By Mary Ellen Dowd
After the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, digital communication further cemented itself as the most effective and widely used form of professional communication. Good written communication creates credibility and avoids all the frustration and damage that comes with ineffective written communication.
The importance of understanding and adequately utilizing forms of digital communication like email, instant messaging, and social media is undeniable as we enter 2023. Here are some do’s and don’ts of digital communication that can help us write well on all mediums and better connect with our audiences.
Communication “Do”s
The most important “Do” in digital communication is to always clearly express the “so what?” of a statement. The reason why you are composing a message should be apparent and at the front end for the recipient to clearly identify.
The message itself should be brief and succinct, utilizing an inverted pyramid structure, which always leads with the bottom line and then provides details later on.
A subject line should summarize the message, not describe it. This is to say that the recipient should be able to deduce the topic of the message using only the subject line. To keep things as clear as possible, each email or message should only cover ONE topic, should be kept between 10 – 15 sentences, and should utilize bulleted/numbered lists.
All of these tips serve the overarching goal of keeping messages clear and concise.
Communication “Don’t”s
When communicating digitally, it is essential not to create messages that are too long or full of jargon. As mentioned above, the most effective emails will be between 10 and 15 sentences and will avoid run-on sentences.
All requests and action items should be presented at the beginning of a message and should not be hidden in the body.
Most importantly, written communication should not be used for emotional, sensitive, or negative messages. These conversations should always be had face-to-face or over the phone to avoid further exacerbating the issue.
Information provided by Progressive Women’s Leadership, Karla Brandau, CEO of Brandau Power Institute
By Lindsay Hull
Startups have the potential to grow quickly, but without intentional communication tactics, they can be susceptible to missteps. Knowing how to effectively communicate with all audiences – prospects, customers, team members, stakeholders, vendors, and even the media – will help ensure your tech startup stands out in a competitive business landscape.
In this blog post, we’ll explore three powerful communication tactics every startup should master to maximize their success while avoiding costly pitfalls.
Have a Clear Message
Creating clear and concise messaging for your company and product or service is essential for any startup. A strong and consistent message allows you to communicate to potential customers, investors, partners, and other stakeholders. Moreover, it should be crafted carefully over time to ensure it accurately reflects company culture. An effective message creates the overall company brand. When customers encounter your company, they should be able to understand what you do, why you do it, and how they can benefit from it in a matter of seconds.
Build a Social Media Strategy
A well-executed social media strategy is essential for any startup looking to make a name for itself in today’s digital age. It can help you connect with customers and clients, build brand awareness, and create an online presence that will set you apart from the competition. But what should go into your social media strategy?
Here are four quick tips to get you started:
- Define your social media goals
- Identify your target audience(s)
- Choose the right social media platform(s) for your business
- Create engaging content that will resonate with the target audience
Use Public Relations to Make Headlines
Public relations is an integral part of a startup’s success, as it helps to create and maintain the reputation of the organization. Through PR, you can reach your target audience and ensure your message is heard. By engaging in effective PR campaigns, startups can create trust with potential customers and establish relationships with key journalists. You can create a buzz around your company by targeting the right outlets and sending the right message.
These are three effective communications tactics that every startup should master. If you can nail these down, you’ll be in good shape to attract more attention from potential customers and investors. But don’t stop there! Keep brainstorming ways to get the word out about your company – we even cover thought leadership strategy for startups on our blog.
There are endless possibilities for marketing and public relations strategy. What other communications tactics have you used or considered using for your startup?
Why are you reading this blog post? That, I’m not really sure about.
Who are you? Why are you reading this blog post? I can take a good guess. You probably have marketing, communications or PR in your profile somewhere. Chances are, you’ve read a post on a similar subject or even read something on the Zer0 to 5ive blog before. If our readership mirrors a site such as MarketingProfs, you are likely a professional at a small or medium-sized business in North America.
How do I know this? Because we’re inside an optimization loop. It’s similar to the social media bubble of our own design that keeps the unpleasant posts of our crazy uncle out of our feed and keeps feeding us posts that we’ll like, comment and share on. The optimization loop is more automated and more invisible. Every Google search (at least 5.5 billion a day), Amazon purchase (600 items a second on Prime Day 2016), or Facebook like (500,000 a minute) is being captured and analyzed to keep us clicking, buying and engaging.
Past performance is generally regarded as a good predictor of future behavior online, so the optimization loop keeps on working to drive more clicks. For those trying to get someone to take a new action online, the loop can be hard to break into. Here are a few ideas on how you can get your message out (or your client’s message, since you’re probably from an agency!):
1) Publish Outside Your Box
When creating content for potential customers to read, it’s important to get it published in the right places and engaged with by the right people so that it leaves your brand’s loop and enters the content loops of your prospects. This can best be accomplished through contributed content to publications or blogs that serve a target audience. When it comes to Google, they will have stronger authority on the content topic, and will be more likely to make your content rise to the top of search results.
There are also ways to leverage social media to try and break into new areas (e.g. hashtags in Twitter, audience targeting in Facebook), but if your account is outside of the loop, it’s less likely to be effective. With systems like Facebook’s algorithms in place that rely on thousands of factors tied to affinity and actions around a company’s page and individual posts, having your content pushed out by a well-regarded third party is a great way to increase impressions on your message. Plus, it allows you to use your brand and personal accounts to spread that message rather than relying on self-published content, which is likely to receive fewer eyeballs.
2) Become an Expert to Your Audience
There used to be ways to fake it online without real content, but the methods employed by Google and Facebook to determine valuable content are largely driven by user behavior. Bounce rate, time on page and post engagement all matter when it comes to rankings and visibility, so time spent creating good content will pay dividends over time. By combining strong content and wider distribution, it’s possible to become an expert source for target audiences.
This emphasis on quality carries over to email marketing as well. Gmail and other services increasingly monitor user engagement to determine if an email will be delivered. They examine behaviors at a macro (sending account) and micro (individual email) level to build reputation scores, so if your emails are ignored for being of little value (let alone marked as spam or unsubscribed), it’s going to keep your content from being seen.
3) Understand the System
It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes being made by the big online platforms. Keeping up with what’s working on Google and updating your content and communications strategy on an ongoing basis to match can pay big dividends. Factors go beyond content too. For example, if web pages are slow loading, not mobile friendly, or not protected with SSL encryption, there can be penalties from Google because your site is not providing a good, secure user experience.
There’s also a degree of “follow the money” that smart users can capitalize on. If Facebook wants to push Facebook Live video to users to increase its popularity, it would be wise for you to use it and break through the walls that the algorithms put up. Being aware of best practices and using them to influence your communications strategy can create a lasting competitive advantage, as the optimization loop only gets stronger in your favor.
By: Bob Minkus, Director