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How can mass communication strategies align ideas and actions to facilitate breakthroughs that influence, persuade, and guide stakeholders towards desired outcomes?
Michel Suarez
Saint Thomas University
Chapter 5
Strategic communication is a critical topic for the development of businesses in a variety of fields. Once the communication strategy has been developed thoroughly, the organization can achieve success effectively with minimal need for external resources. This dissertation aims to provide information regarding effective strategic communication techniques. This study is structured around questions and answers regarding specific topic in the field of strategic communication. This section will conclude the research by providing a discussion of the results mentioned in the previous section.
In a broad sense, the concept of strategic communication is meant to provide a strategy for the effective conveyance of specific content among individuals in an organization. Utilization of the particular course of action is meant to lead the company toward the desired outcome. By the utilization of qualitative analysis, this study has enabled the readers to focus on the utilization of strategic communication in the present by enabling employees to present the techniques used by them in real-time. The primary aim of this dissertation is to identify ways strategic communication can enable an organization to align ideas and actions by an effective transaction of critical information among the stakeholders such that the company ends up attaining faster progress toward the desired goal. For this study, the researcher used a qualitative approach because of the need for a deep exploration of the topic, which would not be possible using a quantitative methodology. Telephone interviews were used with a pool of 25 employees from YouTube.
Chapter 5 is organized such that the results can be understood concisely. The first section contains a summary of the findings that were described in the previous section. The general discussion of the summarized findings will be also presented that helps to find out answers to the research questions crafted for this study. Furthermore, the sections of limitations of this exploratory work and conclusion will also be included in this chapter.
Summary of the findings
Employees of YouTube observed that their company has an organized way of utilizing strategic communication within the organization. Some employees stated that the communication strategy involved the provision of better search engine services that enable consumers to find their favorite videos instantly. Additionally, the presence of a report section and helpline number would allow consumers to get connected with the organization. The employees mentioned that they have to provide a fast reply to consumers to keep them satisfied. Employees also stated that they were involved in ensuring that customers are given effective services, such as faster loading and fewer advertisements, and effective video suggestions.
Social media and the official website are other vectors of communication for the organization. Employees post regular updates about the organization and add-ons on the YouTube social media. Today, YouTube is a well-positioned company, thanks to its growing number of customers and viewers. This was possible because of effective communication with the consumers.
Employees also provided answers concerning the communication strategies used with clients, including suppliers, advertisers, and television channels, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and RT America. YouTube shows ads between videos to fulfill both companies’ objectives. Employees need to have effective communication with the clients in order to accomplish this. The importance of superior communication with clients was mentioned by many employees. Others stated that employees often attempt communication with clients using various face-to-face meetings, Skype, emails, and phone calls. For the organization, the convenience to the client matters the most. Such factors indicate that the employees and the organization are concerned with the betterment of the client and customers. Internal and external communications are critical and intertwined factors for the company. Employees were found to have effective communication with each other and showed a special connection with each other. It was also stated that employees could communicate effectively and openly with management in order to share innovative ideas within the organization.
One of the employees stated that one focus on internal and external communication is customer satisfaction. It was observed that customers may get frustrated if there are too many advertisements between videos. On the other hand, since YouTube’s services are free to consumers, advertisements are critical to the company’s growth. Therefore, customers are provided with a limited number of ads before videos, sometimes even reduced to one ad per video. YouTube uses small feedback sessions to attain this information.
Discussion of the findings
The primary purpose of strategic communication involves the integration of the company’s short- and long-term plans, programs, advocacy efforts, and public education.
This dissertation identifies effective strategic communication techniques for readers. The first part of the findings includes the benefits, need, importance, and procedure used for effective communication with customers. Three primary themes had been recognized in this study: communication techniques, consumer engagement, and internal and external tools for communication. These factors will be analyzed and discussed in the literature section.
Communication strategy
Communication primarily occurs between consumers and the organization. Devising a communication strategy to manage such interactions between organization and customer are important in determining the organization’s ability to listen to users’ desires or complaints. Companies can use large-scale communication technology such as social media and email to maintain a direct connection with consumers. Consumers can read direct reviews and information about products with the aid of such communication media. Similarly, the company YouTube has been able to use the search engine tool for the satisfaction of the consumers.
