How quickly can you reach your customers?
There are times when your organisation needs to get a message out to a lot of people – quickly.
Since the Net took off we’ve developed more and more channels that help us communicate at the click of a mouse. You can now get your message out via your:
- website
- direct messaging
- social media status updates (think Facebook wall updates, Twitter, etc)
Build Your Network
The important thing is that you have to encourage people to opt into communication channels and you can’t really control which ones they use the most.
That’s why it’s important for your organisation to communicate across a variety of platforms to ensure your message reaches as many people as quickly as possible. Some folks prefer email; others want text messages on their phones; a lot of people like to dip into a stream of noise and pick out the key information via a rss newsreader.
By investing in building a network of communication channels you increase your ability to reach a wider audience – even when you’re in a hurry.
Real World Examples
A client recently realised that they hadn’t distributed a key piece of information to a big group of customers after sending out information packs.
There was insufficient time to send a follow up post by mail and it would have proved too expensive to send everything by express delivery.
From the stats in place we could see that many of the people who needed to be reached were subscribing to the company’s rss feed, Facebook fan page and were also beginning to follow them on Twitter. So we used these channels to get the information out at the click of a button.
The response was excellent and the information filtered through.
Turning a Crisis into a Positive
Not only did the organisation demonstrate that it could recover from a crisis, however minor, it also showed that its communication strategy is working. The time and effort that had gone into building up a variety of digital platforms where people listen to what the company has to say had paid off.
Takeaways
To communicate quickly and effectively you need to have a variety of channels in place:
- set up a blog,
- start a Facebook Fan-page,
- participate on Twitter,
- develop a list of subscribers to an email newsletter, and so on.
That way you’ll discover that you start to reach more and more people and your message will start to get through – whether you’re trying to promote a product, engage in crisis management or simply pass on useful information.
The more energy and value you bring to your communication channels, the better relationship you’ll have with the people you want to communicate with.
Listen, engage, respond, share, recommend, help. There is no end to the value you can provide by simply talking with your client base.
Ask Yourself
- Have you recently re-evaluated the channels you are using?
- Is it working?
- How would you get your message out if you’re were in a hurry?
- What tools or web services could you add to your existing channels that would bring value to the way you communicate?
Image:FlickrCC
[First published August 13, 2009]
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A good post, almost like a small lecture about how to use Socialmedia. Thanks for sharing you thoughts!
Cheers Anders. Always nice to see you join the conversation!