This week's discussion circles around the
importance of strategic communication planning. Argenti, Howell and Beck define
strategic communication as communication aligned with the company's overall strategy, to
enhance its strategic positioning. Dennis Moynihan, Chief of Information for the U.S. Navy, seconds
that notion by stating, "When planning to use social media you should
first consider how social media fits into your overall communication strategy.
Your approach to social media should be complementary to your other
communication efforts." I too believe that a company's communication
strategy should link back to the company's overall strategy; if not then what
are you really communicating to your publics? With consumers becoming harder to
reach by the old ways of marketing and with the increase in consumer social
media usage, the importance of integration is more important now than ever. To
ensure strategic integration across platforms companies need to develop plans.
I say plans as plural because there need to be several different plans,
short-term, medium-term, and long-term.
As a public relations practitioner my team and I
would create calendars based off of our clients marketing calendars. These
calendars would span for the entire year and would break down by each month and
then each week. Monthly plans would tie together with new product launches as
well as events that occur that month for example, February we all know is
Valentine's Day so we would plan outreach geared towards Valentine's Day at
least three months ahead to secure timely placement in the media. On a weekly
(short-term) level we would plan the content of our social media Tweets and
Facebook status updates etc. Short-term planning also included being abreast of
what was happening in the news which would include things such as, ‘How to
achieve looks from last night’s episode of Mad Men’, or ‘Avoid looking like an
Umpa Lumpa like Lindsey Lohan and use this sunless tanning product’. Without a
strategic communication plan you run the risk of things being left on the
table, missed opportunities.
Kevin Rollins, CEO of Dell, says, “You have to modify messages by constituency.
Which elements of the overall strategy do you want to discuss with which
constituent? The communication function breaks strategy into pieces and sells
the right pieces to the right audiences.”
Once the company has established its overall strategy then it can
determine what to communicate to its marketers, its employees, the media, etc;
while still delivering a cohesive and integrated message.
Resources
Argenti,
P., Howell, R., & Beck, K. (2005). The strategic communication
imperative. Retrieved from https://www.dartmouth.edu/~opa/communicators/fall08/reading/Sloan_MIT_Strat_Comm_Imp.pdf
Moynihan,
D. (2011, July 25). Social media handbook for navy paos. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/USNavySocialMedia/sm-handbook-print
