PRWeek Global Thinktank | Global Digital Views

08/11/2011

What is the key to effective digital communications?

Local expertise

In today's multichannel world, we cannot expect to communicate with our audience through just one channel. As more and more people view the world through the filter of social media we have to think carefully about how to build a presence there.

It is a fresh challenge and the simple fact is that there is no silver bullet, no one “right” answer to digital communications. As with so much of our communications work we set principles and standards, but also rely very much on the local expertise of our subsidiaries to land the right strategies and tactics. If they tell us that no one in their country uses a certain social media property, then we look to them to evaluate the most compelling ways to reach their desired audiences, and engage in ongoing dialogue appropriately with those audiences. As a company we're learning every day about digital communications, experimenting, sharing best practices, standardising and publishing guidelines when it makes sense, understanding return on investment and evaluating measurement techniques.

Above all else it is important to remember that digital media is a channel and using it is a tactic. Your starting point should always be a deep understanding of your audiences, who influences them, what stories will be impactful and how they'll consumer the information. Classic communications strategy and logic still applies – even in the new world of digital and social media!

Story-telling

To a large extent digital word-of-mouth is about storytelling. It is storytelling in a multi-media way whilst at the same time asking for people to respond or react to your story. The old trick of telling a story in an attractive way doesn't change; all that has changed is the platform on which your stories are told.

The YouTube SpaceLab is a perfect example of this. Lenovo has recently teamed up with YouTube on a worldwide initiative that challenges 14-18 year-old students to design a science experiment that can be performed in space. The two winning experiments will be conducted aboard the International Space Station and streamed live on YouTube.

We have lined up a prestigious panel of scientists, astronauts and educators, including Professor Stephen Hawking and former astronaut Leland Melvin but in the end, it is the content that will drive people to participate or to watch online. This is also a great example in how we are walking the talk of being ‘For Those Who Do'.

Content and contact

Successful online PR is about content and contact strategy. Before anything else you have to ensure you are on point. You must always be saying something that is relevant to your audience.

To be frank we have not nailed it yet. It is a work in progress, but we work hard at it, and I believe we are improving fast.

We are trying to produce content that resonates with people at certain moments. For example, if someone is bored at work they might look at a video we have embedded in a blog or tweeted.

The other aspect to online PR is making sure you are there in the conversations. Those conversations about our brand are taking place and it is up to us to decide whether or not we want to be a part of them. Our experience is that if you are involved in a conversation it is quite amazing how much you can affect it.

Enabling basic human desires

If I knew the answer to this question, I'd be sipping a daiquiri on my private island in the Bahamas, debating whether to take my yacht for a spin or use the helicopter. Instead, I'm sitting in an office in Hong Kong, with deadlines mounting and pondering whether to go for a third coffee or have a Red Bull.

In reality, there's no one key to effective digital communications, just as there's no one key to being an effective human being. We're complicated. We speak more than 6,500 languages. We come from around 196 countries. And there are seven billion of us, each having up to 50,000 thoughts per day.

And yes, digital makes communications more complicated. But communication has always been about sociology over technology. Sure, significant advancements in technology such as the Gutenberg printing press and Web 2.0 have made a massive difference. In reality, though, they've simply served to accelerate three very basic, very human desires: to create, to share and to collaborate.

Heather Knox from Microsoft has endorsed the sociology argument. She reinforces the need to evaluate the most compelling ways to reach audiences. We need to understand what our consumers want, before determining our company's digital behaviours. A February 2011 IBM From Social Media to Social CRM study (disclosure, IBM is a Text 100 client) pointed to the gap between why consumers interact with companies via social sites and why businesses thought they interacted.

Businesses felt consumers were most interested in learning about new products or finding general information. The real drivers were finding discounts or making purchases. Executives surveyed felt these were what customers were least interested in doing.
As Cecilia Chan from Lenovo points out, marketers' tools have evolved considerably. But at the heart of successful communication is strong, compelling content. The shift is that we're no longer viewing content as a destination in its own right. Nor is it simply a means of convincing journalists to write about a product, service or brand.

Unless [pieces of content] can create a meaningful buzz they'll exist as 'art pieces' only

Content should create connections with consumers – and help drive specific actions. Videos such as thinkmodo's recent parking meter virals for In Time have achieved more than 800,000 views at the time of writing. But unless they can create meaningful buzz – and drive ticket sales - they'll exist as ‘art pieces' only.

In 2010, journalist Tom Foremski famously wrote that “every company is a media company”, citing the demise of mass media as the cue for companies to tell their own stories. Our challenge is to tell stories that exist in Internet time across multiple platforms - so-called transmedia narratives.

Fascinating examples are coming to light such as Fox 8's SLiDE experience. This extends the SLiDE TV series across communications platforms, encouraging viewers to engage with online content via apps, social networks and YouTube webisodes.
Gina O'Reilly from Nitro PDF makes another excellent point – brands need to participate in conversations. While many companies have built out their ‘owned' social media properties such as Facebook Pages, twitter streams and YouTube channels, they struggle to get into the right conversations and communities.
While this puts many outside of their comfort zones, the arguments for participation are becoming stronger.

Global Web Index's Social Strategy for B2B Marketing 2011 report revealed that 60% of B2B decision makers use social media. It stated that the majority of business decision makers would rather have a conversation with people from an organisation on a social network than see a sales presentation, participate in a conference or join a corporate event.

So, have we found the key to digital communications? No, we've identified a key-ring, if you like. You need a range of keys to open a lot of different doors. Some will go nowhere over time (remember MySpace and Second Life?). Others will lead to prosperity. We need to be brave enough to fail. But we need to jump in because our consumers have spoken. Their present and future is digital.