How to assess your communications channels

It’s very easy to say, “oh we use email to reach staff,” or “everyone uses our intranet” and the ubiquitous “just send a press release.” However, every organization that owns and operates (O&O) its own channels, such as social media pages, intranets, websites, community events, and press releases, don’t always consider how they are using them effectively, if at all. Where paid media is carefully scrutinised and analysed before budgets are spent on huge campaigns, we also need to do the same level of analysis with O&O channels.

?Stakeholders

It’s not difficult to visualise all of them to create a map when looking at what channels you have available. For starters, who are the stakeholders your channel reaches? These can be immediately split into internal stakeholders (your staff, contractors and management) and external stakeholders (customers, media, society, suppliers, partners, financial institutions and government being other usual subcategories).

?This is the most obvious category but is frequently overlooked. If you’re sending out a press release, have you also sent out communications to all the other stakeholders who might be interested, such as your staff, financial institutions who have a vested interest in you, and that your website itself also may need to be updated to ensure you are being consistent in your communications. There’s nothing worse than posting a press release, updating it in your news media section but also forgetting to ensure that the website content isn’t out of date. You might be launching a new product in the press release and fail to have the information and details listed about it in the website.

?Formality and Informality

Formal and informal communications are completely different. There’s a big difference between a formal invitation to an event by email and sending a text message to a colleague to ask if they’re free to join an event you’re organising. Channels are predisposed towards one or the other but aren’t necessarily exclusive. Formal communications have a more professional and respectful tone – which is why email can be considered more formal – whereas text and Whatsapp messages can be much more relaxed, friendly, and casual in nature.

?Why should this matter? Because you need to consider different requirements for the structure and language used in each channel. After Donald Trump was pictured pretending to serve fast food in a McDonald’s, the social media posts by McDonald’s afterwards were very tongue-in-cheek while other organisations have been very formal on website when dealing with political situations that might require a more serious tone of voice. Choose wisely.

?Frequency

Do you send lots of messages on some channels and less on others? Is your content dynamic in nature – subject to frequent updates and changes --? or static – unlikely to change – if at all? You need to consider whether that important message you send on a messaging app might get lost among all the others or that channels rarely used need to contain more powerful messages rather than general details. Consider CEO and leadership communications to external and internal stakeholders needs to be about important issues – such as when Bill Gates wrote to all Microsoft staff about how Trustworthy Computing was the new phrase there to ensure that the company delivered better and more reliable products and services.

?Media-richness

It’s worth considering that sometimes words are not enough when a picture can paint a thousand of them. You can attach a video with an email but can it compare to a video presentation with sound effects and video graphics showing your messages? You can measure how much media you sometimes might want to have in your channels and use this to plan the content for your communications campaign accordingly.

?Channel Risks

- Overload

Every channel can help but sometimes can also hinder good communications. If you are using one channel to repeat instructions or constantly request replies, the people who read them will become desensitised to them – this is known as ‘the nag effect’ and you can damage how people perceive you and even worse, reduce the reputation of your organisation.

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- Distortion

Can your channel carry incorrect information, or does it have a reputation for carrying misinformation or inaccurate details? There’s nothing worse than using a channel that won’t be received well by your intended audience. They might not even be possible to fix in the short term. Some channels, such as social media, ?can be subject to unintended distortion when matched against different stakeholder groups – especially from other cultures, regions and linguistic groups. Good localisation work can prevent this, but it’s important to keep it in mind, especially with multilingual campaigns.

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- Ambiguity

Does your channel lend itself to double or multiple meanings? This can be more prevalent in channels that are media-poor or have limited character texts. Don’t use these for long complicated messages because trying to reduce the wordcount to simplify the message can mean you lose its focus.

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Feedback

Last but not least, can your intended audience reply to what you send? You should always keep in mind that if people are happy or unhappy, you want to know about it, and if they don’t understand – then you definitely need to clarify their questions and give them the answers they need. After all, any communication is good communication, because it shows your stakeholders are paying attention to you.

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Just remember that feedback channels are essential in any communications campaign. You need to know what people think, whether they have positive or negative sentiments about your messages and what the views of other influencers and third parties are. Sometimes even sending a like to this post let’s me know you appreciate it, especially if you read this all the way through… ??

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