Regular company news updates on social media are critical for effective communication with customers. For instance, if a particular company is able to communicate with customers and keep them updated about the latest software or technology, consumers are likely to also feel cared for by the organization. The token of concern by organizational members ultimately enhance confidence and loyalty level of the potential customers. Loyal clients eventually lead business organizations to the height of success.
However, the most critical factor for effective communication with customers is the active involvement of organizational members (Conrad and Terry 2015). In YouTube’s case, customer service team members are readily available to hear the demands and complaints of viewers via comments, reports, helpline numbers, social media, and emails. As a result, the company satisfies its viewers by giving them better recommendations in their feeds. The company designed the system based on viewers’ desires. This indicates that listening to the consumer's desires and complaints are critical in strategic communication.
Similar findings regarding organizations’ customer-oriented communication strategies have been observed by Coombs (2015). An organization centered on consumers and actively satisfies their demands achieves greater success. Humans have an innate need to belong and connect, which organizations can satisfy by ensuring effective communication with users. Social media also plays a vital aspect of customer satisfaction at large. Zerfass & Holtzhausen (2014) stated that social media has made it easier for organizations to have a direct connection with consumers. Social media helps organizations track real-time reviews of their products. Before the advent of social media, such data was harder to find.
An organization can also bring about higher benefits by focusing largely on clients since they enable the company to attain customer satisfaction on a larger scale. The more the clients are successfully satisfied, the better the results for the organization at large. Several techniques have been used by YouTube to effectively communicate with clients and enable the company to have customer satisfaction at large.
Zerfab et al. (2014) observed that customers are highly satisfied with the efforts of mobile media organizations when it comes to the maintenance of the product or service. For YouTube, this means providing videos and recommendations while removing hateful and blasphemous content. Such goals are attained by adopting the idea of acquiring higher quality raw materials. It is important for the business organization of YouTube to actively communicate with all the main stakeholders and develop a consensus level. This specific perspective of active communication is necessary to effectively handle the concerns of hateful and blasphemous content. The approach of business communication between YouTube and Netflix can consider as the example to define the role of strategic communication. YouTube uses clients such as Netflix and other movie producers to get money by which the company can pay professionals to have innovative ideas for the production of the service. For that, strategic communication is critical for the company.
User engagement
Strategic communication is directly or indirectly centered on the engagement of users. If consumers are found to be positively engaged with the organization's products or services, the company can attain higher growth through the provision of more products or services. The more products that are loved by the customers, the higher the production obtained by the company.
However, the flickering focus of customers and the threat of rival organizations that have raised the levels of user engagement and satisfaction have caused many companies to have problems retaining competitive advantages. Feedback sessions have helped the organization attain information about customer satisfaction through live reviews, which shape the services offered to consumers.
Businesses that use strategic communication to engage users can attain the benefits of satisfied consumers. The engagement of users can be done effectively by adopting different viable tools of strategic communication. Application of active communication paradigm between organizations and customers ensures a better level of support for the client. It is observed that organizations with a better structure of customer support have more chances to develop a customer-organization relationship. For instance, YouTube provides the support of a faster response to the customers.
Other than that, it is also critical for organizations to enhance the ability to measure a product or service engagement. It can be helpful for the business companies in the long-run to provide services according to the desires of the consumers. Such measurements enable the company to analyze what customers think about individual products. YouTube measures such as customer feedback with every click.
Similar findings have been observed by Rossmann, Ranjan, and Sugathan (2016) regarding how communication strategies have helped organizations engage users via the utilization of customer support systems.
Internal and external communication tools
Internal communication (among managers and employees) and external communication (among company and employees) are critical since they allow the company to achieve customer satisfaction on a larger scale. Internal and external communication is equally important. Internal communication comes from having motivated and satisfied employees who can work toward a better production rate in the organization. Ultimately, the primary tool for the satisfaction of consumers involves the motivation of employees.
