Strategic Communication: What it really means!

After attending the Strategic Communication workshop at the University of Johannesburg last month, it got me thinking as to what strategic communications really means.

While many believe that it’s about creating and distributing communications that, while different in style and purpose, have an inner coherence; others think that it’s a new way for organisations to respond to a changed business landscape that results from today's networked communication environment.

Extending on the above views, Shayna Englin, who teaches Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Georgetown, believes that being strategic means communicating the best message, through the right channels, measured against well-considered organisational and communications-specific goals. It’s the difference between doing communications stuff, and doing the right communications stuff.

I’ve come to believe that strategic communications involves the strategic planning of communication in order to ensure effective internal communication, thereby enabling the organisation to achieve short-term goals such as productivity and effectiveness and long term organisational goals such as adaptation and survival. It is a way of thinking, a guide to action and the determinant for the communication behaviour of every member of the organisation. Its goal is to create a distinctive set of communication capabilities that have special value to a particular part of the market place.

Karen Hughes, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs shared her five C’s for best practices in strategic communications:

1. Clarity – Say what you mean. To be effective, your message must be clear. Make sure you have the sound bite that is tomorrow’s headline.

2. Conviction: Mean what you say. There is a fine line between being emphatic and being overstated. Learn the difference.

3. Compassion: Make your message relevant to people’s lives. Tell the story in the context of the audience you are communicating to. Focus on kitchen table issues.

4. Credibility: People have to believe you/trust you. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what you say or do.

5. Consistency: Say it over and over again. About the time you are sick of saying something is about the time it begins to sink in. You have to find new and interesting ways to say the same thing. Messages based on core values are good because you speak about what you believe in. Speak with one voice throughout the organisation. You also have to DO what you SAY for consistency.

This ability to think strategically is crucial to remaining competitive in an increasingly turbulent and global environment. In the nutshell, strategic communications means infusing communications efforts with an agenda and a master plan. Typically, that master plan involves promoting the brand of an organisation, urging people to do specific actions, or advocating particular legislation.