Optimising digital communication processes

Greater effectiveness in using digital communication

The ever growing use of digitalisation in the working environment offers new and comprehensive opportunities for company communication: instruments such as communications controlling, electronic tracking management and internet governance are drastically changing the focus of a forward-looking communications policy. Digital communication offers far-reaching insights that can be used in communications planning. You can obtain an overview of the impact, reach and degree of effectiveness of your digital communication with the aid of data already available.

Involvement through interaction

Effective digital corporate communication geared to the needs of the recipients and readers uses many channels and platforms by linking them with each other. The bedrock is the internet presence of a company. Anyone who is interested can obtain comprehensive information on a company, such as services, products, branches and events. This can be accompanied with publications in social media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing and Twitter. In the communications strategy framework such social media attract attention to the content and topics on a company’s website. Potential readers interested in what a company has to offer will be guided directly to the company’s relevant content. Links embedded on a website enable quick and direct access to such content. The objectives of combining topics offered on the website and with social media communication are to reach as many readers of any respective target group as possible, to give content a broad reach and to reduce scatter loss, to be more efficient, to increase brand awareness, and to arouse interest in what the company has to offer. 

A prerequisite for an effective communications strategy is good planning and suitable communications controlling. Here are some relevant questions for honing controlling to a company’s objectives:

• Are you reaching the relevant target group? (reach)
• Which communication recipients have you identified? (stratification)
• What is the degree of effectiveness? (active readers)
• How high is content awareness and how intensive is it? (effective and engaged)
• How effective is your digital communication in comparison to that of your competitors? (benchmark)
• Which measurable control parameters are monitored? (monitoring)

You can obtain the answers to these questions through a holistic analysis of your digital communication by means of predictive analytical methods and by applying statistical methods. They allow you to define and to implement and to optimise your digital communication in view of:

• Selecting communications channels
• Optimising communication frequency and topics
• Increasing reach and degree of effectiveness (involvement)
• Enhancing transparency for monitoring relevant control parameters

A digital communication analysis is limited to objectives related to the areas selected or it generates a broad overview and/or improves it. Based on the transparency gained, decisions can be made on how to optimise your company’s digital strategy. The result: the degree of effectiveness is increased and related costs are lowered. 

An analysis of digital communication can also be expanded to internet activities and users’ reading habits in the respective subject area. The total picture of users‘ behaviour on, preferences for and reactions to digital communication in the subject environment can be obtained by measuring the related key performance indicators (KPI). The benefit: this analysis reveals opportunities for offering topics users are interested in and the type of communication they actually use. Such an analysis serves as the foundation for overcoming information overload. Instead, you can begin a dialogue with your customers with topics of interest geared to them in the future.

Your company on social media

Not only our working world is becoming more “social” and more „cooperative” (sharepoints, enterprise social networks, online supply chain management, shared documents, and web-based applications), employees are also increasingly becoming more “social”. They take their work home with them by using flexitime working models and bring their private lives to work. Employees become ambassadors of a company’s brand not only through the Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn social networks, but also through blogs and forums.

By having a company presented in real time by a recording in digital communications channels, positive as well as negative content and information about a company are shown to the digital public. What content do employees, former employees or potential employees share? What values are thereby associated with the company? 

How is a company’s image and reputation or its products reflected on the internet? Brand awareness and how companies are perceived increasingly correspond to what consumers and recipients say about them in the digital world. Communication has become the centrepiece of the brand and its reputation.

The results of a target analysis are a clear mission statement and deriving measures for achieving objectives. A joint digital code of ethics and internet or social media governance are prerequisites for steering employee participation. Employees can be involved in developing both of these guidelines.

Risks of social media communication

Do you know what your employees are communicating about your company on social networks? What risks do they expose your company to? Do you have a policy? If so, how is it practiced?

Owing to the reach of social media, dealing with negative or critical content is enormously valuable. To handle this well, the first step is, however, to identify critical content. Then a gap analysis reveals possible weaknesses or menacing leaks. The final step is to define effective countermeasures and to develop a strategy tailored to your company’s communications objectives.

Conclusion

Analysing your digital communication enhances transparency and increases effectiveness. It makes it possible for you to:

• define digital strategy with clear objectives and to derive measures for its implementation,
• identify topics and multipliers as well as related platforms,
• position the company in accordance with benchmarks and
• use best practices as an orientation.

By optimising a company’s own digital communications strategy, a company can improve its image and reputation and that of its products or services while ensuring security for all.