Social Media and Other Digital Tools in European Public Affairs

May 2014

The use of digital tools — including videos, social media and online petitions — in European public affairs is no longer the exception but the rule for corporations and associations. If your organization wants to raise awareness about policy issues that are key to your strategy, digital communication can help you in ways traditional lobbying simply cannot.

What’s the difference between digital communications and social media? 

When it comes to digital advocacy, it’s important to differentiate between the concepts of digital communications and social media. The former is broader, covering various tools, including monitoring, interactive media releases, online videos and data-driven stakeholder mapping. Social media advocacy is somewhat narrower, since it essentially focuses on communications tools for networking, increasing visibility and engaging policymakers, journalists and members of civil society.

What is your social media objective?

The main objective of using social media for advocacy is to raise your profile. While marketing and advocacy both aim to create a positive image for your organization or cause, advocacy has a very different audience: journalists, government officials, industry peers and NGOs. The goals are also very different: Support or counter a planned piece of legislation, open doors for in-person meetings or gather intelligence on the direction public policy is likely to take.

If you don’t do it, your critics will.

The Public Affairs Council’s 2013 Public Affairs Pulse survey found that the less trust the public has in a specific business sector, the more regulation it wants to see in that sector. In the EU, as a result of the European Parliament’s increasing power and greater public scrutiny of EU institutions’ work, European officials are becoming less technocratic. Though far from unanimous, European public opinion is increasingly shaped by online campaigns, petitions, debating platforms and social media conversations, which eventually affect policymakers as well.

At the same time, the popularity of EU institutions has reached an all-time low. This means that the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU agencies have become more sensitive to public opinion, which sometimes spurs them to set aside a scientifically sound proposal if it risks being overly controversial.

It seems EU officials no longer see themselves as sitting in an ivory tower. The European Commission has invested heavily in setting up social media teams and in monitoring online conversations, and the European Parliament has produced dozens of infographics and explanatory videos to reach out to the public. Its Facebook page recently surpassed 1 million likes, making it one of the most popular public bodies online. The good news for stakeholders is that European institutions are far more eager to listen now than they were even a few years ago, and social media channels are well-suited to facilitate such discussions.

Case Study: AT&T

In February 2014, AT&T’s social media team engaged very positively with European Commission spokesman Ryan Heath and his boss, European Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who heads DG CONNECT, the department shaping Europe’s digital agenda and telecoms regulations.

Interestingly, the exchange did not happen within the context of telecommunications but on a completely unrelated topic: Russia and LGBT rights. When AT&T put out a message condemning Russia’s anti-gay laws, Heath tweeted in agreement with AT&T’s stance. The message was soon retweeted by Kroes to her tens of thousands of followers, further boosting AT&T’s visibility and securing more goodwill from the EU’s chief telecoms regulator.

What is the value of social media in the EU?

Another key challenge is quantifying the value and return on investment of social media efforts. Apart from being a business imperative, demonstrating ROI is also crucial for internal purposes, since staff time is not free — even if most tools and platforms are available at no cost.

Skeptics often argue that the value of a tweet being read and retweeted by a European commissioner is impossible to quantify, thus making it not worth the effort to invest in having a stronger social media presence. This attitude was reinforced by a 2013 Burson-Marsteller study on effective lobbying practices, in which social media was determined to be one of the least effective ways to make “informed decisions.” After all, one cannot reasonably expect policymakers to form their policy positions based on 140-character messages alone.

That’s why “hard metrics” such as view counts, retweets and likes must be part of the equation, along with “soft metrics,” so you can assess the extent to which social media:

• Improves trust in and goodwill toward your company, cause or organization;
• Helps you interact directly with relevant officials, journalists, bloggers and industry peers;
• Monitors what’s happening in your field that may not be covered by the mainstream media or even trade publications or websites;
• Helps your organization become more visible; and
• Gathers informal feedback from key government officials, NGOs, coalition partners and other key stakeholders to help determine how effective your efforts have been.

