On Dominic Cummings’ tell-all: What we can learn about media coverage and the importance of social listening | UnNoticed Entrepreneur — public relations for business owners.
Most people in the UK will be aware that Cummings played a Machiavellian role of sorts during Brexit (wherein the UK left the European Union). Afterwards, he had a falling out with Johnson. It was interesting to hear him come clean on a number of things that happened over the past year. That event has prompted different headlines from different media. And for the public, it has provided some clues on how different audiences think about the same story.
What the Media is Telling
One might initially have a sense of sympathy or even empathy. But reading into the situation, most people know that in England, if you had a gang of people outside your house and you worked for the government, you’d get access to the special services or you could have at least called the police. You wouldn’t get into a car with your family and drive in lockdown. For me, there’s a real credibility issue there.
This shows how there’s one media outlet saying that we all knew that these people were basically incompetent and they were lying and out of control; then there’s another saying that none of that was true. It’s proof of how the same event can be interpreted depending on the media outlet and who their audiences are. Though it’s always a debate about which comes first — does the audience dictate what the publication writes, or does the publisher dictate what the audience reads — there’s some degree of symbiosis with regard to the publication and their audience’s relationship.
Tracking Sentiment
Though I didn’t invest in the full platform, a quick search on how Dominic Cummings performed on the mainstream media showed that the strength was only 14%. There was zero passion and the reach wasn’t great either. Now for the sentiment of the mainstream media (I selected news feeds from The Guardian, London Evening Standard, The Financial Times, and The Independent), there were two positives, three neutrals, and two negatives. It shows that in the mainstream, there’s a balance in the sentiment.
When you look at blogs and micro-blogs, the strength would be 20%; passion, 21%; reach; 12%; sentiment, 3:1 (positive is six, negative is two, neutral is 21). In here, there’s a greater rumbling and there are greater commentaries taking place compared to what is happening in the mainstream media. The people on these media are quite unsure on which way to go.
Some of the headlines are: “ Dominic Cummings wins surprise fans thanks to his unbuttoned shirt and northern accent “; “ Tory MP mocks Dominic Cummings with Barnard Castle themed eye test chart pinned to her wall during Cabinet Office questions “; “ Demis Hassabis: the deep mind Dominic Cummings turned to as the pandemic hit .” Indeed, there is a spread of opinion, a spread of articles — and the majority of which are neutral. On social media, what’s interesting is that the attitude towards Cummings after his seven-hour speech is more positive, with a ratio of 3:1.
Why Social Listening is Important
If you’re working on media and public relations, it’s important to track sentiments from different channels. If we only measure official channels, we’re only going to have insights into a very controlled catalogue of content (For instance, in some Asian countries, governments are the ones that run the media). We need to look at social mentions using platforms like SocialMention or significance systems to understand what people, who are not paid to write, are saying about a particular topic, issue, or person.
If you run a company and you’re thinking of launching something or you’re looking at taking advantage of a certain opportunity, relying solely on mainstream media for guidance could actually give you a wrong steer. As seen on data from Social Mention, three times as many people were positive about Cummings coming clean and talking openly — with his shirt unbuttoned and with a northern accent — about how the government’s mistakes in handling the pandemic. This complete transparency has won over some sections of the community in the UK. However, this still wouldn’t change anything because Johnson already has a fairly unassailable lead in the political world. The conservative part would also not replace the leader that brought Brexit.
However, if we’re managing a campaign for a client — may it be political, social, or commercial — social listening is important. You have to go beyond the traditional media. Because in the traditional media, there will be publishers and advertisers and they’ll create content that is pretty much 50–50 (as in the case of Cummings) — content that is dependent upon the leaning of the publication. If you really want to know what people are thinking; if you really want to get into the psyche of your potential customers, partners, or competitors, then there’s a need to do some social listening through tools like Social Mention or significance systems. There are also free social media monitoring tools, such as , TweetReach , Followerwonk , (which has acquired Klout), and among others.
This article is based on a transcript from my Podcast The UnNoticed, you can listen here.
Originally published at https://theunnoticed.cc on May 11, 2022.
