There has been a rapid growth in available communications channels in the last couple years.  This channel explosion places an unprecedented pressure on the communications function to design a strong channel strategy to use these efficiently and effectively.  All of these new channels present an opportunity for communicators to reach out to large audiences and spread information and messages with rapid speed. But it also takes lots of more of communicator’s time to navigate these channels and measure and evaluate how effective they are in their usage.

While many communications teams have a dedicated channel and/or social media person on the team, every communications professional (regardless of your specialization) needs to have a good grasp of channel management. As part of my new project focused on designing a channel audit diagnostic, I have spoke to several of our members to figure out what types of channel related metrics (data) would help communicators use channels in more efficient and effective way.  Here are some of the challenges faced by our members that we are hoping to help them solve with the new channel audit diagnostic:

1. Tracking Usage

Most communicators I spoke to have a good idea about the overall channels usage in their company. They can tell what percentage of their mailing list typically opens their newsletter; how many people listen on to their webinars; or how many people showed up for their CEO/Employee roundtable. However, while lots of communicators know their absolute numbers, they can rarely benchmark themselves to other comms functions in other companies to see how well they are really doing in these metrics.

2. Measuring Comms Effectiveness

While usage numbers are important, high usage is not the same as high impact and effectiveness.  At the end of the day, what really matters not how many people read your blog, but how many of them actually went and took action or modified their behavior because something you said really resonated with them. Many of the communicators I spoke to express a desire to be able to determine better which channels are more/less effective in helping them drive real behavioral change-related outcomes among different groups of stakeholders.

3. Impact of Channels on Employees’ Productivity

A big part of modern communicator’s job is not just to use channels effectively, but also to ensure an organization-wide efficiency in channel usage across the company.  Not all channels are created equal when it comes to boosting employees’ productivity, and some can even be detrimental to it (30 Facebook updates a day, 20 corporate-wide emails in over-worked employee’s inbox). Consequently, communicators need to worry not only about their own channel effectiveness, but also focus on guiding the employees and other functions on how to use channels to their advantage in productive manner.

I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the new challenges you face due to the channel explosion, and what measures/metrics you have in place to track one (or all three) of the above.  As well as how are you making all these new channels work for you!

And make sure to check out some of our great channel-related resources:

Channel Selection Tool

Social Media Latest Outlook

Mobile Technology Latest Outlook

3?  Just a measly 3?  C’mon, already. I mean, when you think of every foot that’s been unceremoniously shoved into its corresponding mouth during this entire year, how could you possibly limit the list to just 3?

But, as a communications professional, I will attempt to fulfill the mission as assigned by the stern taskmistress who runs the show here at the Insider…starting with:

#3: The Governor of Texas Can’t Count to 3
Gaffe: During a November GOP debate in Washington, DC, Rick Perry (the ever-so-momentarily leading contender to challenge President Obama) stated in no uncertain terms that when HE becomes president, his first order of business will be to eradicate three federal agencies: Commerce, Education, and…uhhhhhhh…the, uhhhh….

Lesson: (eesh, where to start?) If you’re gonna be specific, you’d better be…well…specific. If you’re gonna make inflammatory, controversial statements, you’d better be able to back them up. If you’re gonna prove that you’re smart enough to be the next President of the United States, you’d better be able to count past two. Read More »

The end of the year is often thought of as a time for reflection — and getting things done.

As you close out the year and get revved up for 2012, check out some of our top tools and templates. In the last year, your CEC external communications peers have been using these guides to do their jobs faster and more effectively.

You can also check out our top internal tools.

CEC’s Top Four External Communications Tools

1. How to Write News Releases for a Networked Environment

• What it is: Use this guide to ensure that your news releases are strategically focused, designed to appeal to key audiences and optimized for multimedia use.
• Why it’s cool: The media landscape has changed drastically in recent years. This toolkit will help you stay ahead of the curve by improving your news releases subject, style, media content and format. Read More »

Since 2007, communicators have increased the percent of their budget spent on measurement and monitoring by 119%. And today, over 80% of communicators are actively using social media to listen to, talk to, or energize their stakeholders.

