Top Five Communication Insights for 2008

There have been many "Top 10" lists proclaiming that they know best ways to for corporations to communicate with their target markets, but very few focus how to communicate. To help solve this problem, I have pulled a little content from each list compiling my own "Top Five Communication Trends of 2008" list. Instead of listing the most popular or innovative ways to communicate with your employees, this list focuses on helping companies understand the different mediums of communication and how to utilize them effectively.

The first four trends on this list are from HumaNext's "Top Ten Communication Trends for 2008." Some great insights from this list include:

1.) "Social Media and 2.)Web 2.00: The revolution is here. The emerging technologies of web.2 are causing a transformation in the communication profession. These technologies include the use of Blogs to communicate with employees and customers; the use of platforms like social networks and wiki to achieve sharing and collaboration, and other new tools and technologies like podcasts, video-casts, and others. But beyond the technology, Social Media demands a basic shift in the way communicators see their role and approach their stake holders."


3.) "Electronic Publications: Communicators are increasingly looking at electronic publishing to supplement or replace their print publications. Because of its significant advantages in the areas of speed and cost of delivery, electronic newsletters are used more often to communicate with customers and employees."


4.) "Content is King & Conversation is Queen: With all the changes in technologies, content remains the primary focus of communicators, and it's their main tool for informing and influencing audiences. If content is king, then conversation is queen. The organization as a conversation is an emerging area of interest to many communication executives and training professionals alike."

5.) Blogging: Blogs land at number five on my Top Communication Insights for 2008 list for many different reasons, but corporations must understand corporate blog basics before the dive in to this new world of communication, or risk failure. In May of 2008, interactive Consultant Jennifer Slegg outlined why corporate blogging is so important to a company's marketing strategy. Here are a few juicy tidbits.

"It is becoming more and more important for corporations - as well as businesses of all sizes - to have a blog in today’s world where so many people own computers. But if your business has put off starting a blog for far too long, here is why you should really be blogging, and how it can be advantageous to your overall business marketing strategy.

Human face
You don’t really want people to think of your company as “big box” or “typical corporate America”. And blogging can actually put a human face to your company, since the company now has a voice it can relate to when it reads your blog. When you consider how much money companies put into creating a human face for their business, doing it with a company blog is a relatively inexpensive way to humanize your corporation.

Controlling the message
Public Relations tends to want to run far, far away from blogs. But now, more are embracing blogs as a way to control the company’s message and how they release it. You can now have a fireside chat with your company’s CEO in the format of a blog interview, where responses can be monitored. If there is a scandal or other negative publicity surrounding your company, you already have a platform ready to release information that doesn’t involve sending press releases to the media or subjecting your CEO or other employees to a press conference.

Excitement and anticipation
Companies can easily use a blog to give hints and tidbits about new product releases or services well before the actual launch so you can get people excited about what you are going to announce before you did it. Since press releases are rarely sent to announce something your company hasn’t done yet, a blog is an easy way to get the word out and build anticipation."

As companies venture out into the ever growing "new" world of Social Media, and communications, they must understand that they have only two choices: (1) adopt and grow, or (2) ignore the new wave of communication mediums and get swept away with the tide. For more information on the topics listed in this blog, check out previous posts, and our other blogs at Internet Marketing Voodoo.

Moms: The New Target Group for Industries?

An article on AdAge today was talking about the increased demand of blogging by moms, which is a demographic that spends more than $2 trillion a year. This segment is constantly seeking information on products for themselves and their children, so this information needs to be readily available. Sites that have developed to host such blogs are SheFind, SheFindMom, BlogHer, and even Technorati has tags from parenting. BlogHer is the only site that receives a low 400 blogs, but the other blogging sites log visitors into the thousands.

Mothers are already active on such sites as AOL, a site that has been its own browser for more than a month now, and are constantly subject to advertisements and corporate names while on AOL. There are even rumors that Google is considering changing into its own browser.

Corporations are already present on these sites so it is an easy domain for them to broaden their brand. This presents a great opportunity for corporations to further their brands' identity in the consumers mind and really reach out to better serve their market.

ROWE Boosts Employee Moral...and Retention

For years we have heard that the Internet would revolutionize the way we work. While the impact of its use cannot be denied (email, research, e-commerce, and the list goes on), where we work from most has remained in the office. If anything, an argument can be made that the Internet has increased employer expectations for the number of hours employees work per week. In fact, in the five years the number of overworked Americans has increased 16%.

Best Buy has a program called the results oriented work environment (ROWE) that allows employees to work when they like as long as they get the job done. This might sound like an easy program to implement, but when you begin to think about the cultural change that this program needs to be successful, it seems daunting. I think the most important part of this article is that employees do not know whether or not they have worked more or less with the new program...they simply stopped counting.

The stress of life, work, relationships, errands, kids and even veterinarian visits can be overwhelming. If you ever read the book Getting Things Done, by David Allen, you know that the definition of work is anything occupying your mind. For most of us, separating work from personal chores and duties is impossible and, to that extent, the definition of "being professional" in the workplace is even changing with more people recognizing this fact.

I applaud Best Buy and their adaptation to the times and needs of their employees. Having a family myself, I only wish other employers would trust their employees to make responsible decisions.

Opening Up Two-Way Communication

The debate between whether or not to allow users to post comment to a corporate blog was a topic of client discussion this week. In a global organization it is a hard choice. Here are your three options with a little commentary on each:

Disable comment posting functionality: If this functionality is disabled, employee expectations might not be met because the medium will not be a true “blog.” Though this might be viewed as semantics, most employees have had personal interaction with blogs. The “look and feel” is known. Because of this, employee buy-in to the communication medium as a whole could suffer.

Allow comment posting functionality for certain posts: Allowing comment-posting functionality for certain posts is an attractive proposal if an internal resolution cannot be reached. Blog postings that might entice outlandish comment posting by users can undergo a risk assessment analysis and comment functionality can be disabled based on the results. The problem with this approach is the organization could foster an environment that could be viewed as untrustworthy. Potentially, users could ignore the communication medium out of distrust.

Allow comment posting functionality for all posts: MindComet recommends the final option because it is the best to meet employee desires and provide a true two-way communication medium. Users will not be allowed to post anonymous comments because of system restrictions that most large organizations have. Because of this, any dissenting opinions will provide more value because employees will know that their name will be known and viewable. This option will also provide the opportunity blog authors to respond to comments and have an ongoing dialogue with employees.

MindComet Pearls...of Wisdom

I had an interesting lunch with Paul Lewis and Scott Allen last week and something that was said stuck in my mind all weekend. We were discussing strategy and success metrics for a client and Paul's mantra for project development came up.

While most of us open a Word doc to develop an idea, Paul opens Keynote (or PowerPoint for an equivalent). He always thinks of how his ideas will play out in a presentation. Great strategy, though I am not sure if I can abandon my Word outline quite yet. The concept is not new-- think of the end goal and figure out how to get there. However, thinking in terms of the "presentation wow factor" is often forgotten. This strategy can be implemented not only for clients, but employee programs as well. Try it out with your communication strategies and hopefully you can kick the Word doc habit quicker than I.