Page 59 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

48 How to Write Effective Business English

If you decide to outsource any of your social media (especially
likely if you export), or if you simply collaborate with other part-
ners, don’t forget you are ultimately accountable for the messages
you put out. One charity found this out to their cost, despite their
best intentions:

CASE STUDY Samaritans charity

Samaritans are a highly respected UK charity, offering support to
anyone in emotional distress.
Looking for ways of helping vulnerable people online (especially
those aged 18–35), they hired a digital agency to help them launch the
#SamaritansRadar app. This sent an alert to users when people they
followed posted messages that algorithms picked up to suggest
depressed or suicidal thoughts.
The app was withdrawn almost immediately after attracting
criticism that it didn’t work. It certainly failed on a semantic level, as
one Twitter user showed. He added the #SamaritansRadar hashtag to
his innocuous post: ‘Making a mixtape of smooth jazz classics. Maybe I
should end it all with a bit of Alfonzo Blackwell. #SamaritansRadar.’
The algorithm had mistakenly picked up on the words ‘maybe I
should end it all’ as alluding to suicide.

What are the key objectives?

These include: engage, be shared and convert – by being relevant,
useful, knowledgeable, credible, consistently professional and per-
sonable. All your corporate communications need to reflect your
values and your personality – and achieve your goals.
It’s not in the scope of this book to cover writing for websites or
search engine optimization (SEO) in any detail. But it’s important
to know that the algorithms of Google and other search engines
look out for certain signals (that may change over time). Your