The News of the World journalists – however many there were – who were allegedly responsible for phone hacking and making payments to police were working to the most important rule in any communications campaign: content matters.
Nobody could defend the legal and moral implications of their actions (apart from maybe journalist Paul McMullen as seen on Newsnight arguing with Steve Coogan), but what the NOTW did ultimately came down to finding stories for which people were prepared to pay to read.
And so, whether you are selling newspapers in a fiercely competitive market or fighting to get your message over to your employees or customers, if you are going to say something, you have to make sure it’s worth listening to (or reading).
The medium you choose to express your message can be enormously helpful, but the danger is in thinking that it is all-important. Businesses think they need a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and, no doubt now, a Google+ presence and these are all great tools for building awareness – but only if you make sure you put in the resources to update them with something meaningful.
The same is true in our personal lives. Facebook and Twitter updates often feature the minutiae of people’s lives – a running commentary that a ‘friend’ probably wouldn’t have bored you with had they actually seen you in person. But in the virtual world our Sunday afternoon efforts of strimming the hedge make breaking news on our profiles. Too much of the mundane though can force your followers to ‘hide’ your updates – or even worse – disconnect you.
As well as the humour and social exchange, Facebook becomes an essential read when a contact breaks a personal story with life-changing consequences.
When a long-distant friend recently used Facebook to keep everyone updated on his wife’s cancer treatment, it was a much-needed communication tool. There were too many friends to keep informed in person but we were all concerned so Facebook was the perfect way for him to let us know about her progress and for friends to be able to share best wishes.
He had something important that he wanted to tell his friends, and we all wanted to hear what he had to say (and we wanted to respond): message, audience, medium.
(She’s making great progress, by the way.)
Of course, content isn’t the only thing that matters. Choosing the most appropriate medium for what you want to say is also important, as is how you gather the content in the first place.
As News International discovered...
