WCF Forum Tackles Fake News, Social Media Challenges

Communication Managers across the world have been urged to take social media seriously as this will help monitor their reputation. This was stated at the 2017 World Communications Forum (WCF), by an International Communicator, Speaker and Development Expert, Mr. Micheal Bociurkiw.

According to him, “Reputation is key. CEOs of companies, who refuse to spend on social media/social media strategy/ crisis communications, do so at their own peril. Monitoring is required 24/7. You or your company’s reputation is everything because it takes years to build a trusted brand but minutes/seconds to bring it down. Don’t allow a gap in communications to allow others to do the speaking for you.”

The challenge of fake news was also put on the communications front burner. He reiterated that in the current communications environment clients expect their consultants to be decision-makers. However, social media now requires quick decisions in the middle of the night, thus encouraging communications practitioners and chief executive officers to embrace social media as much as they can. According to him, “Information is fast food, because today people consume 87 per cent more information than 30 years ago. In the past four months the communications environment has changed completely, now communications wags the tail of diplomacy.”

He admitted that fake news would endanger democracy and could easily become hate speech, and that large new media companies such as FaceBook have been slow to introduce policies/tools to combat it. He highlighted this as one of the challenges of the social media, inspite of its numerous advantages, and hopes there will be a solution to this, as he upholds the use of social media in the 21st century. He advised communications practitioners to have a strong working relationships with producers/journalists as this will help get out negative stories from the media in event of any crisis.

Launched in year 2011, the Communications for Future Awards has 23 nomination categories for the awards under three divisions, which are the Personal, Corporate, and Start ups.

Nominees for the Awards are usually received from thirty countries across five continents.