Tools and tactics - audience receptivity to social media

Tools & Tactics: AudiencesReceptivity to New and Social Media ECF Conference - Academic Stream By Paul Shotton PhD

Supply and Demand Decision-maker

?WHAT INFORMATION?

Preferences for Type of Info European Council of Ministers European Commission Parliament In what order?European Info National Info Expert Info

Other Types of Information?European National Expert Degree of Public Feeling?

At Other Levels?Global EuropeanNational Sub-national

?WHAT TOOLS?

Traditional, New & Social Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0 Traditional New Social ?Pre-web media: Web media: Web media: Web media:• Paper • Read-only • User Generated • Computer• Face to face • Email Content Generated• Physical protest • Electronic • Social media Content• Etc. documents (PDF) • Blogging • Semantic web • Etc. • Wikis • Etc. • Etc. Pre-web 1990s 2000s ?

?WHAT TOOL FOR WHAT AUDIENCE?

What Tool for What Audience?Supporter Decision-makers Not very RelevantThe Public Businesses

What Tool for What Audience? Should we segregate Strategies Outside Inside or or Voice Access

Direct and Indirect InfluenceSupporter Decision-makers Interest GroupThe Public Businesses

Problem1. To what extent does the audience targeted by the communication action determines the choice of tools and tactics deployed?2. What role do the communication tools derived from web 2.0 play within the overall toolbox of communications tools and tactics deployed by interest representatives?

Hypotheses1. New and social media do not represent a major paradigm shift in interest group strategy, but more an incremental development whereby existing methods are being reinvented with the use of new tools.2. Interest groups making use of the most appropriate mix of tools and tactics for different audiences will be those that have the greatest influence over the policy-making process.3. Social media is most relevant as a means of mobilising non-policy-making audiences in order to both legitimise the interest representative’s position and arguments, to mobilise external pressures on policy-makers and generate resources enabling the interest representative to function.

Methodology• Online Survey • Problems: www.SurveyMonkey.co – Small sample m – Representivity of sample• 65 responses – Data spread over several years• 17 closed and 5 open questions – 1-6 profile – 7-10 classification – 11-17 tools – 18-23 elaborations

Key results – without rankingN&SM adoption rates are high!

Key results – Primary tool N&SMimportance ismore modest.

Disagreement for decision makers Diverging opinions over N&SM

High importance for public and supporters

Findings• Interest groups are not uniformly adopting new and social media in their communication strategies.• New media has become established alongside traditional communication tools.• Social media use focuses on the public and supporters, while use with decision-makers is more prevalent at national level.• Onliner vs. Offliner generations are determinant to N&SM effectiveness. Decision-makers largely seen as Offliners.

Findings• The data outlines an ideal mix and audience allocation of tools according to each audience• Social media adoption is high• Opinions diverge: N&SM = cost saving or cost barrier

Hypotheses Confirmed1. New and social media do not represent a major paradigm shift in interest group strategy, but more an incremental development whereby existing methods are being reinvented with the use of new tools.2. Interest groups making use of the most appropriate mix of tools and tactics for different audiences will be those that have the greatest influence over the policy-making process.3. Social media is most relevant as a means of mobilising non-policy-making audiences in order to both legitimise the interest representative’s position and arguments, to mobilise external pressures on policy-makers and generate resources enabling the interest representative to function.

Next steps• Further analysis of data• Further surveys – Interest groups – Audiences• Tackle problems of multicultural, multinational and multilingual samples

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Tools and tactics - audience receptivity to social media

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