to be (k-selection communications)

The Widget Manufacturing Co have finished the thinking behind their communication drive and have identified their target audience, the current and desired state and have explicit messages. The next step would be to look at media their target audience consumes, and then craft a press release or advertising copy which contains the messages.

A crisis management strategy such as the fallout from widget related deaths is more than likely going to involve a press release and paid placement (advertising copy) the Widget Manufacturing Co CEO and Marketing Director will brief relevant agencies, the agency team would draft a statement and/or advertising copy, and these will be bounced back and forward between the agency and the company.

Finally the press release and advertising copy will be agreed and forwarded to the media.

Hopefully you can begin to see how old media communications is like k-selection: a low number of offspring (a single press release or ad copy) with a large amount of investment; something like 10-15 people would have had input in this press release of only 500 words.

This strategy worked really well when everyone use to sit down at 6pm and Judie Bailey would tell the country how it was, but the internet has changed all of this, people now get information from a thousand different sources that constantly change and if you want to communicate in this new environment betting the farm on a single press release and ad placement, down a single channel is no longer the best strategy.

How it is today (r-selection communications)

The Widget Manufacturing Co completes the same process to identify target audience, current and desired state and have the messages. Like the biological reproductive strategy to tackle dynamic environments r-strategy communications is about getting those messages down every single channel available; facebook, myspace, blogs, twitter, forums, plurk, IRC, AIM, flickr, youtube anything and everything you can get your hands on.

r-selection communication s is getting away from two hours worth of arguing about whether to use 12 point verdana or 11 point arial in the press release; whether to give the story to your old drinking buddy who still works for the Dominion Post, or worry about whether tv3 will send a crew. R-selection communications is a focus on getting the message out to people, visit relevant blogs, get involved in forums; make a YouTube video etc.

Conclusion time

The key to thinking about communication as a mechanism for meme replication is that memes can only replicate in peoples minds. By itself a press release, media article or advertising insertion is worthless; it is the audience (the people who consume the media) that matter.

Professional communicators need to stop focusing on the media and focus on the individuals involved. The social media mindset is recognising the most important parts of the communication equation in the early stages of the 21st century are people.

If you wanted a handy hint for a good first step to engaging people, not just media, with your marcomms messages, I suggest starting with your internal communication. Learn the technology internally and fly from there.