Everyday Online Communication

We, humans, communicate every day. Communication is the way one creature interacts with other creatures. Sometimes it is limited to the same being and sometimes it travels through races, cultures, religions and, other discriminating values. Hence effective communication is very important. According to a very popular Indian saying- “An Arrow from bow and words from our mouth can never be taken back, once released.”

Emphasizing on the importance of quality communication, I would like to share my understanding of the art of communication and how it impacts the field I work in. First of all, in just a sentence- I work as a marketer. Hence communicating with the world is what I do & I love it.

I divide content based communication into three parts:

1. Ideation
2. Presenting
3. Confirming

Let us take each topic, one by one.

First is Ideating. However small and insignificant our communication might be, for eg: a joke around our friends, one always has to think about the idea of communicating the joke. A joke being told has a purpose and its purpose is associated with its delivery/presentation. Hence one has to consider elements such as the mood of the group, the personalities of the people, the topic already in discussion etc. Our mind processes most of this within a short span of time. The short span of time is the gap between you getting the idea to tell a particular joke & you starting it. You do all the aforementioned assessments within the gap.

Now, let us talk about this in the context of a business communicating with its prospects and customers through social media. 140 characters can make a brand visible and vice versa. Hence, I suggest that the following should be considered during the ideating phase for a particular communication:

1. Define the purpose of communication.
2. Decide the target audience for it.
3. Realize the kind of tone you wish to use and the one which should be used.
4. Write a brief.

A brief is a document that is very useful. It contains all the aforementioned things and more.

I use the following format:

1. Target Audience: Define the segment of people you want your content to reach out to.
2. Message: In a line or 2, describe what message should the viewer get from the content.
3. Ideas: This is an open space and one can use it for jotting down various ideas which you find relevant for presentation.
4. Action: Define the action you want people to take after going through your content.

One can add other points to the format and include themes/topics to get better clarity on your communication.

Second is Presentation: This is when you focus on creating the content. You have a lot of ideas, so you start with putting them in an order. You bring a flow to it. A flow easy for any member of your TA to sync with. Then you create your first draft. It is important to create the first draft in one go. Once you prepare the first draft you go for the first revision. This is for you to check if your flow is right or not? & Is your content in sync with the brief? You edit your first draft to create another draft and then you have another revision. I usually go for 3 drafts to come to my final draft. Almost all the time even after I am done with my final draft too, I find a few things that I would like to change but if I keep changing and never communicate, the purpose of the content will never be achieved and hence my 4th draft is when I am confident to go online with the content.

After Presentation comes confirming: In a simple context, confirming is like hearing the laughs of people who heard your joke. You know you did well when they all laugh and you know it is a ‘PJ’ when you are thrashed. In digital communication, there are various parameters which can be recorded and measured to gather info on the reaction- for eg, reach of your post, likes & reactions, re-tweets, shares etc. There are so many data sets available now that marketing is no more a hit and trail game. It is a data guided process which makes our efficiency measurable and results achievable.