Social media and multi-media have changed the way communicators do our jobs. We’re no longer here to just “publish and push” information out to our audiences. It’s now about creating content that engages and educates our audiences while creating communities and conversations.

These are exciting times for internal communication…but what if you are one of the many communicators out there who works at a company where a big portion of employees are not online to use these new tools?

How do we apply these new best practices to audiences like call center staff, field workers, nurses, truck drivers, retail and warehouse employees?

Here are some useful tips on how to grab the attention of offline staff while getting them the information they need.

Know your audience

This is relevant any time but it’s especially true for non-wired employees. The nature of their jobs demands them to pay attention to the customer (as it should be). That means we can’t waste their time sending them everything we create just because we created it.

Non-wired employees need messaging tailored to them. If it’s not relevant, quick and easy, they’re not going to take the time to read or watch your communications.

Think about what they have to know and why. Make sure they know why they need the information and that your communications answer the “why should I care” question no matter what vehicle you use to deliver the message.

If you want employees to respond or interact, how can your audience realistically do this given the nature of their jobs? It could be as easy as a suggestion box – but you have to make sure the vehicle makes sense and is easily accessible.

So be smart about what you send to these groups and make sure it counts. Once you’ve got that mastered, here are some additional tips to get your messages delivered and received:

Never underestimate the power of print

That’s right. I said it. Print. A dirty P word at most companies, because it (gasp!) costs money (as if online tools don’t). Just because you have a slew of new online tools doesn’t mean print should be obsolete! Done correctly – it works. And the most important thing is knowing how to use print the right way so that your messages get noticed and read.

Don’t have money in your budget? Well, calculate the resources and time you use towards all the online vehicles that aren’t getting used by these audiences. How much money are you wasting there? Get more bang for your buck and use vehicles that work for your audiences. That’s how you justify the extra expense.

This means of course, that you have to measure – something we’ll get into later. But, if you know your audiences aren’t using the online tools because of the nature of their jobs – you’ve got to come up with a different solution to communicate to them.

For example, a major retailer we worked with uses “table talkers” to communicate with their warehouse and retail employees. These clever multi-sided plastic displays sit on top of the tables in the break room.

After talking to offline employees in focus groups, we found out that everyone noticed the table talkers and looked at them; however, the information wasn’t relevant enough and, at times, was outdated.

So we adjusted the vehicles accordingly:

• We established communication contacts in the retail centers and the warehouses. They’ve been instrumental in helping us keep the content up-to-date and relevant. Instead of being updated once per month, they are now updated two times per month so that the information is more current.

• We kept the copy short and sweet. This retailer does a great job at writing and designing in a consumer style – everything is presented via short bits of information so it feels like you are reading pages right out of a magazine. Tidbits include, “5 ways to help the customer,” “Top 10 products we’re featuring this month,” “What you need to know about ‘Dollar Days’ promotions.”

Our focus groups provided the necessary feedback to continually improve the vehicle. For instance, the same information was going to retail employees and warehouse employees. Warehouse staff didn’t care too much about the “Dollar Days” promotions; they just needed to get the goods delivered.

Therefore we now have two versions of the table talkers – one for retail staff and one for warehouse employees; all with targeted messages relevant to each audience.

Each table talker contains a panel for any news pertaining to people’s specific locations (fed by our contacts in each region).

We use the remaining spot on this display for a feature story such as an employee recognition piece or a Q&A with a leader or colleague (both topics had been sorely missing according to our focus groups).

Employee magazines

These print publications aren’t meant to be newsy and timely, but a way to dig deeper and explain strategies in depth. Many organizations are switching to a quarterly or even a twice a year format so they can take their time and create messaging the right way.

It is also an effective way to provide detailed information that your audiences can’t get from table talkers or posters. What’s best is that they can take a magazine with them and read it at their convenience. Again, content is crucial. If you make it interesting and relevant, people will read it.

A pharmaceutical company we work with publishes a year magazine that focuses on the business while tying employees to the goals of the organization. The result? Employees feel they are a part of the business and know how they contribute to the organization’s success.

Audio & video

Just because you have employees that are offline doesn’t mean you can’t use innovative tools to communicate. You just need to plan better. Audio is great because it’s portable. Video is great because it really helps showcase the “people” behind your communications.

