The FAQ Series provides answers to frequently asked questions around different communications-focused practice areas.
1. What is strategic communications?
Strategic communications is a structured, planned and intentional process that aligns communications with the overarching goals of the organisation. It is a data-driven approach that allows communications to be used as a tool for influence and decision-making to drive business outcomes and enhance organisational performance.
2. How does strategic communications help an organisation?
Strategic communications helps an organisation to shape perception, drive behaviour and build trust with diverse stakeholders. It helps to strengthen reputation, improves stakeholder alignment, and ensures that communications is effectively leveraged to support the organisation’s long term strategy.
3. What does a strategic communicator actually do?
A strategic communicator is the custodian of an organisation’s reputation and a bridge between the organisation’s goals and the people who need to understand or act on them. Some of the key tasks done by a strategic communicator include message crafting, audience analysis, channel selection, impact measurement and providing counsel to leadership.
4. What competencies are needed to be a strategic communicator?
You need to have competencies in Communications Research, Stakeholder Mapping, Strategy Development and Communications Measurement. You also need critical thinking, storytelling and data interpretation skills.
5. How do you measure the success of strategic communications
The impact of strategic communications can be measured using a variety of metrics and KPIs. These have to be carefully selected in alignment with the communications objectives and the business outcomes to be achieved. Some metrics include sentiment score, engagement levels, stakeholder feedback, message recall and other performance indicators tied to business goals.
6. What are some common strategic communications mistakes?
One of the biggest mistakes is to rush into creating tactics without understanding what the key outcomes to be achieved are. Other mistakes include setting objectives that are vague or cannot be measured, lack of background research and audience insights, making assumptions that are not data-driven and failing to select the right metrics to measure success.
7. I want to master strategic communications. Where do I start?
You need to understand the fundamentals and this includes learning about the strategic communications framework. This framework provides a data-driven approach for aligning communications with an organisation’s goals and strategic priorities.
8. How can I develop my skills in strategic communications?
Enrol for a course on strategic communications, read a good book on the subject, analyse communications-related case studies and work on real projects. Watch the Strategic Communications bite-sized comms course on YouTube to improve your knowledge.