For many teams, there has been great focus on improving the corporate Facebook page or becoming more outcomes-focused with the information shared on Twitter. While we may have connected with our employees or our strongest supporters through social channels, we know from our peers in Marketing that the value of a general consumer as a follower may not be what we’d hoped.  In fact, the average consumer follows 8.9 organizations on Facebook and looks to these channels mostly for deals as opposed to general updates about the organization.

What we do know is that social media has been created to give people an environment that provides them with information where they want it, when they want it. Unfortunately, if your current social media approach focuses on communicating on channels in your control, you may be missing the mark of stakeholders’ expectations.

That said, with trillions of sites to monitor the countless conversations that may be going on about your industry, your company, or your products, it is an impossible task for Communications to take on alone. Essentially, we need some help creating tentacles of information in the places where our stakeholders are communicating to lure them back to our site for more information.

Let me share with you a notable approach to this challenge from National Instruments (NI)–a hardware and software engineering company with no more than 15% of its business in one industry alone (imagine the volume of various social sites that could house relevant conversations for them!) With only one communicator dedicated to social media, they were able to put the stakeholders’ information needs first while keeping a lens to their own business objectives. Read More »

“How should my company use Twitter?” is an intimidating question and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. What should and shouldn’t we tweet about? Are people retweeting our posts? Do we have enough followers? And at the end of the day, what do the hours monitoring Hootsuite and TweetDeck really get us?

We set out to determine how and why companies should use Twitter and found that it becomes much easier to answer these questions with clear business outcomes in mind. Here are some of our key insights:

Why bother with Twitter?

• Twitter is a powerful information sharing network. When your supporters actively spread your messages with their networks on Twitter, they reach a broader audience. And whether it’s in the form of a retweet, mention or hashtag, the message gains credibility since it isn’t coming directly from the company. We’ve taken our analysis even further than the last time we discussed the value of Twitter.

What should we do on Twitter? Read More »

“Hope for the best – plan for the worst.”  I’ve heard this saying many times in my life, used in a wide range of contexts.  Most recently, it came up in a conversation with a CEC member in the Financial Services industry who was referring to his company’s approach to crisis communications.  He emphasized how little room for error there seemed to be these days, mentioning that, despite prudent business practices over the past few years, the public still considered his company “guilty by association,” simply due to a general loss of confidence in the industry.  Trust had eroded and scrutiny was on the rise.

Data from CEC’s sister program, the Corporate Ethics & Leadership Council (CELC), confirms that this is not an isolated perspective.  A recent study of corporate leaders reveals that 77% believe media scrutiny has increased, while 82% report a proliferation of new risk types.  These developments combined with the continued rise in citizen journalism and fluid information flow are making communicators feel more vulnerable to crises.

Faced with such a risky environment, it might seem difficult to truly “plan for the worst.” After all, this assumes that your company can create a comprehensive list of potential crises as respective plans.  And while I won’t recommend that you don’t plan for individual scenarios or try to prevent crises from happening (check out our latest resources on avoiding crisis), I do think there are some things that companies should do to ensure that they are prepared to respond effectively when a crisis hits. Read More »

I found myself walking into the closest branch of my bank the other day to take care of a transaction.  The people at my bank are super nice.  They always go the extra mile.  They always offer me coffee, which I always decline.  Really, they have the customer service thing down.  But for all my fond feelings towards them, I mostly just resented having to drive all the way to my bank to take care of a transaction that I would rather have handled remotely on my own.  The reason—I didn’t want or need their advice—I simply needed their logistics.

Apparently, I’m typical.  For years we’ve worked to entice our banking customers into our branches with the quality of our customer service—wooing them with friendly faces and a hot drink so that they’ll want to entrust us with their financial future.  But by the time they’re easing themselves into our comfy chairs, they’ve already made their financial decisions—they’re simply there because they have to be to finish the transaction. Read More »

If every corporate Twitter account was deleted tomorrow, what would happen?

