Lessons from the Romans

In Chapter 23 of Share This, Dr. Mark Pack discusses how many of the "big changes" with social media are truly not so new. One of the concepts that really stood out to me was the section at the end of the chapter entitled "Lessons from the Romans". This section discussed a Roman idea called the Acta Diurna, which were daily public notices posted in public locations around Rome. Pack lists four "lessons" that still apply from the days of the Acta Diurna:

1. Put your information where the audience is.
2. Spice up the information with interesting human color.
3. Make it easy for people to share your information and it will spread far.
4. If you want to influence what people think about you, do not leave it to others to do all the communication.

These four concepts lay out most of what we see corporations doing on social media on a daily basis. The first "company" I can think of that uses these concepts is the Denver Broncos.

The Denver Broncos have many different target age groups, but overall, they target fans of the franchise. The average age of NFL viewers is 46, while the average Facebook and Twitter users are adults ages 18-29.  The Broncos have a large amount of followers on their Twitter, which they use to give updates throughout the game. Their tweets range from scores, plays, records broken, pictures and news about the team during the week. 

But the tweets are not just informational. The Broncos make their tweets conversational, almost like you could be talking to a friend about the game. It sounds like a person, maybe the biggest Broncos fan on the planet. They use all-caps, exclamation points, adjectives, verbs...Things that your average Twitter user would do, although I must admit the Broncos social media person has much better grammar and spelling than the average user. 

Twitter also makes information easy to share. Users can retweet tweets, use a quote retweet to add their own opinions to the tweets or favorite them to look at another time. By retweeting the information straight from the Broncos, fans can have the most accurate facts on their Twitter to use as they please. 

The constant updates allows the Broncos to influence their fans opinions on the team, because they tweet the positives and the negatives from the game. The Broncos reply to their fans on Twitter as well, replying to pictures and posts that fans tweet at the team for, encouraging good thoughst about the brand. They also allow fans to participate in a live, unmoderated discussion where they can talk about the game as it happens.

But, the Broncos are not the first or last to follow these basic principles of public relations communications to reach their publics. The Walt Disney Company uses their Facebook page to interact with fans of their products, which in turn Disney allows fans to share their favorite Disney memories and share the posts that Disney puts up.  

In a way, all companies use these tools to interact with their audiences. Now, more than ever, companies depend on direct communications with their consumers and target audiences to build relationships. By remembering to use these concepts, companies can experience success in communications no matter what the technology is. 

(2012) Share This. The social media handbook for professionals. United Kingdom. John Wiley & Sons Ltd