When Tsunamis hit, you can’t choose to avoid the wave. Some things in life are simply bigger than us all, and they sweep us away with their power and revolutionary force. The ever growing Digital Age has created a communication Tsunami far greater than you or I could have imagined.
Be where your customers are
No one involved in business or society is immune from the overwhelming effects of this communication revolution. Increasingly, day by day, social media, technology and increased access to information put us all on a communication super highway where our individual communication skills are tested and determine whether we sink or succeed.
Our customers are increasingly being found online and they are demanding that companies to be digital too. Our lives have become intrinsically connected to the web, mobile phones, through apps and social media.
The social media itself is becoming increasingly more decentralised, forming a more holistic ‘honeycomb’ interactive pattern, where company employees are socially enabled and have access to a company’s social networks. What is emerging is that social media is becoming integrated into the whole organisation.
Owning brands
Ownership is becoming more spread and social media is becoming a tool for corporate conversation, and not merely a marketing, PR and client service channel. Progressive companies are becoming proactive and are making sure that their employees are trained up to be cyber-brand ambassadors.
There are indeed great risks in socialising your enterprise. It requires relinquishing control of your brand story, and trusting non-traditional marketers to represent your brand, while risking the possibility of inconsistent brand messaging.
For HR and communications departments, it is presently becoming increasingly vital to empower and train up all employees to skill them to communicate the different key brand messages of the company, while promoting company values and core marketing messages.
Everyone’s an ambassador
On a more serious note, companies will in the near future also be starting to rethink their hiring criteria, insisting on excellent communication and writing skills, making sure that future employees will shine on cyber stages. Companies and organisations will be requiring their employees to be skilled like journalists with the ability to create well-written content and curate stories around their brand.
As a cyber-communicator and entrepreneur you need to think of your content in terms of newsworthiness. You need to offer value and pin-point client needs. Think of all your possible cyber audiences, and not just the media.
The new cyber communication world will continue to confuse and terrify many cyber citizens over the next few years as we transit out of our old traditional ways of communicating. One thing is for certain: The Digital Age is compelling all cyber citizens to upgrade their communication skills if they want to survive, be hired and succeed.