I love working with organisations that are making the world a kinder place. I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years but it was in March 2011 that I took things to a more formal level by setting up a company.
To end my month of ‘birthday’ celebrations, here are my top 10 communication tips.
First tip is to remember to plan your communications so you know what you’re trying to achieve, with whom and why.
Next tip: How is your communication going to support your overall strategy? Spread awareness? Drive action? Build connections?
Tip #3: Find meaningful measures – if you’re putting in the time and effort, you might as well make sure it’s worth it.
Hint: this is easier if you took notice of tips 1 and 2
Tip #4: Content has to interest and engage them – if it’s just your vanity project, don’t be surprised if no-one takes any notice!
Halfway through our tips already: Effective communication isn’t about you, it’s about them. Find out more about them and use that knowledge to inform your comms.
Continuing the theme of putting your audience first, remember they don’t need to know which Finance team does which bit of the process – they just want to get their expenses paid, so give them information under the heading ‘Expenses’.
Next up: Make sure that you approach your audience research with an open mind about where they are coming from. To include everyone, consider all perspectives.
Tip #8: Everyone at an organisation has some responsibility for comms, whether they are line managers, back office teams, client-facing people or senior leaders. Train everyone in core communication skills.
Almost there: If you’re focussing solely on getting a blog published or a newsletter out the door, you might lose sight of what it’s all for.
And finally… Sometimes we can be so busy trying to get everything perfect, we forget that the main reason for communication is connecting with others in some way. And that should be fun.
If you would like help putting any of these tips into practice at your organisation, please get in touch for a chat about how I can help you.
Until next time
Sarah