FTI: Getting Corporate Communications Up to Speed in the Snapchat Era

Interesting from FTI.

The slow, leviathan communications process of corp comm might need to adapt to the new modes of story telling.

It’s time for Corporate Communications to take a page or two, or three, from their sales and marketing departments — and join the digital age.

Social media allows companies to communicate directly with consumers and clients instantly in a variety of content styles — all at the same time. Want to broadcast quarterly earnings? Twitter’s 140 characters is a good starting place. Share a clip of the CEO ringing the opening bell on the NASDAQ? Try a Facebook Live video feed. In each case, companies can use the mediums to direct users to the full story behind the messaging on the corporate website.

Where I disagree is the demarcation of corp comm from sales/marketing. Whether those boundaries make sense are more likely company-specific.

It seems that nearly all industries are aiming for more story-telling — ourselves included in the push towards more narrative-based reporting. But the fast paced social media world is an environment poorly suited for committee-based communications.

As companies contemplate making greater use of the various platforms, the number of decisions surrounding the quality and frequency of messaging can be overwhelming. It’s easy to get caught up in debating what company presence should look and sound like on a quick-hit, minute-to-minute feed like Twitter, a thought leadership platform like LinkedIn, and an image-driven, disappearing messaging app like Snapchat. Designating tone of voice across each is undoubtedly a challenge.

All of that presents a risk. But the bigger risk may be the failure to adapt.

Caution is understandable in the rapidly shifting digital frontier. But Corporate Communications departments that think of the medium as the message open the door to new possibilities. By exploding their stories out into the world and scattering the breadcrumbs among the various platforms, corporate communications provides a trail for consumers to follow back to their website.

Personally, I think narratives are very compelling. Would I watch a web-series of an analyst’s first 100 days at their company? Maybe, if it were well curated.

Would I then think of that person the next time I needed to do research? Probably.

Stories may be the new biz dev.

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