But, let’s be honest – it’s very likely employees won’t absorb these channels consistently on their own time.

A government agency we recently worked with was struggling with their call center communications so we came up with a plan for managers to give up three minutes a week during one of their daily huddle meetings.

When appropriate, we used this time to play a podcast or video for the group since the agency leader needed to talk to staff about challenges they were facing and their impact on the community they serve.

We’d then follow up with managers with a quick three-question poll:

1) Did your employees understand the message?

2) Did they like the format?

3) Do they have any questions?

The feedback we received helped us identify what we needed to communicate in the future and how.

Signs of the times

Digital signage is another effective way to reach non-wired audiences with video and audio.

This growing technique has moved way past posting plain, bulleted messages. The best systems (which are not as expensive you might think) offer the flexibility to easily create dynamic communications that use graphics and multi-media tools. Organizations like Lockheed Martin are using digital signage in various locations like break rooms, elevators, hallways and warehouses to reach employees who aren’t in front of a computer all day.

Since digital signage systems are wireless, you can feed content right from your computer—including blogs, videos and articles – content that used to exist only on the intranet.

Face-to-Face

Most employees appreciate face-to-face communications, but this old-school channel speaks volumes to front-line employees. It helps people feel recognized, valued and connected to the organization.

If possible, try to schedule an event on a quarterly basis, or even two times a year. A major consumer electronics company we worked with learned that many of their contact center employees felt as though they couldn’t keep up with new product launches.

Therefore, we came up with a quarterly “Lunch & Learn” series where employees at designated locations were invited to bring their lunch to a specified room and learn about the new products. (Attendance was completely optional).

As a result, employees loved the opportunity to experience the products first-hand, ask questions and connect with their colleagues.

Mobile apps and home access

Already growing in popularity, mobile technology will be the standard for internal communications in the future. Companies like UPS and Walmart have created mobile aps for their intranets made accessible to offline employees and that are smartphone-friendly.

Walmart has created a popular internal social media network, myWalmart, that thousands of employees can access at home or when they’re on the go – all on their own time.

Why would any sane person access a work site from home, you might ask?

Two words: Superior content. If you’re just rehashing boring press releases and stale executive PowerPoints, don’t even bother making the intranet available away from the office.

However, if you’re creating relevant content that employees care about – and allowing them to contribute their own content, which is what Walmart does, — employees will spend some extra time on the site.

Just listen

Ready to implement some of these new and exciting channels to reach your non-wired employees? Before you do, make sure you listen to them.

As I demonstrated, conducting focus groups is a great way to understand people’s needs and wants. So are surveys.

Once the feedback comes in, cut out what’s not working for employees and spend more time creating content and tools that are relevant and accessible.

Be sure to measure along the way so you can continue to deliver what your offline employees need. It may take more time and effort to communicate to these audiences, but once you’ve mastered the process, you’ll have a much better chance of engaging, informing and motivating them.

Watch this video on YouTube.

As communicators, our role has changed. Steve talks about five common behaviors that communicators need to change in order to stay relevant and add value to their organizations.

As Gerard outlines in this video, whether you deal with internal or external communications — you can easily avoid these common mistakes — that we, unfortunately, see all the time:

1. Communicating what you think people want to hear rather than what they need to hear. Being clear, direct and honest is the key to the most powerful communications. Your audience may not like what you’re saying, but in the end they will appreciate the honesty.




2. Making communications available only on a need-to-know basis. The opposite has to happen when you are in crisis — you need to keep communicating and you have to have two-way dialogue with your audience!  Shutting it down only sends the wrong message to your audience. You look like you’re hiding something … and chances are this is exactly what you’re doing.




3. Your words don’t match your actions. We’ve seen this time and time again in executive communications and nothing can kill your credibility faster. Don’t set false expectations. Do what you’re going to say, or don’t say it.




4. When spin is part of your communication strategy, you have a problem. Your audience is not a bunch of idiots — they see right through this! Again, delivering clear, concise and honest communications is the way to go. That doesn’t mean you always have to have an answer. If you don’t have one — tell your audience you don’t, and why you don’t have an answer. If possible, tell them how you’ll go about finding one — and then be sure to follow up!

