Communicators are influencers within and outside the system

“Personal brand shouldn’t transcend the business brand.”

“Every gadget is a potential reporter.”

"Public Relations has to serve a business purpose and Marketing has to yield financial results."

Reviewing my notes, while leaving the Delhi airport, these statements made by stalwarts in the Media & Communications industry at the Strat Comm 2018- The Strategic Corporate Communications & PR Summit has stuck to my head.

Every New Year, apart from setting achievable resolutions both in personal and professional front. We are also excited about trends, predictions which will be predominant in that year. 2018, has been coined as ‘The Year of Digital Distruption’ and before I share my learnings about the Summit. Let’s take a quick glance of 2018 trend alerts, the below framework has been designed after analyzing varied factors and predictions suggested by industry practitioners.

                                       2018 Trends, Image Courtesy- Anuradda Banerjii

In a nutshell, videos will be the king with mobile ads as the queen and influencer marketing as the driver. As most of our communications are targeted for the ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Mobile-first generation’ ephemeral or fleeting content attracts and engages with these set of technology loving audience.

Here are my key-takeaways:

The Art of Storytelling- Marketing story can do wonders if it’s business relevant, connects with the brand and has an emotional angle which appeals to the masses. Now is the time to create and share stories from the ground, which are Search Engine Optimized (SEO) as they are key repositories for building your company’s content strategy.

Role of Communicators- As they say ‘You can’t demand respect, you need to earn it’ similarly, communicators need to evolve from being a Support function to a Strategic partner. I am sharing few transformational changes that we all must be aware and practice in our career:

• Focus on business outcome which is an important aspect to build credibility within the organization
• Build effective stakeholder relationship and device solutions based on the business problem
• Advice stakeholders on enhancing their written communication, but the essence of the message should come from the stakeholder
• Be a strategic adviser during company events by suggesting the best marketing practices, but do not act as event managers 
• At many instances, saying ‘NO’ earns more credibility than saying ‘Yes’

PESO Model- Paid Earned Shared Owned 

Image Courtesy-PR Week

Paid: As the name suggests, money is paid to position the message and control distribution; for example, Facebook sponsored posts, tweets.

Earned: The coverage of an organization published by reliable third party source as journalist, blogger or subject matter expert.

Shared: Social media outreach through shares, comments, retweets that amplifies the message.

Owned: Editorial messages, employee blogs, organization stories, which are created by a team of content writers.

Organizations need to adopt and balance the PESO framework as a part of the content marketing strategy. As each media be it, lead generation through Facebook posts or a Thought leadership article on the recent technological advancement has its shelf life and unique importance.

Crisis Management-

• A robust digital safety net safeguards during unforeseen crises
• Communication initiatives need to encourage storytelling in the organization
• Coach employees’ the way they should conduct themselves during such situations

Digital PR- Digital PR is a fascinating concept, as its Earned Social Media, which is omnipresent. Digital PR is a combination of online and offline space, as they perfectly complement each other. The content strategy here is make optimum use of bloggers, social media influencers and employees’ as brand ambassadors. These resources act as Share of Voice (SOV) for the brand.

Every brand is a story and we as communicators must make it legendary!