For this week’s blog I asked on my Twitter and LinkedIn pages for practical tips for communicators in a hurry. The results cover a wide range of areas, from planning and strategy to intranet and message suggestions.
I particularly like the ideas in relation to sign-off, an area that can easily slow us down as communicators!
1. Be clear and intentional – about what you want people to do, what you want people to know, and how you want people to feel.
2. Know who your audience(s) is/are.
3. Planning is key – make sure the thinking happens before you actually want to communicate.
4. Listen first….communicate later!
5. Eliminate superfluous words relentlessly, use subheadings liberally and complement with good design.
6. Don’t let people sign off your comms for style and word choice unless their name is at the bottom. And only allow them to feedback on content or accuracy if they contributed to the piece in the first place.
7. Make sure your intranet has governance, content standards and, most importantly, training for authors.
8. Carry out pulse surveys to check your channels are relevant to – and being used by – your audience.
9. Make sure it’s quick and easy to produce content for your channels – too time-consuming and people won’t bother.
10. Brevity and clear call to action are key for any message, otherwise we risk disengagement with a war and peace type of message.
Bonus tip!
11. Limit links in any message to two or less.
What are the practical tips that you would add to this list? How have you been making things easier for yourself this year?
If you would like help with identifying practical ways to improve communications at your organisation, please do drop me an email or give me a call.
Until next time
Sarah