At some point in our communications career, we all find ourselves communicating during a crisis. Sometimes a little too often. But the same standard rules apply and, if followed, can see us through to the light at the end of the tunnel.

The IABC Global Communication Conference in Hong Kong was an eye-opening experience. Outside of being in an incredibly cool city, it was really refreshing to hear about communications from a different perspective.

Last week communicators from countries all over the world (Canada, China, Singapore, Australia, and  India … just to name a few) experienced the first-ever IABC communications conference in their neck of the woods.  One of my favorite sessions was with Mark Schumann, ABC. During his morning keynote he talked about the new rules of employee engagement -  and I had an “a-ha!” moment.

One of Mark’s main messages was that when it comes to communications it’s all about listening. Now, we’ve all heard this before, right? I’m a measurement person, so I definitely have heard, and have said this myself many times. But this time, there was something different. Mark used a wonderful analogy to put this statement in a global perspective.

“Think about two tin cans and a string,” he said. So I did. I could visualize myself using these to talk to my sister when I was growing up. I thought it was cooler than the set of walkie-talkies we had.

“Now,” said Mark, “Think about what happened as you got farther and farther away from the person who was holding the other end. The farther away you were from that person, the harder you had to listen. The same applies with global communications.”

OF COURSE! That made perfect sense to me. And, it’s so true. I work with a couple of clients right now and engaging the regional offices and working to not be so U.S. centric is an ongoing battle. And, while we have included them in employee surveys — and have done some focus groups here and there — we just aren’t listening hard enough.

Unlike our ability to constantly get feedback from the offices we’re located in, we’re making the mistake of only “scheduling” feedback mechanisms once or twice a year. And, as Mark put it during his keynote, that’s only a snapshot of how their feeling right at that moment.

In order to engage them throughout the year, we need to have conversations with them throughout the year to understand their challenges, their achievements, their fears, their questions and their markets.

So how do we do this? Here’s a couple of  ideas I have that I’d like to toss out here — I welcome you to do the same.

Steve and I are off to London next week (April is proving to be an exciting month) to speak at the Simply-Summit. I’m hoping to get more case studies and best practices from across the pond. In the meantime, what about you? Has anyone used any techniques to bring global offices together? I’d love to hear from you!

In our recent seminar, Strategic Communications, Steve and I cover what we like to call “Guerilla Research.” Quick hitting research that communicators can conduct on their own, that if done correctly, is incredibly powerful and provides valuable insight into your communication efforts.

When we get to the Guerilla Survey section of the presentation, it never seems to fail that someone will either raise their hand, or ask me during the break about what to do when “surveys don’t work” in their organization.

In my opinion, you need to start out by identifying why they don’t work, and it usually comes down to these five reasons:

1. You over survey
Take a look at the calendar and see how often you are sending surveys out. Even better, compare your schedule to other departments that may be sending surveys out as well (marketing, HR, etc.). This can be a very eye opening exercise. I mean, c’mon! How do you expect anyone to get any work done? Do more with less.

2. It’s too long
One of my past clients had to deal with a consulting group who considered themselves to be “engagement specialists.” This meant that they saw it necessary to send out an engagement survey that was 106 questions long. That’s right. 106. And, do you think they were surprised when only less than five percent of the internal audience submitted a survey? Or were they surprised that out of those submitted, 90% of them were only partially completed?

Well, no they weren’t, because this consulting group was a bunch of idiots. Again, people are at work here. We need to respect that. Unless there is a REALLY good incentive (extra days off or a brand new car) don’t expect people to trudge through lengthy surveys. It’s just plain unrealistic.  Especially when organizations everywhere are being asked to do more with less.

It’s also good practice to tell employees how much time it should approximately take to complete the survey. By giving them a little insight into how much time they need to set aside to take your survey, you’ll help reduce the number of incomplete surveys.

Finally, when choosing which questions to include in your survey, ask yourself this question: “What will I do with the answers I receive?” If you don’t have an answer to this question, then why are you asking for this information in your survey?

