Choose Your Channels With Care

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Created on Monday, 12 December 2011 21:13

By Jens Thomsen, Impact Brussels

Do you sometimes stress over the wide range of communications channels that you could use in your organisational or corporate communications?

You shouldn't and here's why: Communication is not about using every single channel available out there, it's about reaching your audience so they get your message. So start by considering where your audience is and how to best reach them then determine the best communications channel to use. You should only stress out if you fail to reach your audience.

If you're anything like me you don't want to be carpet bombed by organisations who try to reach you through all available channels or simply want to prove to the world that they are capable of using the latest shiny thing in digital media. There is currently a tendency for organisations and companies to explore and exploit digital media to its very limits and sometimes beyond, and often the result is irrelevant and ill-targeted communications.

Consistency is key

One of the greatest challenges in communications – in particular in small organisations - is really not about channels, but about consistency. You need to be consistent for your communications to be effective, and being consistent through a wide range of channels is much harder than working through a few well-chosen channels.

So how do we pick the channels that are most suitable for our activities and our audience? First of all we take a close look at our audience. When and where can we best reach them? At work or at home, and how much time do they have for us? We should also know their demographics and their geographical characteristics.

When you've collected this information your choice of channels would normally be a compromise of what you want to achieve in terms of communications impact and the resources you have at your disposal.

Tread carefully here. Setting up digital communications channels, especially social media platforms, is easy and cheap. Using them however can be expensive as social media requires interaction with your audience and this can be very time consuming.

A website is often the most effective backbone for communications activities in small organisations. On a website you can aggregate information that's useful to your audience in a cost-efficient way.

But there is a downside to using a website as your communications hub. Technically speaking a website is a communications channel, but it's not a stream that distributes information. It's more like a pond full of information, and for this information to become useful, you must lead your audience to your site in order for them to access your information.

Help people find your site

So if a website is your communications hub, a key purpose of your external communications activities would be to help people find your site. To achieve this you can use:

Email and email newsletters

Social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Youtube

Audio/video

Physical material such as letters and brochures

Events - physical or virtual

Mass media

The beauty of digital media is that everything can be integrated. You can add video and audio to your website, your emails, newsletters and social media platforms. More importantly, you can build a system of digital channels focusing mainly on leading your audience to your website.

It's not very efficient to have a website, a Twitter account and a Facebook Page if you only use them individually to distribute information. You should link them together so they serve a collective purpose: Leading your audience to your communications hub.

While email and email newsletters are ideal as a means for consistently distributing detailed information and referring your audience to your website for further information or services, social media can be effective in creating attention.

Again, consistency is key. If for example you use Twitter inconsistently, you will have very few followers and you'll effectively be tweeting into a void. If, on the other hand, you build a group of followers through a consistent level of activity and quality of information, you'll be able to direct this audience to your website where you can educate them about your activities or services.

Paper can still be effective

Do not shy away from using good old analogue means of communications. Brochures can be very effective for your communications if they work for your audience, and by using paper you may be able to stand out because most organisations have taken the digital route to communications. Brochures can be useful if your audience is local and perhaps not frequent users of computers. However, letters and brochures are obviously more expensive than digital communications.

Be aware that social media platforms were not created for the facilitation of organisational and corporate communications. They are social networks, and if you are seen as abusing the access to private individuals that these networks can provide you with, you'll not only damage your reputation but also risk having your accounts banned.

Business pages such as Facebook Pages on the other hand are designed with commercial or political activities in mind, and Twitter is fine as long as you don't promote or try to sell products or services. There is currently a lot of hype about what social media can do for your business or organisation. Do not buy it all! Always pick your communications channels with a view to cost and efficiency.

The last thing you want is to be reaching out to the whole world. It's way too expensive and most people probably don't care about your organisation anyway. Use the channels that are best suited for a targeted approach to your audience.

Even if your audience were only reachable through handwritten letters distributed by postal service, then by all means write the letters and save your money on digital channels. Beware of cramps in your hands and arms though.