Such strategies can be enacted by enabling senior members of the company to have effective communication with employees, who in turn reciprocate the efforts made by the company. Managers of organizations should also be able to attain the benefits of effectively communicating with each other. However, the mere availability of effective communication is not always enough to produce better leaders and managers. For that, the company must provide training concerning the management of employees so that they can reap the benefits of strategic communication (Wenzel & Koch, 2018). Heath et al. (2018) observed that the organization’s main priority should be to initiate strategies that can motivate employees to work harder. Strategic communication was described as the main method to motivate the workforce to innovate.
A thorough assessment of the former research work clearly indicates that strategic communication positively linked with employees’ motivation level. Communication has a profound impact on employee motivation. Information conveyed with clarity eliminates the possibility of misunderstandings. Companies that adopt effective communication techniques are more likely to build a positive work environment to increases productivity and growth. It is observed that the integration of Google with YouTube will allow the organization of YouTube to improve the interaction between employees and management, which will provide a competitive advantage against rival companies.
Consideration of Videos as Tool of Communication
The findings of this study revealed that electronic meetings can be a powerful communication strategy, providing opportunities for where information can be shared immediately. Different platforms like Skype provide inclusive platforms for arranging meetings. Electronic meetings build a collaborative environment where employees and leaders can share their views and concerns (Bishop, Press, Mendelsohn, & Casalino, 2013). The ability for people to communicate over long-distance means that such technology can save time and cost. The approach of video sharing is also used by the organization of YouTube to enhance the communication level between the suppliers and potential customers. Undoubtedly, it can use as the successful replacement of face-to-face communication by increasing interaction in the form of video sharing. Different business organizations can use this platform of videos and photo sharing to enhance the understanding level between the information sender and receiver. Features like downloading and commenting allow employees to retain a copy of the meeting (Bishop, Press, Mendelsohn, & Casalino, 2013). High-quality conferencing software can be rented or purchased. Employees have the opportunity to rapidly connect with each other and instruct that what immediate actions are essential to attain business targets effectively and efficiently. Another benefit of the instrument of videos recognized as its effectiveness for the workers to actively communicate their specific needs. This is a useful tool that addresses employees’ needs by allowing them to download videos and use it according to their requirement.
Communication with clients can also be maintained through online platforms, allowing companies to build a positive relationship with their clients. The option of online platforms also used to take feedback or listening to the client's concerns. This is also an effective strategy for building customer loyalty. Video features or online communication is available to the customer for the whole day, allowing them to connect to the company at any time to place an order or give valuable feedback. The electronic platform allows clients to save time and money and removes the trouble of travelling. The findings reveal that employees and customers exhibit a high level of satisfaction with electronic and online communications (Gordon Bowen, 2014).
Social media is used by YouTube as an aggressive marketing tool. This is an effective tool for targeting a larger customer base across the world. The popular social media sites used by the company include Twitter and Facebook, on which the company manages to get high customer bases (Schaupp & Bélanger, 2014). This allows maintaining constant communications with the followers. Different posts are added to make the advertisement more appealing.
The business organization of YouTube have the vital option to enhance promotion by building an effective integration strategy with other forms of social media. Addition of eye-catching photos of celebrities is one of the examples to attract many customers. SEO optimization is the approach which is used to enhance the overall visibility of the company's official webpage on different social media sites. Community building involves conducting direct online conversations over these platforms to identify actual choices of potential customers. The company also responds to the posts of followers to improve their relationship with customers. Cross-channel campaigns are also used on these platforms to find new customers (Oinas-Kukkonen, Lyytinen, & Yoo, 2010). Brand campaign strategies can include sharing a powerful quote or story.
Limitations and implications
Limitations
Even though the study identified factors showing the benefit of strategic communication and the ways in which the organizations can utilize them, the limitations of the study made findings extremely explorative rather than accurate. The accuracy of this particular exploratory research work is in question because it only focuses on theoretical analysis of the topic. A quantitative research study can be an answer to this limitation to find more exact and reliable outcomes. The fact that the qualitative approach was not utilized shows that the study prioritized gaining information over the accuracy of information. This factor is the primary downside of the study since it reduced the accuracy of the findings observed. In general, qualitative studies are all about the exploration of a certain topic, whereas quantitative studies are about the analysis of results in a statistical form that can provide accuracy.
