Avoid channel chaos

We maintain and justify many of our life choices by subsequent rationalisations and lies. This goes for organisations' choice of communication channels as well. Sponsorships are the CEOs’ pet projects rather than the result of a communication strategy. Media deals are often an expression of well-established networks and habits rather than measurements of effect. Channel preferences often reflect the real rather than the optimal level of competence in organisations.

That’s why, in my own consulting practice, I increasingly often get questions like “Should we also be present and visible in medium X?” or “Is it better to choose medium A over medium B in this situation?” The last few years, with LEAN as a starting point, I’ve focused on enhancing the effect of communication, minimising noise and costs, and creating a healthier communication environment in organisations. Here you can read about prudent priorities for choosing communication channels.

Which social media should you choose when you post something online? The possibilities of channel selection have exploded over the past few years creating uncertainty and chaos

Technological digitalisation and political liberalisation have increased the number of channels and media, while media consumption among specific target audiences has become less predictable. Successfully navigating the maze of communication channels has similarly become more difficult. It requires, as a minimum, knowledge of the new opportunities and constraints for channel and media choice, which is in contrast to an all-too-human conservatism.

One could for example ask KForum’s users “What characterises the new platform Android 3.4 Ice Cream Sandwich MHP's communication channels?” My guess is that it is only a handful of users who can answer this question. (With Android 3.4 ICS tablets and smartphones can seamlessly communicate with each other.)

Android 3.4 ICS is just one communication tool among many. But do you know what it can do? What are its possibilities and limitations? Each choice of channel involves technical and audience-specific knowledge

Channel explosion and convergence also means that the traditional wisdom about the communications mix with just five channels (advertising, PR, personal sales, promotion and direct marketing) is obsolete. But even if you do not know the latest gadgets, and even though some models from your communications training are outdated, other models and doctrines still stand. We’ll take a closer look at those.

McLuhan-esque doctrine: the media is the message

One of the communication theory's basic axioms is that choosing the right communication channel is about creating consistency between the sender's intention (communication objectives), channel characterisation, message and audience(s).

It is however important to bear in mind that the context is created criss-cross. Earlier communications-strategy approaches typically took their starting point from the target audience alone whose needs were then used to create the basis for the message, choice of channel, etc. Or in the sender's goal of communication, their needs were then used to create the basis for target audience, choice of channel, etc. But the use of media IS in itself a sociological characteristic of the audience. “The media is the message” as McLuhan put it. McLuhan distinguished between media channels based on their ability to hold complexity and user involvement, see ‘hot media’ (e.g. radio, lectures, print – complex, low user involvement) and ‘cold media’ (e.g. television, seminars, comics – abstract high user involvement).

Doctrine: rich or lean communication?

Another way to prioritise communication channels (especially relevant for internal communication) is based on the distinction between rich and lean. A rich communication channel contains a lot of human elements like tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, physical presence and presence. The richness/leanness of a communication channel is relevant when it comes to choosing the right channel for the message.

Each communication channel has its unique strengths. Complex and emotional messages demand a rich and copious presence. Conversely, simple information can do with a thin and trimmed-down communication channel

The consequence of the distinction between rich and lean is evident in the choice of communication channel in terms of saving time and communicating efficiently. In many organisations, there are complaints of too many and too long meetings and too many emails that take time from other tasks. Meetings are good when it comes to solving problems, to brainstorm, to gather information. Meetings also have a social function although, strictly speaking, this has nothing to do with information sharing – all the other types of information can be shared better through other channels. Conversely, emails are for example quite inappropriate when a message can provoke emotional reactions or complex diagnoses. Here personal face-to-face communication is much more clear-cut.

Nor is the email the best communication channel when a quick reaction is expected. Why not pick up the phone? Finally emails are quite unsuitable for messages that have multiple stakeholders. Here it’s better to place the information on electronic bulletin boards. The best and easiest way to prioritise communication channels within the organisation is to maintain a directory of available channels and tag which channels should be used for which types of messages.

