A very interesting video post by David Brain of Edelman Europe. He interviewed their head of Online Communications about the use of Social Media tools by French politicians in the Presidential campaign. If you watch you will see that two different strategies are being employed. One candidate is using the technology as a message delivery format. They are controlling the content. The other is using it as a conversation or engagement tool. They start a conversation and then participate in it. It remains to be seen who will be successful in the election and if either strategy helped. Shel Israel made similar comments on the US Presidential candidate campaigns recently.

Thinking about David's post I was struck by an issue raised at a HR conference I attended last week called 'Managing the Employment Relationship' held at Westminster Business School at the University of Westminster. Every speaker mentioned 'employee engagement' as a critical key to business success. (For politicians read 'Voter Engagement'). We heard lots of mentions of attitude and satisfaction surveys, line management communication failures and top-down communication techniques but only one passing mention of Social Media tools. This goes to the heart of the issue of engagement. Without interactivity how do I know that people have got my message, have dealt with possible issues and are then fully supporting? How do I know that I have not left them 'undecided' or worse 'not supporting'?

I work a lot with senior managers and executives, helping them improve their communication and presentation skills for live audiences and via podcasts. They care passionately about the audiences perception so we work with them on the message structure, use of ‘power words’, body language, voice pitch, tone and pace and personal image. Some are starting to use Social Media tools such as blogging and podcasting but most still rely on traditional surveys, focus groups and other 'non-interactive' forms of feedback. 

Some business leaders are happy to 'brainstorm' but most want it controlled and managed. Just like politicians (think party political conferences or debates) they seem to fear direct feedback. The danger is that the publics (and employees) attitudes are changing. Looking back at social history we see that each successive generation is more independently minded than their parents - almost like a right of passage.

Today's digital generation (15 - 35) is more inter-connected than ever before. Even older generations are getting comfortable with IT. My father, sadly no longer with us, was 78 when he went on a computer course to learn how to use the internet and e-mail so he could keep in touch 'with the world and my grandkids' and the biggest responders to Number 10’s e-Petition on road charging were the over 50s. Bill Gates and most of the early IT pioneers are now 50+.

Many people are using social media tools to communicate, share ideas and content. If business people (and politicians) are not using the tools in a way that the audience wants and expects they risk disengagement.