Jonathan Kopp is the global director at the Omnicom-controlled Ketchum Digital, the interactive arm of public relations firm Ketchum. The latter has a majority stake in local agency Sampark. Kopp, who has worked on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008/09, was in Mumbai recently to launch the digital operations at Ketchum Sampark. He spoke to Viveat Susan Pinto on how PR firms can leverage the power of social media. Edited Excerpts.
How are you using social media in public relations?
You can call it the new PR, where it is not about the number of column inches in a newspaper, but about the level of engagement and the depth of engagement with users. Clients are turning to public relations firms working in the social media space to create what I call conversation calendars. Here it is not about the storylines you drive, but about the posts and status updates that you put up, which can create conversations.
But how effective is it in a country where print is still the dominant medium?
I do realise that print is very strong here unlike in the west. So yes, the traditional way of doing PR won’t go, but I do think we can add a new dimension to the exercise by using visual and textual content to prompt a response from the audience we seek to move. And what’s best about social media is that it is not restricted to a group of people. The bunch we influence land up influencing their group of friends and the cycle continues. Isn’t the business of PR all about this?
Can you give me examples of the work you are doing in the social media space?
We have created animated videos, for instance, for IBM's Smarter Planet initiative. This initiative is about how technology can help improve sustainability, and hence protect the planet. Now short-form videos aren't going to tell the whole story, but it is a nice entry point. We have posted these videos on IBM properties as well as Youtube, where it can be downloaded, embedded in blogs, shared etc. All of this helps starts conversations. Another example is the Fedex Citizenship Blog, where we speak about how less fuel and less packaging material can be used to lessen the burden of shipping. This is one among myriad topics on sustainable living. So the message will differ with each client. But the social web is a great place to start.
While social media can be a great place for corporate social responsibility, how are you using it for more mainline activities such as financial or corporate PR?
One of the things we are doing at Ketchum Digital is to create multi-media releases. Here we are not limiting ourselves to black type on white paper, but sharing content in rich colour, high-definition broadcast quality, which is put together as a digital press kit, posted as a microsite and shared with a journalist, blogger and whoever else is interested in the subject. In my view, it is fine to write a press release. But if you stop there, you are missing an opportunity.
How many agencies are doing this?
There are many agencies that are trying, but we have managed to get the mechanics right. In the US alone in the last one year, we have done over 100 multi-media releases. And now increasingly Ketchum Sampark will do it by virtue of being part of the Ketchum Digital Network. We are also creating digital newsrooms, where the space will not be static, uploaded with press releases. This is an area where you can engage in conversations by connecting to social media. That is another change we are bringing about.
How many people are part of Ketchum’s digital network?
Ketchum Digital has 180 digital specialists who belong to different offices of the Ketchum network. We bring global perspectives, expertise and case studies to offer a holistic digital product. While we had a more casual involvement from our Indian colleagues, we are now fully and formally including them in the network.