With the use of a quantitative approach, the author could have attempted to find the most effective aspects of strategic communication; instead, the study collected hands-on details about the utilization of strategic communication in the organization.
The implications of the results
The results have enabled the organization to change the overall strategies accordingly such that the companies start to attain higher growth. Individuals who desire to launch a company can get more information about the management of both customers and employees at large by reading this study. Employees can find additional information about the nature and utilization of strategic communication so that they can have better and effective results. The study indicated that strategic communication does have the ability to ensure higher customer satisfaction.
Recommendations for future research and conclusion
The primary purpose of this research is to ensure that information about strategic communication can aid in producing desired outcomes for organizations, along with the satisfaction of the organization’s internal and external parties, such as employees and customers. This section is meant to provide recommendations for future researchers to ensure that appropriate and accurate results are obtained. Practitioners should carefully read the following five outlines to identify the ways individuals can seek superior results.
Quantitative approach
Researchers should utilize the quantitative approach. This recommendation is essential because it would ensure that the organizations get accurate results about the strategic communication such that the attainment of the success can be ensured. The outcomes of the quantitative research work can be helpful for the management of the organization to measure how much the approach of strategic communication can be helpful to achieve organizational objectives.
Face-to-face interviews
Face-to-face interviews allow the researcher to gain more information about strategic communication. The mixed research method is another option that can be used by the researcher to effectively attain both forms of quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative approach would provide accuracy while the qualitative nature would be providing the details about the concepts.
Better data collection techniques
The authors should use recording technologies related to the interviews and other Statistical Package for the Social Sciences tools for data analysis. Utilization of tools such as a voice recorder and transcriber would lead to clearer findings.
Ample time
Time constraints are another factor that restricts the researcher to never apply different research method in the context of strategic communication practices of YouTube. The quantitative research method is ranked as a time-consuming procedure that requires consideration of the systematic procedure of research.
More respondents
The researcher can include more than one organization and/or conduct a focus group to triangulate their study. Such efforts can be undertaken with cooperation from other organizations. More respondents can bolster the accuracy of results and provide a wider variety of ideas about the subject matter.
Discussion
Under the direction of mass communication, there is a strategy that explains what strategic communication is. Various companies across the regions have their value-based communication framework which is employed to interact with the stakeholders like investors, partners, customer, prospects, and employees (Andrews & Shimp, 2017). There is great value of communication among these individuals. Further, the value of a customer is also important because it is the solution to a problem for the exchange of products. All the ideas, guidance and influence are part of the plan and the goal of marketing. The perception of controlling and changing the behavior is the central part of exchanging objectives. For the extension of companies, managers choose to exchange certain strategic message. It is the tool which explains the guidelines and ideas.
During the composition of a plan, there are some questions that need to be addressed. Like the purpose, objectives and the existence of organizations. One must start with why, for the success of ideas and the vision-driven next to the services and products. Why would be the vision and how to reflect that companies are organizing their values in a proper way. The use of what would incorporate the format, channels, and strategies for the delivery of the message. A major factor that drives the person to highlight strategic channels is the enhancement of stakeholders and the audience. The transformation of a great strategy is challenging work (Belasen & Belasen, 2018). There are various people who achieved their objectives through strategic communication but there are only few who invest for making it long and sustainable.
Other opinions for the strategy are based on the work of documentation which outsources the industry and spends a lot of time for thinking about helping others. However, a great and reasonable strategic plan is the one which allows the enterprise to distribute and create effective communication on deadlines. It must be a positive and attractive experience for the clients and derive desired actions on the part of enterprises. The management of customer at the organizational level should be end to end, a web-based workflow tool that provides an auditable trail of printed documents. There would be streamlined in the creation of product and its compliance for the particular customer (Burger, 2016). While following such type of strategy, the business would bring entire strategic communication and execution plan into a single and uninformed way. There can be other ways of working on the plan and alignment of ideas or other factors. Those who are operating in regulated organizations like the financial services and health care industries required the connection which can help in removing the barriers that contributed to non-compliance of a plan.
