The Communicator

 Almost 80% of the largest US companies use some form of social media to achieve their communications or HR objectives. So why do close to 90% of companies restrict employee access to the same networks? 

Many organizations have been struggling to decide whether social networks are a friend or a foe. Some have been swayed by researchers who claim that banning social networks can increase employee productivity by as much as 1.5% (about 7 minutes per day, or the equivalent of a bathroom break). Others fear potential security issues and loss of control over their most sensitive information. 

Regardless, banning social media is counter-intuitive and akin to tilting at windmills. 

Be realistic: Your employees don’t need their desktop computers to access social networks anymore. Most of them already have ‘apps’ on their iPhones and Blackberries that allow them to poke and tweet their friends with impunity – and from the board room or the bathroom. Our advice: don’t even try to ban social networks. It just makes people believe that you are woefully out of touch with reality. 

Trust your employees: Employee engagement is based on mutual trust and responsibility. Yet banning social networks sends a very different message. It says you don’t trust your employees to do their work, to keep information confidential or to avoid inappropriate behaviour online. Instead, focus on helping employees understand what is an acceptable use of business resources and what is better left at home.  

Be in control: Bans on social networking can lead to brand anarchy as employees set up unauthorized corporate profiles and post work photos with little-to-no corporate support or guidance, whereas policies that encourage and facilitate corporate social networking maintain tighter brand management and oversight. 

In the end, social networks will prove to be rather similar to many other communications tools that are already embedded in our corporate culture. Sure, employees use office phones to call home or to book doctors’ appointments. And they almost certainly circulate the occasional joke or recipe through the corporate email system. Yet somehow companies have still managed to maintain high levels of productivity and tight control over their deepest secrets. 

Want to learn more about using social networking to achieve business objectives? We encourage you to read Social media (finally) returns value, CSR meets Web 2.0 or Time for E2E.

   Rebranding is an expensive and complex business. 

Even with the guidance of a specialized branding agency, success can never be guaranteed. That’s because rebranding requires a fundamental change within an organization that transcends logos and slogans. And while some of that change can be forced through advertising and desk drops, ultimately the success of the initiative will depend on how effectively the rebranding is communicated to your various audiences.  

So – from a communicator who has helped a number of organizations get real value from their rebranding – here are a few tips for those communications professionals who might be considering (or be in the throes of) a rebranding:  

Use your people: Employee reaction to rebranding can take many forms. Some become evangelists for the new brand, while others lament the loss of the old brand. The goal should be to engage your employees in the process wherever possible and convert nay-sayers into Brand Ambassadors. Consistent, transparent and engaging internal communications needs to start long before brand launch to achieve a high level of employee engagement.   

Set the rules: One of the more critical aspects of rebranding is to ensure that the new brand identity and standards are applied consistently and appropriately by your staff and suppliers. Beyond the Visual Identity Standards commonly provided by most branding agencies, a robust set of brand guidelines, resources and approval processes are required to properly manage the brand as an asset.  

Be the brand: Branding is about more than flashy logos and new websites. Executed properly, it encompasses a new tone of voice, brand promise and values – characteristics that simply can’t be communicated through graphics alone. While reflowing existing content into the new ‘look and feel’ might seem easy, it’s a dangerous cop-out. Unless you want all your efforts to be nothing more than an expensive facelift, you need to rewrite your brochures, websites, profiles and factsheets to really embody the new brand. 

Get some press: Rebranding offers lots of great opportunities to both strengthen existing media relationships and start up new ones. Make sure to take the opportunity to communicate the new brand to your industry and trade publication contacts, but don’t underestimate the benefits of targeting advertising, branding and marketing publications as well. Good press is good press, and the positive kudos from the profession may reinforce your executives’ will power. It’s also a great time to contact mainstream media to ‘reintroduce’ yourselves and your company. 

Harness social networks: This is a must for any rebranding initiative. More than just updating your company’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, social networking can be an inexpensive and highly effective way to build hype about your new brand and solicit valuable feedback from your customers and the general public. As with all great social networking strategies, be sure to use your employee and supplier networks to spread the good news.   

Possibly the biggest challenge for most professional communicators may come from trying to juggle the responsibilities of supporting a new brand launch while still managing the day-to-day communications needs of the business. That said, if your resources are stretched too thin, there are always a few freelance communicators with the right experience to make your rebranding a success.

Communications is easily the most valuable function within any organization. 

OK, so I’m biased. But over the past few years, many communications professionals have clearly demonstrated their intrinsic value by carefully navigating their organizations through an onslaught of unexpected issues and crises. 

And – for once – others are taking note of their communications teams. Many CEOs – especially those that have come under fire recently – are now rethinking the role that communications plays in their decision making process. 

Once viewed as the tactical end-product of a traditional command structure, communicators were usually only brought into the boardroom to report on (or spin) executive decisions. Today, savvy CEOs are tapping into their communications team early in the decision making process to reduce risk and understand implications. 

