Edelman Digital's David Armano has an interesting post where he describes a brand's presence on Facebook and Twitter as "embassies" (better than my term "outposts") and community managers as "ambassadors" or "envoys".
Pushing the analogy further, I am asking myself if brands should approach community engagement programs like governments approach public diplomacy programs.
The term public diplomacy is used to describe how governments or multi-lateral agencies communicate with citizens in other countries to promote their point of view. Public diplomacy is often used along with traditional diplomacy where government officials and diplomats engage with their counterparts in other governments.
Public diplomacy at its best is not about promoting a point of view through a well-crafted sales pitch, but about co-creating a shared point of view through mutual understanding and dialogue. Social/cultural artifacts like film, television, music, sports and video games are seen as central to building "soft power" through public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy at its worst is see as propaganda. The US governments civil society 2.0, 21st century statecraft, and public diplomacy 2.0 initiatives are often seen as mere tool to promote its strategic geopolitical empire-building agenda. So, the perceived intent behind public diplomacy programs is often more important than the specific elements of the program.
To me, the parallels between diplomacy and communications is obvious.
Like traditional diplomacy, traditional public relations concerned itself with a small group of elites: editors, journalists and experts.
Like public diplomacy, "people relations" or community engagement at its best starts with the premise that everyone is an opinion leader and shared socio-cultural artifacts are the key to engage people in a dialogue.
Finally, like public diplomacy, the perceived intent behind community engagement programs is often more important than the specific elements of the program. A program that is seen to promote misleading or inappropriate brand messages often results in brand backlashes.
Going back to David Armano's analogy -
1. The brands' corporate websites are their "home base" and brands should start by asking themselves how they can become better hosts and making their corporate website more social.
2. The brands' official Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts are their "embassies" and their community managers are their "ambassadors". The embassies serve as "a home base away from home" and the ambassadors play the role of hosts in a foreign context.
3. The community managers also double up as "envoys" who reach out to blogs, forums and other communities that are not owned by their brands. In this role, they start conversations that help co-create shared socio-cultural artifacts through mutual understanding and dialogue.
4. The community managers also create opportunities for these conversations to continue online, by hosting events, or enabling evangelists to host their own events, with the aim of scaling real-time plus face-time.
What do you think? How will brands communicate behave differently if they start thinking of community engagement as public diplomacy? Do share your insights in the comments below.