
What communication channels are right for your business? Which are the most popular? How can we get our communications and messages to stakeholders and followers? These are questions we are often asked here at Comnicate.
As a result we investigated the digital media approach for a wide range of organisations worldwide, and it is clear that there are four (4) popular communications channels used by businesses. They are the Company Online Newsroom, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Let us consider each of these channels and the benefits of each.
Company Online Newsroom
The Online Newsroom was originally deployed by major companies like IBM, BMW, SONY etc. and is now used by medium to large businesses alike. It is usually found on a company’s website under a menu button called ‘News’. The Newroom is the place where businesses can ‘aggregate and then send’ all media communications to journalists, stakeholders, and social media channels. The better newsrooms include a library where documents, photos, videos and podcasts can be found.
Online Newsroom benefits include:
- Company press releases and news announcements are easily distributed. Newsrooms drive greater traffic to the main company website, and thereby increases SEO.
- Provides news distribution via social media sites, RSS feeds, Email, and direct download. Shows that the business is serious about communicating its news.
- Other capabilities include Crisis Management, Industry News Re-Broadcasting for thought leadership, news tracking, and more.
- Provides links to the Stock Exchange, News Distribution Services and similar gateways.
Negatives – Online Newsrooms are more for medium and large businesses as they needs to be kept up to date with fresh content.
Facebook
Facebook is a social website which allows people to find and communicate with friends, share photographs and compare likes and dislikes. It is the most popular social media site in the world today. It is ideal for B2C businesses to communicate with customers and is popular with local businesses. It can also be used for paid advertising to promote the company products and service.
Facebook benefits include:
- Facebookers can share their interests and thereby promote a company’s products and services.
- Very good as a fan page for businesses where this is useful, allowing discussions and comments by followers.
- Can be used for gauging feedback and opinions from customers, and to share that information with others.
- Can be used as atoolfor driving promotions, polls, competitions.
- Allows paid advertising of a businesses products orservicesto consumers.
Negatives – It is less suited to B2B companies, its embedded advertising can detract, and there are continuing concerns about privacy.
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters. It is successfully being used as a pure commentary platform. It is a great tool to use to show the human side of your company. Twitter is also useful for opinion polls, and as a back channel talk-tool at events to feed and collate questions to speakers.
Twitter benefits include:
- To provide customer service information to customers, and communicating with the public.
- Providing answers to specific company products and services.
- As a listening tool to hear what others are saying about your company, and competitors.
- Raising the profile of key staff members, and as a beneficial consequence, raising your company profile.
- Excellent calling card to increase an executives’ one-on-one connections and to open doors to new relationships.
Negatives – More of a specialised communications tool, limited capabilities of 140 character messages, not a fully-featured communications platform.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a large professional network that connects business people to other business people. By linking together professional people, it provides useful information about companies. In that respect it is a great tool for finding information about people and companies. It is an excellent networking tool. It is less effective in helping businesses to promote their products and services.
LinkedIn benefits include:
- To help executives and team members increase their connections, and lift their professional profile.
- A tool to advertise your company jobs.
- Useful to learn about your competitors organisational structure.
- Has an excellent ‘Groups’ capability where people can share information, dialogue, and learn from other professionals.
Negatives – Can give competitors an insight into your personnel and company structure. Seen as a weak business communications tool.
Google+
Google+ is a new player and the obvious question is where does it fit in?
It is expected that Google+ will be a successful social media tool in the future, although it still needs development to get the ‘user experience’ right. Google+ Pages is meant for use by business and at this time appears more for B2C. Its ultimate value as a business communications tool is still to be determined.
Adoption rates of Google+ have been moderate, as most people are already experiencing social media overload with their existing platforms, and the idea of learning another social media platform is causing some resistance. Also the existing social media competitors are fighting back aggressively, and Apple, IBM and Microsoft are also trying to undermine Google’s drive in the marketplace. Consequently Google+ may take longer to become entrenched, and its ability to erode market share away from the competition will be interesting to watch.
Summary
So which of these channels should you use for your business? This question is really business specific and difficult to answer without analysing your business environment and future needs. However, the sooner you start to use these communications resources the better off your company will be. As per the adage, the sooner your company sows the seeds, the sooner your company will reap the rewards. So do not delay. If necessary – seek outside help – but do not let your competitors gain a tactical advantage.
About Comnicate – Comnicate Media provides Online Newsrooms with full social media integration. So regardless of the communications channels that you decide to use for your business, our Online Newsroom called NewCentre will automatically populate all your communications channels – and in just one-click.