As most bloggers do, I regularly review the number of views and comments I receive on my posts. I’m often surprised at the posts that receive the most hits. Sometimes posts I think will be really useful result in a scant number of views.  I recently revisited my most popular posts. I thought it might be helpful to new subscribers to link to them here with some additional commentary. I’ve also linked to a couple of posts that have not seen as many hits but that I believe are worth a read if you haven’t seen them yet.
The heavy hitters
1. Tips for creating a great internal newsletter – I mostly help clients with external newsletters but when I was an in-house communicator, the internal newsletter took a lot of my time and energy. It’s an important publication (whether online or in print). I make the point in this post that newsletter articles need to go beyond monotonous monologues about the latest cost-cutting efforts or latest strategic plan.
Expanding on this, those writing internal newsletters (or any communication going out to employs) can increase the chances someone will actually read it by keeping in mind the “What’s in it for me?” principle. Don’t get caught up with talking endlessly about what your organization is doing and how it will benefit operations. Instead focus on how that piece of news will impact employees.
2. Improved internal communications can turn employees into ambassadors – Many communications professionals agree that without a solid internal communications program, any external public relations plan will meet with less than spectacular results. Yet, so often, even in large corporations you’d think would know better, employee communication suffers.
Strong internal communication has always been important but in this era of online social networks such as MySpace, Twitter and the like, what employees say about their own organizations can have a far reaching effect–both good and bad.
3. Tips for effective brochures - I get a lot of brochure writing work despite a shift in focus to the online world. My expanded comments on this post actually don’t pertain to writing but to design. There are way too many brochures out there that look as though someone in admin support used a Microsoft Office brochure template and spent the afternoon folding what they spit out on the office printer. It looks that way because that’s exactly what’s happened. This is especially true for small business and nonprofits. Invest in design. It’s going to make your brochure easier to read and more likely to get picked up. It also conveys that all-important message of professionalism.
Worth a read
1. How do you track your media coverage? - This post had a focus on monitoring traditional media. Of course, it’s important to track what is being said about your organization and issue/industry online as well. Tracking goes beyond just viewing what’s being said. You need to come up with a strategy for how to use that information strategically as well. In a social media context, for example, how will you decide what to respond to and what to ignore?
The U.S. Air Force has an interesting flow chart to aid decision making about social media engagement. You can see it here on the Global Nerdy blog. As far as basic tracking methods to get you started, Google Alerts is still the place to start but add an RRS feed for key search terms on Twitter as well.
2. Biggest communication mistakes- There’s a list of seven here but I’ll add an eighth. Organizations need to be more goal oriented rather than focusing on tactics. Some of the organizations I work with focus on the tools and mistake them for goals. “We need a brochure/website/PR program.” I hear these words often but when I bring the discussion to a high level view, folks aren’t always sure of the goal and strategy related to those tactics. Consequently, what they think they need is not always what they really need. Always figure out what you’re trying to achieve first. Then uncover the best avenue to achieve the goal and follow last with sorting out the best suited tactics.
Was this post useful? If so, why not have future posts delivered to your email inbox through subscription?
February 9, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Great stuff…… I personally want to thank you for writing this article. I am just very impressed with your work. I gained a lot of information on this matter. I really happy to have gone through your article. Please keep up the good work.