The Communicator

iPhones, laptops, PDAs, cell phones, PCs… the internet is now truly ubiquitous. No matter where you go, the web always seems to be right at your fingertips. 

But for professional communicators, the rapid proliferation of web-accessible devices can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the public’s increased access to the internet can lead to more visitors to your website and thus a better return on your investment. On the other, the complexity of maintaining a consistent customer experience and brand identity across a growing number of platforms can quickly sap your resources and become a cumbersome burden. 

For many organizations, there is no easy answer. Communicators will need to find a comfortable balance between maintaining an easily-accessible website and managing the host of other web priorities that drive their traffic and achieve their objectives. 

Regardless of your current strategy, we have noticed a few trends that we’ve picked up from leading websites: 

• Keep it simple: Don’t let your website get bogged down with long passages of text or huge pdf files. Remember that people may be accessing your site with different download speeds, screen colour capabilities, and data plans, so try to stick to simple text and lots of white space to enhance ease-of-use. 
• Know your audience: While this may be a ‘no-brainer’ for most, it’s easy to get caught up in hype (or simply the desire to demonstrate your innovation to the world), and lose sight of the basic characteristics of your audience. Use your website metrics to understand how your most frequent visitors – or most valuable customers – access your site, and concentrate on improving their experience first. 
• Seek value opportunities: Regardless of their popularity, many new technologies and devices perform unique functions that can greatly enhance your message. Try gauging the added effect of incorporating tools such as interactive charts, streaming video and real-time updates to illustrate your point and add value. 
• Leverage free apps: Rather than spending lots of time and money deploying video functionality or other cool applications, consider harnessing existing free sites such as YouTube or Twitter to perform some of those functions. Not only are they extremely cost-effective, but they can also gain much wider viewership than your corporate site alone. 

At the end of the day, it all comes back to the basic fundamentals of communications: know your audience, how to reach them, and what matters really matters to them. If you always keep that in mind, you can’t go wrong. 

Devices challenge accessibility is one of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at #3 – Websites that work.

I’ve never met a professional communicator who cherished writing process documents. Most of us – and this is a generalization – would rather spend a day engaged in creative brainstorming sessions than drawing up a formal process document.

But as work loads continue to increase, and temporary hiring freezes become permanent, professional communicators will find some relief by creating and formalizing processes that maximize their available resources while streamlining the delivery of many common functions.

Don’t get me wrong: most organizations already employ a number of useful communications processes, particularly around copy approvals and media reporting. But most existing processes – and here comes another sweeping generalization – were originally created to mitigate risk rather than reduce waste.

Instead, communicators should be looking for functions that their teams perform regularly which produce a more uniform output. One excellent area that is frequently overlooked is the creation of newsletters. While the copy always changes, all of the basic steps – from the solicitation of story ideas to the distribution of the final product – can easily be formalized into a process and largely outsourced. 

To get there, many communicators may first have to come to terms with the fact that processes eventually dampen creativity and innovation. Some will even find their very function changes from that of ‘creator/strategist’ to ‘project manager/reviewer’.

However, processes can also be a great way to get rid of mundane tasks and focus on projects demanding the greatest level of strategic and creative input.

Regardless of your motivation, here are a few tips that we’ve learned from our work creating communications processes for clients:

• Communicate the process: Many processes quickly come off the rails because either the audience was unaware of the change in service levels, or the participants didn’t fully understand their role. Always try to include a communications plan that recognizes all the stakeholders involved or impacted.
• Include service level expectations – especially for your outside vendors and contractors. To ensure a smooth process, each actor must know exactly what is expected in terms of turn-around times, deliverables and formats. For internal staff, processes provide great metrics that can easily be used to support performance reviews and quantitative benchmarking.
• Revise and evaluate annually:  I don’t need to tell you how quickly things change. New objectives, innovative technologies, changing roles and evolving audience expectations can easily scuttle a perfectly good process.  The summer doldrums tend to be a great time for this task.  
• Outsource everything: Once a formal process has been created and tested, consider outsourcing the whole thing to a trusted communications professional. Many small companies (including our own) provide this type of long-term project management service, so find one that fits your organization’s unique style and needs.  

Real die-hards may even find value in drawing up a ‘process-creation process’ … but even we think that might be going a bit far.

