Comment: Communication channels are increasingly vulnerable to social media coverage

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Wednesday, 26 September 2018

Motivating people to attend a conference isn’t always easy, but it can be the cornerstone of a successful event. 

It calls for creativity, determination and increasingly, the ability to face up to fake news and external criticism.

MICE delegates attending an event or others travelling for business are as susceptible to both good vibes and negative rumours as the occasional leisure traveller contemplating a holiday.

In times past, an event organiser could go about packaging all this, fairly confident that satisfaction would be delivered to the client and to those others taking part.

There has always been an element of social responsibility – if an event program is too ostentatious it might legitimately attract criticism.  But growing social media cut-through into all aspects of daily lives has opened up events, even those with tight participation eligibility and an expectation of privacy.

With a plethora of social media channels available to introduce an event and then build motivation, it is inevitable that details will be shared beyond the target audience.

An Australasian local health board, for instance, found itself under public fire when details leaked of a health forum to be held on the Gold Coast.  It was part of a series, expensive but apparently effective.

Media did not put much effort into assessing the deliverables but simply picked up on social media communications to suggested it was primarily a costly junket.

In this case there were grounds for criticism, because the agency arranging the event had not obtained the necessary sign-off from its parent board.  The event was cancelled, leading to legal jousting over compensation.

Other events also have been targeted with little recourse to fact or fairness, sometimes turning the event’s own communications into a line of attack.

Media channels can be serviced to build event participation positively.  An interesting global trend seems to be circulating lists of those already booked to attend an event, aiming to trigger a ‘we’d better be there too’ response.  This raises questions of privacy but as long as permission has been granted it seems a low-cost and effective device.

And then there’s the growing bugbear of fake news.  We’ve seen it lately in the Lombok earthquake tragedy where news media alluded to Bali travel arrangements in a way that the casual reader, viewer or listener might believe Bali had been hit.

This sort of fake news isn’t necessarily malicious.  It can be simple error on the part of media personnel.  But for Bali - and other destinations which find themselves in similar situations – it can mean cancelled bookings and a lingering negative image.  That’s neither fair nor professional.

- Kelvin King