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John Franklin (L) and Robbie Goffin (R) co-authored this article.It’s hard to believe there was once a time when corporate communication departments balked at creating a company website. Back in the dial-up days (and even earlier), the idea of sharing corporate news on an always-on, consumer-facing electronic platform would have been considered a dubious use of resources. You want to know about company doings? We’ll mail you the sales and marketing reports.
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The world has come a long way since then. Today, a company without a corporate website essentially doesn’t exist. And yet, many Corp. Comm. departments still drag their feet when it comes to fully embracing the digital era. At a time when multiple social media channels and platforms offer the ability to steer reputation and reach mass audiences, some corporations still cling to old-school methods like static websites and yes, even, press releases. That raises a simple question; Why?
It’s time for Corporate Communications to take a page or two — or three — from both their sales and marketing departments and join the digital age.
Wealth of platforms
Over the past ten years or so, social media platforms YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have become standard communication tools for sales and marketing, as well as customer service, to engage with the public. By one estimate, about 88% of companies in the U.S. make use of social media for marketing purposes.
More recently, Snapchat, the multimedia-messaging app in which images disappear shortly after being received, has exploded in popularity and emerged as a legitimate delivery tool as well. It has more than 100 million daily active users, and played a key role in candidate messaging during the just completed U.S. Presidential campaign season.
Social media allows companies to communicate directly with consumers and clients instantly in a variety of content styles — all at the same time. Want to shout out to investors about quarterly earnings? Twitter’s 140 characters is a good choice. Share a clip of the CEO ringing the opening bell on the NASDAQ? Try a Facebook Live video feed. In each case, companies can use the medium to draw users to a full story — which is well suited for another, sometimes overlooked publishing platform — the corporate website.
Social media serves an audience hungry for information anytime, anywhere. It increases the opportunity for more frequent communication, and it breaks Corp. Comms. out of the outmoded one-way broadcast street left over from the press release era. It opens up a two-way dialogue — something engaged social media users expect.
A case of the nerves
What’s holding Corp. Comms. back from hitting the send button more often? For one thing, there is the seeming complexity of a true omni-channel model. As companies contemplate making greater use of the various platforms, the number of decisions surrounding the quality and frequency of messaging can be overwhelming. It’s easy to get caught up in debating what company presence should look and sound like on a short-burst, daily feed like Twitter, a thought-leadership platform like LinkedIn, and an image-heavy, self-destructing messaging app like Snapchat. Designating tone of voice across each can be a challenge.
Then there’s the risk of broadcasting to a public that devours information and responds as it sees fit. Putting information out requires a certain letting go of control. The casualty list of brands that suffered a torrid backlash after either misreading their audiences or failing to think through messaging is long — and intimidating. Preserving reputation, or having to restore it, is a legitimate concern.
Medium is the message
A thorough grasp of the risks involved should not continue to deter Corp. Comms. from participating in the world as it is versus the world they would prefer. It’s true that managing corporate reputation — or more precisely, commercial influence — across the vast array of media and social channels, online and off, is tricky, especially when you consider the speed at which news breaks and accessibility to the public. But huge divisions of many companies already do it very well. There’s no longer any great reason for the most visible “face” of an organization — and the source of that organization’s responsibilities when it comes to policies, capital allocation, legal liability, governance and management — to be virtually off the grid and frozen.
At a time when a company’s success or failure can hinge on public perception, getting social media right is essential. Being smart and strategic upfront is the starting point — and defining a set of key digital and content competencies aimed at the responsibilities above, as opposed to just products and service, is the second step.
Knowing who your audience is and how competitors use the medium and the wins and missteps they’ve experienced is enlightening. Centralizing decision-making and bringing on a social media expert if needed can help navigate a landscape that lives on speed and iteration. Adapt and adopt are industry bywords for staying fresh.
Variety is the spice of social media, as well. Going beyond press information and publishing narratives about the company that engage visitors emotionally is key. Along those lines, video storytelling is growing quickly and works well not only on a company YouTube channel, but also as an embedded asset on a corporate website. Finally, variety includes regular publishing that keeps consumers coming back for more. Long gone are the days of the static website. Those who stand still will be left behind.
Caution is understandable in the rapidly shifting digital frontier. But Corporate Communication departments that think of the medium as the message open the door to new possibilities. By exploding their stories out into the world and scattering the breadcrumbs among the various platforms, corporate communications provides a trail for consumers to follow back to their website. And that is good for business.
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John Franklin is a Managing Director and Sector Head of TMT (Technology, Media, Telecommunications) in the Strategic Communications segment at FTI Consulting. He is also a contributor to FTI Journal. Robbie Goffin is a Managing Director in Strategic Communications at FTI Consulting.
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