Tag: best practice

I recently helped a client develop a framework that defines multiple phases of development in digital comms, broadly and in specific disciplines (e.g. content marketing, social media or search, for instance). The thinking is that it’ll show where the organisation currently lies and where it ultimately wants to get to – a very useful exercise indeed.

For my own amusement (I’m that sad) I’ve drawn up a simple (and slightly sardonic) grid for communications and communicators in Brussels

NB: I treat comms and policy work – i.e. traditional advocacy – as separate activities given that it’s usually how they’re approached in Brussels. The pedant in me would say advocacy is just one channel in an organisation’s communications suite.

	Dodgy	Half decent	Good	Amazing
Mind-set	Comms is for idiots who don’t get policy	We understand the value of comms in informing traditional policy audiences	We appreciate the value of comms in shifting the pin in Brussels and beyond, which in turn can affect policy-land	Comms will be as important – often more important –  than traditional advocacy, if it isn’t so already
Brussels bubble	Nothing matters outside Brussels	Sometimes stuff outside matters, but we tend to ignore it	Stuff outside matters, and we work actively with people at national level	We make no distinction between Brussels and national level interests when necessary
Structure for communications	No structure (or the intern does it all)	Mid-level comms manager and limited support	Senior level comms manager and good support	Senior level comms manager fully integrated in organisation’s leadership
Channel strategy	Comms = press releases to the entire Brussels press corp	Mainly owned and earned media (e.g. events, website, newsletters, media relations that isn’t spray and pray)	Full array of channels (paid, earned, shared and owned media) i.e. include more marketing and social media	Full array of channels, part of a single overarching strategy, fully integrated
Integration with traditional advocacy	There’s policy work, then separately from that we’ll do a press release when we host an event	We have our basic positions available publicly but don’t update regularly	We regularly communicate around our policy work in all comms channels	Policy work and comms are fully aligned
Targeting	“Decision makers and the general public” i.e. no idea who we’re talking to and why	We have given serious thought to who we’re talking to and why but don’t have data	We did some initial analysis (polling, focus groups, interviews) to understand our audience	We did initial analysis and do ongoing tracking based on specific KPIs to make sure our comms is always relevant
Content production	What’s content?	Regular content updates, but ad hoc and limited senior level input	Regular scheduled content updates, some senior input	Very regular scheduled content. Senior expertise apparent in all content items
Measurement	Huh?	Basic KPIs for core activities measured manually or with basic tools e.g. media coverage, event attendance, website hits – but tracking without consequences	KPIs for an array of activities and use data to inform future comms activity	KPIs for an array of activities and use data to inform comms activity AND overall strategy

Thoughts welcomed.