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Canwest News Service
BANFF, Alta. – The Canadian oil and gas industry needs to embrace such social media as Facebook and Twitter to reach a skeptical audience and spread a more balanced message about their product, an American public relations expert urged Thursday.
Industry has been relying on mainstream media to publicize more positive aspects of oil and gas when most people access their news through at least eight different ways, including social media, Richard Edelman told an audience at the Global Business Forum in Banff.
“You’ve got to be in the game,” Edelman, head of New York-based Edelman Public Relations said. “You have to go where the conversations are.”
Current communications practices being used by the Canadian oilsands sector simply aren’t enough to change negative public perception of the industry by the time a global climate change summit in Copenhagen gets started in December, he said.
“There is insufficient understanding of the benefits, there is insufficient understanding of environmental protections, the opposition is defining you, and now is the time to act,” he exhorted the audience. “Otherwise the impression will be frozen in time.”
Edelman has represented the American Petroleum Association, which now has a Facebook presence on the Internet. Using the popular social media is crucial to engaging younger people, he said.
Industry is good at engaging politicians but not with real people and it’s real people who are putting pressure on politicians regarding misconceptions about the oil and gas industry, he said.
Edelman called for more transparency from industry and emphasized the need to go beyond mainstream media to communicate its message
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “The oilsands are a critical resource, not just for this province, but for the United States, and arguably for the world. And you have a very important role to play in explaining how and why that is going to work.”
The more people are informed about the benefits of the oilsands in terms of energy security, job creation and the efforts industry has put into environmental safeguards, the more support the industry gains, according to Edelman.
Calgary Herald