You’re not only cluttering up your survey, you’re setting false expectations. If people are asked their opinion, they expect you to do something with it. If you can’t, simply don’t ask. Guerilla surveys are all about keeping things simple.

3. Participants don’t understand the value or purpose.
This might be one of the most important reasons why surveys don’t work for your organization. If your audience doesn’t understand why they should give you their input, than why should they take the time?

When you administer the survey, let them know why their input matters. What will you do with the information? And, most importantly, AFTER the survey was sent and the results tabulated, follow-up! Communicate the results at a high-level and then tell them what will be done based off the results.

Finally, don’t be afraid to use incentives. From cafeteria gift cards to company baseball hats, you’d be surprised what works. If you have the budget for it, use it to your advantage.

4. The survey isn’t relevant to all of your participants
Before you send out your survey ask yourself these two questions. 1) Can everyone who takes this survey answer all the questions? 2) Can everyone who takes this survey understand these questions?

If your answer is “no” to either of these questions you either have to a) re-think who you’re sending your survey to, or b) edit down your questions so they are relevant to everyone.

5. You don’t have manager buy-in
So many times, employees don’t think they are “allowed” to take the time to participate in these surveys.  I always recommend internal communicators work with their management team to help increase employee response on surveys.

Again, let them know why it’s valuable and why it’s important to get their employee’s input. Then, ask them to discuss the survey at their next team meeting and encourage employees to fill them out.

If your management team is reluctant, then you need to start at the top and get your executive or leadership team on board and have them encourage managers to get employees to participate.

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you? If so, think about doing things differently. In good time you’ll start to see your response numbers on the rise  … along with the valuable input you need to build strong communications.

Number one on my list? Is to get the perspective from these communicators about how to best manage global communications. We’re currently working with two clients right now who are faced with this challenge — how to break down the silo mentality that often forms when you have global offices.

How do you bring in the voice of your regional offices and how do you provide content that is relevent to them — on a regular basis? In an environment that is constantly changing, how do you keep employees who are located half-way around the world engaged and informed?

And, of course, it’ll also be really interesting to see how they are using the new social media tools to tackle these challenges.

How about you? Are there any communicators out there who are facing these and other global communication challenges themselves? Any best practices you can offer your peers?

We’ll be sure to bring home any great case studies, tips or best practices on our end. That, and a slew of great pictures!

I’ve known David Kligman for almost six years, and he never ceases to amaze me.

David is the senior publications manager for AAA’s Northern California, Nevada and Utah region, and he was doing “social media” before the term was even coined.

In 2005, David started allowing employees to comment on his daily intranet articles. He called it the “feedback string,” and the comments would go live—with no moderation or censorship. It was a free-flowing, open discussion about business issues, and it was a huge success.

That may not sound like much today . . . but back then, nobody was allowing comments on intranet articles; and if they were, they were moderating them first, and deleting any that carried even a whiff of bad news or other “controversial” stuff.

Well the “feedback string” is still going, stronger than ever, and David recently e-mailed me to tell me that he found another use for it.

“I’m using the comments section to do an inexpensive version of a ‘live chat,’ between employees and leadership,” he told me. “We did our first one in November, and the response was terrific.”
I immediately wanted to know more, and thought you would, too. So here’s a Q&A with David, where he walks us through how it works and what he uses it for.

Crescenzo Communications: What made you think of turning the comments section into a live chat, instead of just setting up a live chat? It’s genius and a hell of a lot more cost effective, I imagine?

David Kligman: Like a lot of companies, we just don’t have a lot of money to spend on new technology. So I figured let’s use what we already have. It’s based on our feedback string, which has allowed our employees to post un-moderated comments on every article since 2005. Our feedback string is also really popular and sometimes people read the comments more than the actual article. The only thing I had our developers do before the first Live Chat was to add a function to our feedback string so that users can sort comments from newest to oldest or oldest to newest. This allows them to follow the chat however they like.

CC: How does it work, exactly?