While many of our readers are already quite comfortable in the board room, here are a few tips for the less experienced, and valuable reminders for the pros: 

• Speak truth to power: Your value to your executive team lies in your ability to gauge and prepare for any potential audience reaction – good or bad. Don’t feel pressured to provide a rosy prognosis just because you think it’s what your execs want to hear or for fear of upsetting more sensitive personalities. 
• Provide solutions, not problems: Nobody wants to hear why they can’t do something. While it’s fine to point out the potential risks of any given strategy, you will be much more valuable if you are able to provide a solution to the challenges you raise. That said, if you can’t come up with a concrete and workable solution at the time, at least be able to outline the process you’ll use to find the solution later.  
• Advise, don’t decide: While you may have been invited into the decision making process, chances are that you are taking on an advisory role. Remember that – while your opinion should hold weight – it is the executives that are ultimately responsible for the organizational strategy. So don’t take it personally if they dismiss your concerns or push ahead regardless of your opinion. 
• Keep it to yourself: Maybe you are really proud of the way you influenced a key decision. Or maybe you’re really pissed off about a decision that ignored your wise counsel. Regardless, keep it to yourself. Not only are you likely bound by confidentiality agreements, but the truth is that people really don’t like a know-it-all and will probably think you are boasting or – worse – exaggerating. 

This year, professional communicators should be prepared to be called into their executives’ offices more often. What you make of the opportunity is up to you.

A permanent seat at the table was the last of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’re back to looking at topical and timely issues for professional communicators.

It’s a rotten time to be in advertising. After a decade of extreme turbulence – mostly precipitated by the runaway popularity of the internet – the recent economic downturn has been a disaster for traditional advertisers. Clients have gone bust, outlets have closed, and advertising budgets have been slashed across the board.

But it’s a great time to be in PR. The internet has steadily amplified the voice of communicators, unlocked entirely new channels and audiences, and pushed down the cost of delivering effective programs. The recent economic downturn has only made PR more valuable as companies deal with the public backlash of excessive bonuses, corporate failures and unprecedented layoffs. For evidence, check out the recent article “Good News”, from The Economist which details how global PR firms are booming.

Now, I’m not jumping on the ‘Death of Advertising’ bandwagon. In many promotional circumstances, there is great value in the judicious use of advertising to support communications initiatives. But where advertising is limited to one or two phases of a brand’s lifecycle – launch and promotion -  public relations goes much further, offering holistic and effective reputation management for every phase of the business cycle. 

It’s not even the advertising industry’s fault. You can thank changing societal trends and technological innovation for altering the fundamentals of: 

• Trust: Recent surveys show that – overwhelmingly – people trust their peers more than companies (not sure that we needed a survey to tell us that, but kudos to the Market Research guys for creating work for themselves in the downturn). In geek-speak, this roughly translates to: B2C + B2B < P2P. While advertising gurus have been struggling to find the winning formula for advertising on social media sites, PR has been busy building trust between consumers and brands through open dialogue and transparency.
• Availability:  Innovation has been giving advertising the cold shoulder. Between PVRs, RSS feeds and news aggregators, people have become quite adept at stripping advertising out of everything they do. Not so for communications messages, which have proliferated and often taken on a life of their own by harnessing peer and social networks. 
• Cost: The diffusion of advertising vehicles and splintering of audiences means that companies need to target an ever-increasing range of outlets and vehicles to get the same benefit from advertising as before. For PR, the incremental cost of adding new outlets, channels and audiences to an existing campaign is negligible to non-existent. 
• Shelf-life: Google search your company. Do you see all your old advertisements? Probably not. But I’m sure you found hundreds of copies of older press releases, puff pieces and news coverage. Ad campaigns die after the budget is gone, but PR tends to live on forever.

Like it or not, websites take work to return results. The sad truth is that many organizations are not realizing the true value of their online assets. After the initial euphoria of launch, neglect quickly sets in, turning the website into little more than a dumping ground for press releases and puff pieces. 

It’s not uncommon. Most communicators tend to view their organization’s website as a burden to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized. Content management ends up being relegated to HR and Communications assistants who aren’t ultimately responsible for enforcing content standards or basic submission criteria. 

Professional communicators who have slipped into this more ‘ad-hoc’ approach to maintaining their websites will need to dedicate substantial time to refocus their online strategies in order to create real value. 

Here are a few tips to get your website back on track: 

Take time to regroup: The most important thing you can do is clearly define your website strategy. Start by taking a step back and considering what you are trying to accomplish with your site and who you are hoping to communicate with. Be realistic about what your strategy can achieve, but imaginative in your planning. 

Set the rules: Knowing where you want to go and getting there are very different things. Use your new website strategy to define the types of content that best achieve your objectives. Create and formalize a set of criteria that clearly demonstrate what is appropriate for your website and what isn’t. To make your job easier in the long run, socialize the criteria throughout your organization so that everyone understands the parameters. 

Cull out the old and weak: A common problem plaguing most websites is the build up of outdated or useless information. Set a holistic ‘best before’ date and remove or archive anything on your site that isn’t current or relevant – keeping in mind any regulatory obligations that your industry might be subject to.  

Clean it up: Ad-hoc approaches lead to websites that suffer from repetitive content, broken links and a multitude of conflicting voices. Small to mid sized organizations often find that centralizing the writing and editing under a dedicated resource (separate to the site’s webmaster) resolves many of these issues. Larger or multinational organizations tend to rely on robust website guidelines that dictate writing style and review requirements. 

Consider a facelift: While everyone agrees that new content is a key driver of website traffic, there is a lot to be said for a quick paint job. Switching to your secondary colour palate or occasionally updating your graphics clearly demonstrates that your site is under active management and being kept fresh. 

Website management certainly isn’t the most exciting job for professional communicators, but when approached systematically and creatively, it can easily provide the biggest bang for your buck.  

Websites that work is one of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at #2 – PR defeats advertising.