You’re in the middle of the square and have a myriad of communication channels at your disposal. How do you navigate this channel chaos? What do all the abbreviations mean? And is one solution better than the other? It's confusing to be a C-employee these days

Channel SWOT

There have been many analyses of the traditional media's strengths and weaknesses, so in the following I want to focus on digital media. The Internet is not one communication channel, but a platform for many different communication channels. Emails provide, like the phone and face-to-face communication, an opportunity for personal communications – and these potentially personal channels should rather be viewed as alternatives on a continuum.

A SWOT analysis is, as we will know, about identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a given selection of channels. The internet-based media have different strengths and weaknesses; below is a table of the channel characteristics of some of the prominent social media.

The illustration shows the pros and cons of choosing different social media types. Depending on your specific needs you can opt in and opt out of various communication channels

Below is another illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of especially WordPress blogs, Twitter, Google+, Gmail and Facebook; it shows for what different channels are most suitable.

Overview by Socialcast of how one can use the various social media

Finally, it is of course relevant to know how much the various web sites and social media are being used, that is how many users there are, how much time users spend on this media and these channels. An example of this is a new study by the Nielsen company for American users

Overview of how much time a user spends on average on different social media. This knowledge is relevant when deciding on which channel to use

The list of the ten most-visited sites will likely be different for users in different countries, although Google and Facebook probably also score high in Denmark, for example. However, what matters is not the actual web pages and channels, but the awareness that web pages and social media are used in varying degrees – just as circulation numbers and readership were crucial to ad pricing of print media. With the above-mentioned smartphone platforms like Android our distinction between computer and cell-phone media is gradually blurred. The media convergence continues, which just makes digital communication channels even more important in the overall channel picture.

The message: the content dimension

If we look closer at social media as a communication channel in organisational and market communication, a recent American study from AOL/Nielsen is interesting. The study shows that social media (especially Twitter and blogs) are quite proper communication channels when it comes to communicating the organisation’s messages. The study shows that users spend approximately a quarter of their online time communicating on social media, and that a large number of users communicate content and share brand information through the web and social media.

Twenty-three per cent of all messages in social media contain links to other sources of brand content, but only 4 per cent of content-sharing refers to organisations’ websites. Websites are an essential communication channel, but when it comes to the strategic communication of its messages through the Internet and social media, the most relevant communication channels are more likely advertising on other web pages (60 per cent) and ‘embedded content’ like a presence in online games and entertainment YouTube videos.

A survey from AOL and Nielsen which shows that corporate websites are an essential communication channel, but when it comes to the strategic communication of messages via the internet and social media, it is rather advertising on other web pages that constitute the most appropriate channels

Resources

Of course it’s not a coincidence that this article focused on digital communications channels. It is these channels that challenge our traditional approach to channel selection. It is these channels that take up more and more space, and it is through these channels that organisations communicate with their internal and external stakeholders – in parallel with the continued existence of the traditional channels.

The digital channels provide organisations with a good entry point to communicate directly with stakeholders – often even better so than traditional media. Still, one persistent positive bias towards digital media has to be overcome: although the price of contacting e.g. 1000 potential customers directly seems to be lower than for traditional media, the price of choosing digital and social media for the organisation’s communication is not less resource-demanding when taking into account the high costs of ongoing maintenance. Digital and social communication channels demand large investments in ongoing competence development and media presence. A dead blog is no better than none at all. Withering involvement in virtual social networks is worse than not getting involved at all.

Public IT projects in Denmark have, like many organisations, largely redundant intranet structures, and almost-forgotten-about virtual platforms like ‘Second Life’ have shown that building virtual platforms and digital communication channels do not inherently make organisational communication more profitable. Conversely, there is hardly any larger organisation with a bit of self-esteem that can afford not to engage in a prioritised choice of communication channels.