This weekend we watched as swine flu inched its way across a CNN map of the world.

Geographically, we know where this outbreak exists, but how many of us know where this issue is in its lifecycle?

Similar to the situation with the avian flu, companies in the restaurant, food, and pharmaceutical industries will need to monitor this issue for changes in issue lifecycle. We can expect this issue to move from its current reporting phase to a position of advocacy, whereby interest groups will leverage this outbreak as an opportunity to affect change in policies and promote agendas.

As this issue migrates into the advocacy position, companies in the industries listed above will need to garner global media intelligence that will help them: i) identify media outlets and authors in the advocacy role ii) understand and interpret the underlying concerns of these groups iii) develop counter messages and processes that deal with threats to reputation, i.e. drug availability, employee safety, etc. Furthermore, a global monitoring approach will also help communications professionals understand the international nuances of the issue, i.e. differences in global advocacy positions, disparities in the quality and nature of the news coverage from different regions.

In cases like these organizational preparedness will be scrutinized. Companies need to monitor perceptions during the crisis to customize a communications plan that fits with the issue lifecycle, and to be prepared for the next crisis window after the issue lifecycle has completed.

Interest group politics never go away; they simply wait for new windows of opportunity to open, and then present arguments that will affect change and potentially harm reputation and license to operate. We’ll keep watching and follow the changes here.

Worth repeating: this post on recognizing that more important than the technology behind social media itself is an awareness about the people behind the technology; about what can happen when the beliefs of an important and active stakeholder group are not understood. Social Media is not the cause of diversity of desires and beliefs amongst a brand’s consumers; that diversity has always existed, social media is simply making this diversity visible, and dangerous to ignore.

Marketing campaigns are usually targeted to particular “stakeholders” and their values based on market research and investment in campaign design. In the mass media world of one-way communications, a sample of audience sentiment was pretty safe, but in the new environment of instant feedback, samples are not good enough, as they may miss small but influential stakeholder pockets.

To understand what communications will appeal to specific stakeholders, we must understand their beliefs. Our beliefs about the world can be understood as the source of order in each of our worlds. Beliefs are simply structures that we use to bring rational and emotional structure to the world we perceive and move through. Beliefs create emotional safety, as they resolve uncertainties about our past, our present and our future; uncertainties that would otherwise create anxiety. Because their greatest value comes from bringing order to the perception of our world, beliefs become most unstable when risks arise and the sense of order is threatened.


Beliefs are a driver of behavior – we like to respond rationally to perceptions, evaluating our perceptions to choose appropriate responses rather than simply reacting to perceptions. We like to have and know the rationale and beliefs that support our actions, and we like to act on our beliefs. And as we act, we seek confirmation that our actions are based on sound judgment (i.e. are understood as legitimate) thus seeking confirmation of our beliefs from others. Belief systems are feedback systems, with individual beliefs influenced by culture, and with culture shaped by individual beliefs.

Marketing and communications strive to associate their brand with the beliefs of the audience that bring order from chaos, the beliefs that create sense of things and let the audience feel grounded, comfortable and safe with their world. As social media brings together and gives voice to more groups sharing more broad and diverse deeply-held beliefs, communicators must be aware of the ways in which beliefs will generate both desired and unexpected behavior amongst the recipients of messages.