DK: Essentially, we use our feedback string for a special one-on-one interview with a business leader. We promote it with an article the week before, soliciting employees for their questions. Then I take their questions, add my own, and interview the executive for one hour. The interview appears in the feedback string of that day’s intranet article, and employees can ask their own questions then, too. That’s what makes it like a ‘live’ chat, as opposed to a Q&A article. Employees can either follow along by refreshing their browser to see updated questions and answers, or they can check back later in the day and see the whole transcript. We’ve gotten great responses. We just did our second Live Chat with the head of our automotive services team. The interview lasted 90 minutes and I sent the executive the remaining questions we didn’t get to, as well as additional employee questions that came in during the chat. He’ll answer those, send them back to me and we’ll post them later in the week.

CC: Where did you get the idea?

DK: I saw something similar on CNNSI.com a few years ago—where people asked questions of a sportswriter who had visited and rated every major league ballpark. I liked the idea that you could either follow the chat live by refreshing your browser or go back later and read the full transcript. I’m a big believer in taking ideas from mainstream media and adapting them for use in companies to talk about business issues with employees.

The only difference between what we’re doing and what a Web site like CNNSI does is that we don’t have the technology to limit when folks can jump in on the feedback string. So to keep it from becoming a free-for-all, we reminded employees to not post comments or questions during the actual chat and instead e-mail them to our Editor mailbox. I then took many of those questions and asked them during the interview.

CC: What kind of feedback did you get the first time? Were people into it right away?

DK: Our first Live Chat was in November with the person who oversees the AAA discounts program. I wanted to debut with a topic that our employees know about and are passionate about. And our employees love talking about all the discounts you can get using your AAA card. Plus it seemed to tie in with the upcoming holiday season.

I prepared about 20 questions for a one-hour conversation just in case we didn’t get any employee questions. We got about 15 employee questions e-mailed to us ahead of time, and many of the questions were ones I hadn’t even thought of asking. I gave priority to the employee questions.

The response was really great. We got almost 3,000 hits (we have about 6,000 employees). And a lot of people came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they found it fascinating and that they really enjoyed it because it was different than just a stagnant article.

CC: How did you market it? How did you get the word out?

DK: We marketed the Live Chat several ways. First, we introduced the concept one week before the event with an article on our intranet home page. The article explained the concept, the ground rules and solicited employees for their questions. This is the artwork we used to brand it:

We also have a scrolling banner on the top of our intranet, which we used to count down to the Live Chat a few days prior. On the actual day of the Live Chat, we posted an article that was similar to the preview article, telling folks exactly when to tune in (10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time…we needed to be very clear with the time because we have employees in three different time zones). We also took a photo of the person we were interviewing so that people could put a face to the person being interviewed. Here’s the photo of Steve Sumner of our AAA discounts team that we used for our first Live Chat:

CC: What was the feedback afterwards? Did you measure it? As I mentioned, the feedback has been really positive. It’s an opportunity for any employee to ask any question of an executive. In our second live chat, we tweaked our follow up a bit. We gathered every question that we couldn’t get to (from employees and my own questions) and had the executive write one-paragraph responses and e-mail them to me. He promised he would answer every question, no matter what the topic. We then posted it the week after the Live Chat. Here’s a partial screen shot of what that looked like after the second Live Chat, in December, with the head of our automotive team:

CC: Did you moderate or censor the questions before posting them? Did any “bad” ones come in that the executive was not comfortable answering?

DK: We absolutely did not censor any questions. On a few occasions, I e-mailed the employee back to get clarification. We sent our questions ahead of time to the executives, but I was very clear to them that they shouldn’t prepare answers or the conversation would sound scripted and not believable. I told them their responses should be off the cuff, just like we were sitting and having a regular conversation over coffee. By the way, during the actual interview we were in the same room working off our own laptops. We could have done it from separate locations but I wanted us to be in the same room to make sure we were on the same page as to when we were posting comments so that they flowed in an orderly, logical way. So I’ll type the question, which shows up as a comment; then he’ll immediately type the answer, which shows up as the next comment. (I could type as he talked through the answer, but then the answer would have my name attached to the comment instead of his.)

CC: So, technically you don’t have to be in the same room?

DK: No, not technically. But we’ve done it that way so far just so that we can talk in between questions or talk through an answer if that’s necessary.

CC: Can’t wait to see what you do next!

DK: Okay, but can you stop calling every day? You’re kind of like a stalker.

