Communication Managers across the world have been urged to take Social Media seriously as this will help monitor their reputation. This was stated at the 2017 World Communications Forum (WCF), by an International Communicator, Speaker and Development Expert, Mr Micheal Bociurkiw. According to him, reputation is key. His words; “CEOs of companies, who refuse to spend on social media/social media strategy/crisis communications, do so at their own peril. Monitoring is required 24/7. You or your company’s reputation is everything because it takes years to build a trusted brand but minutes/seconds to bring it down. Don’t allow a gap in communications to allow others to do the speaking for you”.
The challenge of fake news was also put on the communications front burner. He reiterated that in the current communications environment clients expect their consultants to be decision-makers. However, Social media now requires quick decisions in the middle of the night, thus encouraging Communications practitioners and Chief Executive Officers to embrace Social Media as much as they can. According to him, “Information is fast food, because today people consume 87% more information than 30 years ago. In the past 4 months the communications environment has changed completely, now communications wags the tail of diplomacy.”
He admitted that Fake news is a danger to democracy and could easily become hate speech, and that large new media companies such as FaceBook have been slow to introduce policies/tools to combat. He highlighted this as one of the challenges of the Social media, inspite of its numerous advantages, and hopes there will be a solution to this, as he upholds the use of Social Media in the 21st century.
He advised Communications Practitioners to have a strong working relationships with producers/journalists as this will help get out negative stories from the media in event of any crisis. “Mainstream media plays a crucial role in transmitting impactful stories from a crisis and giving it context A strong working relationships with producers/journalists one of the key elements of getting a story out”.
At the 2017 World Communication Forum, not less than 19 awards reached their winners from all around the world at the 2017 World Communications Forum (WCF). Held on March 14th, at Beau Rivage Hotel, in Geneva, Switzerland, the award recognized highly professional and globally remarkable individual communicators and organizations with a creative approach and unique vision of the future of the communications industry worldwide.