What can social media reasonably deliver?

It’s important to understand the various objectives of social media in EU public affairs. More often than not, critics dismiss it as a tool with little value, while professionals who are active on various social media platforms view it as the holy grail of EU advocacy.

As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle: Expectations on what social media can deliver should be managed even before senior management endorses plans to launch social media efforts.

As mentioned previously, organizations’ social media channels can be useful for advocacy by making them a trusted and credible source of information or putting an issue on stakeholders’ radar. Social networks also provide excellent opportunities for identifying EU officials, members of the European Parliament, journalists and active citizens who follow, support or oppose your industry, organization or policy issue.

When it comes to spreading your message, however, you must exercise caution. Social media platforms are about listening and engaging rather than “broadcasting.” Simply pushing out information about your organization will not gain any traction unless the audience finds some extra value in it (such as a breaking news alert or clarification of a complex issue).

What should you talk about on social media?

Essentially, there are two main approaches, which can be used simultaneously: content curation (selecting and distributing others’ content based on its relevance to the topics you’re engaged in) and content creation. Not surprisingly, content creation is far more resource-intensive than curation, so the classic 80/20 rule for time spent curating versus creating is a good rule of thumb to follow.

Case Study: LillyPad EU

Eli Lilly, the world’s 10th-largest pharmaceutical company, is a good example of how a well-thought-out digital advocacy effort can benefit a company’s public affairs work.

In 2013, Lilly began an EU public affairs blog and a Twitter account under the brand LillyPad EU. Both were run by two members of the company’s Brussels team and used exclusively for public affairs and advocacy. After getting buy-in from senior management, Lilly established hard metrics to measure the ROI of the blog and the Twitter feed.

After only one year, it’s clear that the blog and the Twitter account have been a success.

Among the most notable interactions between LillyPad EU and EU policymakers:

• In several Twitter exchanges, LillyPad EU and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs (DG SANCO) discussed diabetes and the company’s research efforts. These dialogues led to DG SANCO retweeting LillyPad EU’s link to its blog, which then boosted its traffic and credibility with both EU institutions and the company’s peers.
• Government ministers from EU member states recognized LillyPad EU’s approach to social media advocacy. Sean Sherlock, Ireland’s minister of health, lauded the company’s efforts and said he’d like to see “more of this from corporates and [small and medium enterprises] — well done LillyPad EU.”
• The LillyPad EU team also created an infographic on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that was picked up and shared by the communications unit assisting the European Commission’s negotiating team at the Commission’s Directorate General for Trade.

What about online petitions?

Social media can be a highly effective tool for ensuring an online petition’s success, but using petitions is far more common among NGOs and trade or industry associations than among corporations.

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), created upon ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2011, enables a minimum of 1 million European citizens from at least seven different EU member states to require the European Commission to consider legislation related to a petition.

While this tool aims to spur EU institutions to act, the cause or industry behind it may be affected by other petitions such as those collected by websites like Avaaz.org and Change.org. Since it’s often hard to determine whether a member of the European Parliament will act on a petition if it has gathered 200 signatures or 3,000, an important yet unanswered question is “How much is an online signature really worth?” According to MEPs, what matters most is that signatories are coming from their constituencies.

There are several examples of successful petition campaigns.

• Before the European Commission suspended the market authorization of pesticides containing a chemical called neonicotinoid, Avaaz.org collected more than 2.6 million signatures urging the Commission to act.
• Similarly, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement suffered a spectacular defeat despite years of negotiations led by the European Commission and supported by many industry groups — due, at least in part, to a petition opposing the agreement that was signed by over 3 million people.

What does it all mean?

Social media in European advocacy is here to stay and will be even more influential in shaping public discourse about EU policies after this year’s elections. Since decision-makers are keen to listen to public opinion, and since much of this conversation is happening online, social media is an absolute must for public affairs.