"Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy"

Friedman further states,

"We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin —just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy"

The truth is, IT'S NOT THAT EASY!




In the blog post, Web 2.0 in Public Diplomacy - a strategic mismatch, in The Public Diplomacy Blog in 2009, it was argued that,

"...if we look at developed economies like US or Europe, internet penetration and usage are high. So, for lesser countries with the capability and knowhow ... it will be a lot easier to influence Europeans or Americans in a focused way with mass out reach. 

In a way, the strategic advantage actually lie with these countries rather than the developed West when it come to Web 2.0 Public Diplomacy.

Being on the wrong side of the digital divide may be beneficial for these states.

To illustrate further, we all know about Iran "twittering away" few months ago... but these twitterers are very minuscule and do not form the huge popular support base for conservative Ahmedinejad. (Read my blog post "Public Diplomacy & Social Media" in June, 2009.)

For Iran, it is easier to reach and attempt to influence an American audience rather than for US to reach Iranians via Web 2.0. Naturally, the tactics have to be different and a realistic assessment of Web 2.0 potential has to be made for each country."

... and we all know by now that this is exactly what Russians did to the Americans isn't it?  So, it may not be as easy for Americans to undermine Putin's autocracy simply because of the nature of media consumption in Russia. But the Americans did well with their ant-Soviet propaganda during the Cold War, so we would have to wait and see!

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“Facebook is by far the largest social networking site among U.S. adults, and with half of its users getting news there, is also the largest among U.S. adults when it comes to getting news. As discussed in an earlier report, roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use the site, and half of those users get news there—amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 51% of U.S. adults. Thus, even though only a fifth of its users get news there, that amounts to 10% of the adult population, which puts it on par with Twitter.”

“YouTube, LinkedIn and Google Plus news consumers are more likely than Facebook and Twitter news consumers to watch cable news. Twitter news consumers are among the least likely to turn to local and cable TV.”

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Much has been written about the US State Department spending USD 630,000 to "buy millions of Facebook 'likes' on it's Facebook page. A story by AFP in the Indian newspaper Mint reported the following,

"A scathing report by the department’s independent watchdog took the coordinators of its social media outreach policy to task saying it needed to “direct its digital advertising to specific public diplomacy goals ...

The report by the Office of the inspector general found that two advertising campaigns launched in 2011 and 2012 cost some $630,000 with the “goal of building global outreach platforms for engagement with foreign audiences by increasing the number of fans... on four thematic Facebook properties.”

Many in the bureau criticize the advertising campaigns as ‘buying fans’ who may have once clicked on a post or ‘liked’ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further.."

While the idea of directing tax dollars to buy Facebook 'likes' may seem atrocious to many but the criticism is not fair. While the amount spent may be debated, but the buying of 'likes' reflects the State Department's astute marketing sense and aggressive style - which is good. It also shows an understanding of the concept of 'social proofing' that matters in digital marketing,

"an attempt to guide user behavior by showcasing social influence. Facebook ‘Like’ is the most common example"

A higher ratio of Facebook Likes implies higher influence, popularity and more often than not influences others to explore. People are more likely to engage with a page that has already received large perceptible acceptance. 

While some may feel that the ideal scenario is to build the fan page organically; it is time, effort and resource intensive and promoting the page can take much longer. Also, keep in mind that it is dependent on posting meaningful content ... and achieving the level of streamlined collaboration that is required to source content within a bureaucracy, and the vastness of the State Department, would have made organic growth difficult.  Nonetheless, by making its page dynamic and reaching out to a larger group, specific public diplomacy goals would have been realized by more engagement. 

Similar to 'Likes' on Facebook,  Twitter following is another example of social proofing. See the following infographic from social selling university on the practice of buying Twitter followers. Do I see Obama?




Suggestions/Critiques welcome.

-- Madhur

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“The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” ― Alvin Toffler  in Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century

       ‘Hyperconnectivity’ is one such trend and is going to define the future. What it essentially refers to is a paradigm shift from ‘going online’ to ‘being online’ – a coming of age of the internet; the reality of a parallel virtual universe.

1. Complex media environment: We need to be agile and alert. It is increasingly becoming a complex media environment. We need to be adept at communicating ‘in’ and also ‘across’ different platforms being aware that the message will be consumed differently and conveyed further increasingly differently.  It’s complex where there are numerous apps, different screens, different devices, different formats and add to it the customized narratives for each. While we talk content, it’s interesting to realize that the monopoly over content by prominent individuals and conglomerates have been completely broken. A good story can be told by anyone, anywhere with great impact. Managing narratives have become difficult and this brings me to my second point of  target audiences.
2. Demanding  Audiences: Our audiences demand more, and along with the story we need to deliver an ‘experience’. Interactivity is important, so is the format and experience of consumption, and we have to take care of all, knowing fully well that a story that isn’t credible won’t last long.
3. Audience Fragmentation: Audiences have access to multiple sources of information. Loyalties switch across platforms depending upon the format and experience across platforms and there can be 'multiple loyalties'. Multiplicity of platforms actually means audiences are getting divided into smaller groups and the same group of people might exhibit different behaviors across different platforms. This brings me to my third point.
4. Measurement Difficulties: How do you make sense of all this? I am not too sure of accuracy levels of current data analytics and to what extent are they effective when it comes to some sort of predictive modeling simply because of the overwhelming number of variables that are coming into play. Will be glad if any reader can enlighten here…
5. Monetization difficulties: How do you monetize what you create? How do you protect what you create from being duplicated? While we talk of content marketing and content being king, content actually seems to have become real cheap thanks to over supply! You should read this interesting piece (if you haven't read it already) in The New York Times, that talks of the Slow Death of the American Author.

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Some useful resources:

• How to Write a Great Twitter Post

• How To Write The Perfect Tweet

• Tweets that click

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Wall of Fame at Statesman House, New Delhi

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1. The Metropolitan India
2. Rur-ban India
3. Deep Rural India (the group that loves their mobile phones the most.)

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Classification of blogs in India by www.indiblogger.in

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