This is obviously not a good outcome – not for the very senior public servant who presumably has some very important elements of the machinery of government to run; and not for the agency and its communications staff who now must jump through a significant hoop to get even the most innocuous social media post out into the world.

As the focus of communications activities inevitably moves away from traditional 'earned' content and toward 'owned' digital content, avoiding this scenario should be a priority for any communications practitioner.

And yet the thorny issue of approvals appears to be something that is not often discussed – surprising given that the production of impactful, authentic content almost always requires speed and creativity: things that are virtually impossible if multiple senior figures in a company or department insert themselves into a labyrinthine approval process.

The scenario depicted in last year’s Mumbrella story about a relatively minor press release that took 22 days to run the gauntlet of internal approvals (thus rendering itself completely pointless), would have been familiar to media relations managers everywhere.

When it comes to digital content appprovals, you can be sure that Winter is Coming.

As one colleague quipped on reading the story: “Imagine when CEOs find out their company is on Facebook”. Because, unlike the Dep Sec I mentioned at the start of this piece, senior leaders’ controlling tendencies are still very much focussed on the old way of doing things; directed at traditional media relations products (press releases, statements, key lines) with social posts, internally-generated articles and new forms like podcasts flying under the radar. Anecdotal evidence suggests many comms operations today still have stringent, multi-approver processes for press releases but no or minimal approvals processes for Facebook and Twitter posts. Or approvals are lumpy: videos need to be seen by six different people, but blogs can go straight on the website. This wilful disengagement with new digital forms of communication can make life easier for people in our industry in terms of freedom to create good content, but it can’t (and and almost certainly shouldn’t) last.

The answer, I think, is to use this period of grace to get ahead of the game and put robust internal editorial processes in place, if you haven't already. Don’t wait for the call from the CEO, COO, Dep Sec or Ministerial Advisor saying “who’s checking that content? How do we know it’s ok?”

Proactively putting in place a clear framework will ensure that risks are minimised and potentially contentious content is quickly ticked off by Subject Matter Experts and relevant senior leaders. Consider a risk management matrix for content creation: it may cause eyes to roll in your team but will really speak to the senior functionary who just wants to feel safe. Measures like this will hopefully head off the urge by Important People to see absolutely everything by giving them confidence that content balances the need to be timely, authentic and impactful, with the need to not get anyone into trouble.

Read the original article here.