Are you on-message?
12 January 2022
Discontent amongst Conservative MPs during parliamentary votes before Christmas on Plan B coronavirus restriction measures made party mandarins despair that their arguments were not getting through to back benchers.
One former cabinet minister quoted in the national press blamed it squarely on what they called WhatsAppification.
Apparently, Government whips responsible for ensuring members vote the way their party wants are relying increasingly on WhatsApp group messaging to communicate, which is bringing unintended consequences.
Fewer genuine two-way conversations are taking place and problems or dissenting voices are being noticed too late as a result.
There’s surely a message here for other organisations in how they use social media. The various platforms have become powerful and essential business tools but they cannot in themselves be a complete solution.
“It’s a bit sad that some people seemingly don’t want to communicate directly or talk to each other that often,” Tony Humberstone, managing director of the digital marketing agency Vooba tells me.
“Some only want to keep in touch by sending WhatsApp messages. It’s hard to have a real conversation with them and there’s a risk that people will lose personal communication skills.
“At Vooba we do a lot of social media work for business clients, creating their content. We always try to make it come alive by being more personal and encouraging a dialogue. We let people know that they can pick up the phone and that there will be a real human being there, leading to a meaningful, two-way interaction.
“But some people and businesses are getting it completely wrong and almost hide behind social media,” says Tony, who works with a large number of tool hire and plant hire companies.
Ironically, then, while social media and new technology brings people together when managed well, handled badly it can actually keep them apart.
So is your company’s use of social media sending the right message?
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