The rest are flying by the seat of their pants. That is scary.

And the number may even be lower than that. I recently did a very informal survey on Twitter, asking people what they thought the percentage of people who had a communication plan was.

I heard 1 percent. I heard less than 10 percent a lot. I heard less than 20 percent. The most optimistic response I heard was 55 percent—which, even if it was true (it’s not) still means that half the communicators out there are working without a plan.

And we wonder why our profession doesn’t get any respect.

I was trying to think of a good analogy for trying to communicate in the modern organization without a communication plan, and the best one I could come up with was this:

Communicating without a plan is like driving cross country without a map.

You may end up getting there, but you’re going to get lost. You’re going to waste time and gas money. You’re going to make wrong turns. You’re going to end up in places you don’t want to be. You’re going to get blind drunk in a honky tonk bar and end up sleeping in your car with the seven ball from the pool table that for some reason you snuck out of the bar with you.

Okay, that last one was based on personal experience. And, to be honest, I actually did have a map, but I was too drunk to read it. But you get the point.

But you know what? The whole “driving without a map” analogy doesn’t even goes far enough. Here’s a better one:
Communicating without a plan is like driving cross country without a steering wheel! Because if you don’t have a plan, not only do you not know where you are going, but you also lose all control over where you end up!

It’s the people who don’t have a plan who get turned into everybody’s private publisher. These are the folks who spend so much time putting out other peoples’ fires that they don’t have any time to do strategic communication . . . which is what they are paid to do, and what they should be doing 90 percent of the time.

Not having a plan is like picking up a stoned hitchhiker on acid and lettinghim decide where you are going to go. (The corporate equivalent of a stoned hitchhiker on acid is the typical middle manager; without a plan, you run the risk of letting those people dictate what you do and do not communicate).

A good plan puts the control back in your hands. It gives you a blueprint to follow . . . and it gives you the ammunition you need to turn away the stories and the content you don’t want to do (and that you shouldn’t be doing). A good plan can establish your department as a serious business partner with strategic goals and objectives.

I recently talked with a utility communicator who for years worked without a plan. Then, after attending a workshop, she buckled down and wrote a great plan.

“I don’t know how I ever worked without a plan before,” she said. “It has changed how I do my job, how management looks at me, and how employees look at my vehicles.”

I’ve heard the same thing hundreds of times, from hundreds of different communicators.

That’s why I decided to work with IABC to launch a brand-new workshop series, Strategic Communication. Our first one is in Chicago on March 12, at the Allerton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, just steps from the lake and shopping!
It’s an “immersion course” in Strategic Communication, and covers everything you need to know to dramatically improve your communication efforts, make them more strategic, and see better, measurable results.

In the seminar, we cover research, strategic planning, tactics and channels, and measurement. You’ll learn how to conduct a do-it-yourself communications audit—and then use that information to craft a stellar communication plan and execute it.

I think the handouts alone are worth the price of admission. You’ll get examples, worksheets, tutorials, sample plans, discussion guides for focus groups, and tons of best practices—including case studies in social media, online communications, print publications, and face-to-face.

And if that’s not enough to get you to Chicago on March 12, I have a BIG SURPRISE for seminar attendees. I was going to wait until the event itself to spring it on you . . . but it’s so exciting, I can’t wait.
Ready? Here it is . . . .

Oprah Winfrey is going to be the lunchtime speaker!!! Yes, that’s right, Chicago’s own Oprah Winfrey, the cover girl of O Magazine, is going to be speak to the crowd at lunch about the importance of communication and having a strategic plan!

And . . . Oprah is going to give everybody a car!!! And not a Toyota, but a real car!!! A Ford car! So you can meet Oprah, learn everything you need to know about Strategic Communication, and do your part to defeat the terrorists by helping the U.S. economy!!

Register here, because space is filling up, and only the first 75 people will get cars. After that, Oprah will be handing out hair products.

After his presentation at the IntraTeam Event in 2009, Steve Crescenzo gives some great tips on how to use print to steer people online, how to use print to compliment your online efforts, and he lets us know how often your print publication should be produced to be effective.Don't miss the next IntraTeam Event: March 2, 3 and 4, 2010. Duration: 3:54