Process becomes king is one of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at #4 – Devices challenge accessibility

With a few notable exceptions, most professional communicators would agree that many companies’ reputations have been under fire recently. The truth is that the corporate reputation function in most organizations has been in decay for years and that growing public cynicism and high profile corporate melt-downs are only a symptom of a fundamentally undervalued function.      

Ironically, the corporate reputation function suffers from its own image issues. In many organizations, professional communicators have historically struggled to draw quantifiable correlations between corporate reputation initiatives and bottom line revenue. This has given executives and CFOs an excuse to siphon resources away from these projects to shore up other branding and advertising initiatives that provide the more obvious revenue streams. 

The past two years have therefore delivered a series of potentially fatal body blows to an already weak social contract. As the public either experiences or witnesses companies laying off staff, denying pension benefits to retirees, grabbing tax-funded bailouts or taking unconscionable salaries, the influence wielded by these companies, by virtue of their strong reputations, has evaporated.   

On the bright side – their loss could be your company’s gain. Rather than hollowing-out the function, we suggest that professional communicators explore a few of the following ways to get their corporate reputation off life support: 

• Redefine your objectives and audiences: Everything you once knew about your audiences has probably changed in the past few years. With different motivations and emotional triggers, you may need to fundamentally rethink your overall corporate reputation objectives, strategies and tactics. But be careful not to change anything that might alienate your already-loyal customers.    
• Be transparent and approachable:  These two often go hand in hand. The public wants to feel that you respect your mutual relationship, welcome their feedback and are worthy of their trust. Remember though: transparency is about more than posting reams of documents online. You also need to help your audience find, understand and contextualize the information you are providing.
• Leverage social networks: By far the biggest game-changer for communications this decade, recent surveys show that peer-to-peer recommendations hold significantly more influence with audiences than corporate messaging or advertising. Besides a fantastic return-on-investment, social networks have the rare quality of providing measurable outcomes and benefits.
• Maximize your current assets: Many organizations maintain robust Corporate Social Responsibility and community investment programs that carry a fair amount of existing good will. Remember that the most valuable wins will always be won through getting more mileage from current assets rather than creating new ones.
• Start with your employees: It may be a cliché, but when it comes to corporate reputation, your employees really are your greatest assets. Their personal engagement, loyalty and respect for the company can be infectious, and should be harnessed and mobilized into the community.  

Ultimately though, the eventual success of any corporate reputation program relies on achieving executive buy-in, demonstrating persistent dedication, and adopting a longer-term perspective. 

Taking corporate reputation off life support is one of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at #5 – Process becomes king

Professional communicators should be paying attention to the simmering content ownership battle between Rupert Murdoch and free online content providers. It could end up being the self-inflicted wound that kills traditional media.

If Murdoch is ultimately successful in cutting out free online media syndicators like Google, Microsoft and Ask.com, pundits predict an immediate 25% drop in overall readership. For professional communicators who base their media lists on hits and circulation, this kind of change could push once-venerable publications off the radar entirely.

In truth, the content wars will only accelerate the inevitable. Most communicators saw the writing on the wall years ago, and quickly readjusted their media lists to accommodate new media commentators who offered further reach and more influence than their stalwart daily counterparts.

Regardless of how the battle ends, the ensuing propaganda and inevitable fallout sends a number of clear messages to professional communicators:

Prioritize for accessibility: When building your media lists and outreach plans, factor in the accessibility of a publication as well as the reach and reputation. Consider conducting a media audit to understand who the real media players are in your market and what biases they may have.

Educate your executives: Remember that the world has changed quickly, and some of your senior executives may not agree that their faithful daily is on life support. Start the education process now by taking away their company-expensed subscriptions and replacing them with an online version.

Be the media: As the traditional sources of reliable information begin to fade, professional communicators have an opportunity to fill the void and provide the public with alternate sources of information. Be very careful, though, not to try to pass off marketing propaganda as hard news. The public can be quick to recognize and expose self-serving agendas.

Broaden your outreach: There may still be a place for the traditional desk-side briefing or media tour, but chances are your newest key influencer lives on a farm in rural Wisconsin or in a Bangladeshi apartment complex. Some innovative communicators are seeing a lot of success using social media sites and tools to conduct real-time ‘face-to-face’ briefings over the internet.

At the end of the day, Mr. Murdoch will soon realize that his real problem isn’t the free content providers at all. It’s that people simply don’t want to pay for their news anymore.

Content ownership wars – the communications fallout is one of our Top Ten Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at issue #6: Taking Corporate Reputation off life support