Social media has come to define the way many people use the internet. But even two years ago the terrain looked much different (RIP MySpace) and it’s anyone’s guess what the next two will bring (good luck, Google+).

Twitter is currently the third most popular social media platform, so it provides a huge potential audience for companies. But realizing that potential may take more effort than we’d hoped.

That’s why we’ve been investigating what best-in-class Twitter strategies look like. CEC members we’ve spoken to so far have had some interesting things to say about the evolution of their Twitter strategy and plans for the future.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

What’s the value of followers?

• CEC Hypothesis: The size of your Twitter following is not important; the degree to which your followers share your message is. Followers are a crude metric of popularity but we have an inkling that winning the Twitter game really won’t have much of anything to do with how many people click ‘follow’ on your profile. How do you value your followers? Do you have monthly objectives to increase your followership? How do you do that? Read More »

Why does Marketing seem to have all the fun with new media? Brand managers get to experiment with flashy Facebook pages and micro-sites to drive product awareness and purchase. Corporate communicators are often relegated to simply Tweeting the company’s latest financial statements.

Not all Communications teams are accepting their fates as the “corporate” voice of the company! We’ve shared solid examples from Deloitte and MoneyGram who are using Facebook to unite global audiences around the company, not just its brands. Likewise, Kraft Foods’ Company Facebook page builds connections with stakeholders by providing updates on news and global initiatives. 

We like the page because it’s working toward two main social media objectives: ‘listening’ and ‘connecting’ with stakeholders worldwide. This strategy is reflected in the design of its landing page, the choice of tabs, and rich global content.

So, what is it that makes the Kraft Foods – Corporate page ‘liked’ by its followers?

1. Defined raison d’être: Kraft Foods uses its corporate Facebook page as a common platform for all company news and global events and to listen and connect with its target audience. This distinguishes it from other Kraft Foods Facebook pages like the Kraft Recipes and Tips page which focuses on North American audiences or the Oreo page for cookie loyalists. Read More »

Dirty little (anecdotal) secret: Most CEOs don’t write their own blogs.

That’s right. Despite CEO’s best intentions to write frequently and informally, most communicators end up having to write—or heavily edit—these personal posts.

Ghostwriting your CEOs blog can be an exhausting endeavor! You have to come up with an idea, craft a post that mimics the CEO’s voice and vision, incorporate substantial edits from the CEO, make the post live, and then, wait, fingers-crossed, hoping that the post will receive enough comments or views to prove that blogging is indeed a worthy pursuit, which, of course, it may not be at all! CEC Members, visit our Leader to Employee Communication Topic Center to consider the appropriate channel for leadership communication given your objective.

CEO blogs come in a variety of audiences, intents, and styles, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the CEO blog that sits on your corporate intranet and whose main audience is employees. If you’re going to have to write the post anyway, why not write about something that will have an impact on employee performance?

Here are my top 10 questions that your CEO’s next employee-facing blog post could answer:

1. What are the strategic goals of our organization? Which ones are the most ambitious? Why?
2. Which market trends should employees pay most attention to?
3. Which key markets matter most to our company? Will those be the same ones in 2020?
4. What are the risks our company is facing? How are we mitigating them?
5. In what ways might pending government regulation in key operating regions impact our company?
6. How have people or teams from across silos of the business come together to produce amazing results?
7. How is our company building an infrastructure that enables employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively?
8. Which of our competitors do you admire most and why?
9. What publications and people do you follow to stay informed on our business and industry?

10.  What’s the most surprising customer or consumer trend you’ve seen develop over the last five years?

To be clear, I’m not advocating that your CEO spill your company’s proprietary secrets in a 500-word blog post; that just wouldn’t be smart business. What I am advocating is that your CEO shares the bigger picture trends and assumptions that most employees, who must focus on a small piece of the business, might fail to appreciate. Would you rather talk about the CEO’s upcoming marathon or newly adopted golden retriever? Read on to learn why that approach won’t move your organization forward.

Why Talking Trends Works Better than Being Personal

Read More »