Communications appears complex. But a good communication strategy shouldn't be.
I generally boil it all down to four simple, interrelated tables, defining:
A Word document entitled "communication strategy" gathering dust on a shelf is no use to anybody. The only way your strategy will have an impact is if:
There are many ways to go about this. My favourite option is to spend a few hours a week interviewing diverse members of your comms team and holding one or two workshops with them and others. That way we'll develop buy-in together along the way, and I'll be able to mentor your staff so that they can better implement the strategy.
But if that's not possible right now, I boiled my process down into an online course: 4-Step Communication Strategy Framework: demystify communications strategy
I share this experience with Patrick, who, when he starts work with a new client, starts by gathering information to create personas: "it could be user interviews, usage data, or whatever — because there has to be some baseline of the users" (he has a "lightweight personas approach ... [and a] personas template").Where the clie…
I have used both the jobs2Bdone (JTBD, #jobtodo) and persona methodologies in comms strategy development, so this is a useful distinction: "Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas... add behavioral and attitudinal details". Abandoning personas for JTBD means "missing the key behavioral consider…
"GPT-4o ... talk to users in a much more lifelike way — detecting emotions in their voices, analyzing their facial expressions and changing its own tone and cadence depending on what a user wants... It sounded more humanlike than some humans I know."And it's fast: it's “native multimodal support” means it can "take in aud…
"My advice: Jump headfirst into AI with everything you’ve got."
Is your organization more like a jellyfish or a flatworm?The author's "Jellyfish and Flatworm story has been remarkably effective at helping ... [executives] visualize the impact of AI on their customers, their products, and their employees... this story is about why Knowledge Representation (KR) must be the core of any cost-effective lo…
Summarises a recent Meta paper on Llama 2, "a continuation of the LLaMA... Big picture, this is a big step for the LLM ecosystem when research sharing is at an all-time low and regulatory capture at an all-time high" - so Meta continues its improbable position as good guy in the OS movement (at least when it comes to AI, but also possibl…
Staying aware of the opportunities as they arise is a key element to being a commercially successful thought leader.
"The project: to market the launch a new educational game... in 30 minutes it: did market research, created a positioning document, wrote an email campaign, created a website, created a logo and “hero shot” graphic, made a social media campaign for multiple platforms, and scripted and created a video".Key prompts, first with Bing, as it&…
A YANSS interview with Adam Grant, author of Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Don’t Know. Generally an "extensive exploration of how to rethink your own thinking", including his WorkLife podcast interview of Margaret Atwood on procrastination.(When annotating a podcast I really like a transcript, but there was none for this epi…
A simple cartoon can spark a lot of thinking: what happens after "the “Cookiepocalypse” — when Google Chrome follows up on its promise to cut support for the third-party cookie by 2022"?My preferred answer is: better content marketing? Actually providing value to people, rather than surveilling and stalking them around the web?Others par…
Moving analysis of the basic falsity behind social media in general and Instagram in particular, and the mental damage done."Instagram is ranked the worst out of all the major social media platforms in terms of detriments to mental health. It does not build authentic connections; it does the exact opposite... an “influencer” [is] not as an ac…
One of my favourite writers (offline and online) on his personal content strategy, first taking aim at the "tawdry and mercenary" version of "“why writers should blog”... the story goes, “and build a brand ... to promote your work.” Virtually every sentence that contains the word “brand” is bullshit, and that one is no exception.&qu;…
This article absolutely nails why I can't stand LinkedIn anymore, describing the site as completely performative, and the "LinkedIn newsfeed ... as a vast wasteland... almost entirely filled with marketing gurus, salespeople talking sales, and recruiters and “career coaches” offering the same job search tips over and over".Why? Beca…
early adopters are not innovators, but are "willing to experiment... [but] they're not guinea pigs" make them feel they're getting something special, earlythey "are willing to work with your minimum viable product if it solves their problem" Give them something to test. But their reputation is on the line, so prove yo…
"User friction ... prevents a user from accomplishing a goal in your product... three levels: interaction friction, cognitive friction, and emotional friction"Interaction friction: do usability testing."When cognitive load is high ... there is significant cognitive friction ... encompasses all aspects of the experience that result …
"A framework for building enduring products"Level 1 is to focus on growing uses completing the core action, which forms the product's foundation, usually correlates with retention. So design features which optimise for people completing the core action. Level 2 - retain users by creating accruing benefits: customer usage improves t…
"the most efficient way to operate during the earliest phases of a startup lies in between a formal business plan and unstructured iteration... documenting your initial product/market fit hypotheses, systematically validating each of the most uncertain hypotheses, and continually iterating on and updating [them] ... through customer validatio…
How to measure & optimise for product/market fit? Use this leading indicator: "just ask users “how would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” and measure the percent who answer “very disappointed.” " You need at least 40%.Article goes through the process step by step, and comes with an interactive tool:A) Ask people who&…
Andreessen Horowitz on sales channels, because "products often fail because the company chose the wrong route to market... A properly designed sales channel is a function of the product that you have built and the target... you wish to pursue."Presented as a function: the channel (c) is derived by a function (f) - distribution design - …
A simple comparative model for measuring disinformation and influence operations
to divert someone away from prejudice and toward greater acceptance of others ... “Deep canvassing,”... “giving them grace.”... to hear someone say something that can be hurtful, ... think about how to ... connect with them...have patience with them, ask them to reflect on their life, and listen... many communities have a call-out culture... conde…
COVID-19 pandemic is shining a light on the roles that evidence and expertise can play in policy ... Epidemiological data ... reviews of evidence ... assessments of social ... impacts, and more... all competing for policy attention ... can lead to competing narratives... a sense of confusion...policy is necessarily political and evidence does not…
In less than a year... weekly church-attending white Protestants convinced that Donald Trump was anointed by God to be president grew from 29.6 percent to 49.5 percent... Capitalizing on that devotion is integral to Trump’s re-election ...all-enveloping digital campaign website... campaign app... a self-contained, self-reinforcing arena where Trum…
More than 1,000 social marketers were surveyed by Sprout Social for better understanding of goals, metrics and use of social media data in business... Sixty-nine percent ... increasing brand awareness is their number one priority ... top three uses... 1. Understanding their target audience, 2. develop creative content, and 3. Assess campaign pe…
While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in“pseudoscience” ...The Markup paid to advertise a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience... ad was approved by Facebook. ... boosted a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience on Instagram... ad was approved in min…
After years of influencers buying fake followers, hiring click farms and promoting products that they don’t even use, consumers feel that they can’t trust much of what influencers say... today’s consumers... gravitating toward more grassroots communities, where people share information and original content about the brands and products they love w…
many organisations are not content to simply run a website, they want to run an online community too... I continually see the same mistakes...the harsh realities of running an online community [are] ... Community is about people and relationships, not technology. The technology is the easy part... it also takes commitment.... months to get off the…
Most current definitions of engagement are bimodal – someone is either engaged or they ‘re not...a limited view that hampers our ability to manage engagement in meaningful ways...Community management is the discipline of building technical and social environments in such a way that individuals can easily organize and collaborate to achieve an obje…
indie bookstores are thriving. The keyword is curation: by default... local and community-oriented... know the taste ... mood of the neighborhood... a good model for the modern aspiration economy...having taste to know what to buy... human curation... differentiator in fashion, food, travel, wellness, design, and an important value-add for tech pl…
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