The communication management solutions provide the vision into the printing and for a sustainable saving model. The aim of such types of models in the strategy is to reduce costs and enhance the profits included in it. Certain modules are applied to the plans which include production, compliance and the target. The target support for the maintenance and managing templates to access personalized utilizing cloud-based programs. It helps in the letters, marketing kits and sending of direct mails to the concerned individuals. The production system in the plan unfolded the access to our digital storefront that supports on-demand production of pre-approved facilities and material. The compliance is the tool that contains marketing managers and communications to create the templates with editable and locked content zones. The main purpose here is to ensure the prevention of errors and smooth support for compliance.
The annual notices about certain bills and the change of notices or policy outcomes are significantly supported by the compliance (Burger, 2016). Further, the management of communication can be streamlined through the optimization of documents that are part of the entire workflow. Through these modules and production or plan of compliance, the customer resulted in an improved experience. Markets and the organizations need to invest more and more for the attraction of new customers than satisfying the existing because there would be greater benefits. Growing the base for customer and product is a priority for many organizations (Hallahan, 2015). In the same way, the preferences and maintaining the relationships with the customer has promoted change to manage the communication and marketing of the organization.
Following these measures will eventually give rise to alternative marketing practices like the integration of communication, relationship with management, services, and marketing. It would be very important to consider the useful developments to include the traditional marketing mix and it will also restrict to the broad marketing communication domain. Various organizations are usually outsourcing the functions to the specialist suppliers and coordinate activities through brand ambassador or manager. To achieve the objectives of marketing and the implementations of plans these measures are essentially added in devising a strategy. Actions, ideas, and other tools in mass communication are incorporated through integrated marketing communication.
It recognizes the merit of various disciplines and combination plans to increase the communication that is encountered by consistency and clarity. There is a requirement of the juxtaposition of the discipline and differentiation like the appointed agencies of companies which presents postmodernism which is not influenced by customer biased perspective. The information of the product and the brand are exposed to the discipline of communication originated from touchpoint which is delivered to the customer (Hallahan, 2015). However, there is an effective solution for such types of hindrance like the approach of customer orientation by satisfying the needs and wants of the client. Most of them argue for the network of brand produced by a particular agency or the company to remain connected and satisfied with the work. The brand frames and references are the reflections of what is known and unknown for them in the market.
Experience of the client for any company or its network of brands suggests that there is positivity or negativity in the devised communication strategy. The advertising, corporate communication, product packaging and the word of mouth are a significant element of any plan. It helps the managers as for how the brand is attracting with various touchpoints and relevancy of the business communication in the market (Willis et al., 2017). Companies must be consumer-centric tools and they should use the outside-in planning along with the focus on the total experience of the customer. Objectives of the client must be matched with the corporation. Similarly, the behavior and treatment of purchaser should be appropriate because these are assets for the success of the business. Most of the organization drives their profit and earning through the clients. The convergence of traditional marketing service with a technologically based business will eventually raise the profit and activities of a particular brand.
Conclusion
The alignment of strategies with the ideas and actions will influence the stakeholders for desired objectives. In the subject of mass communication, various elements are considered for effective conveying of business messages. A manager needs to highlight the customer-oriented approach which could result in the benefits of business and enhancement of brand. Without a customer, there would be no strategy and profits for the markets. The stakeholders must be careful in planning and executing strategies for their business communication.
References
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Belasen, A. T., & Belasen, A. R. (2018). Integrated Corporate Communication: A Competing Values Perspective. Available at SSRN 3096046.
Bishop, T. F., Press, M. J., Mendelsohn, J. L., & Casalino, L. P. (2013). Electronic communication improves access, but barriers to its widespread adoption remain. Health Aff (Millwood), 32 (8).
Burger, M. (2016). Corporate communication strategy: aligning theory and practice amongst selected public relations practitioners in South Africa (Doctoral dissertation, Cape Peninsula University of Technology).
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