Speaker A
What's the difference between internal communications and external communications? Well, I do have one thing in common, and that is that they have to be grounded in truth, clear, operative, effective, and well-intentioned. But internal communications is, of course, how you talk to the staff, the people within the business, and that can be everyone from the newest recruit to a board director who's been with you 15 years on. War, it's all about getting everyone on the same page to participate with change or a major milestone or announcement. And it can be done through a video, webinar, and email communication. It can be done through meetings. It can be done through a whole ecosystem of content and newsletters in the internet and a broader annual strategy. Also, it celebrates employee milestones and accomplishments and makes people feel part of the important momentum of the business. Meanwhile, external communications is about cementing your brand. It could be about talking to stakeholders like your existing clients or prospective clients, business partners. It can be about talking to the broader public, people in your general geographic reach. And it can be done through a bunch of different elements of the ecosystem like podcasts, press releases, social media content. It can be done through SEO blogs on your website, white papers people can download, printed materials like magazines. There's a whole array of marketing. But an effective external community patients plan is as unique in the planning and the intention and the way you want the message to land as an internal strategy is. And in fact, companies tend to make a lot more mistakes on the internal communications plan than they do on the external, not realizing the impact of receiving second, third, and fourth hand information within a company that you work in. Interestingly, we most commonly get engaged, and I'd say most comms agencies do, for external plans, and that's partly because my whole career was in public affairs and public relations. But perhaps the biggest mistake companies make is not focusing on their internal communications. If you can imagine being a staff member, you love where you work, you're really proud of the work you do, and you're discovering key milestone information or changes about the business you're working in in a press release that's gone to an external audience. That internal communications piece often just proceeds by a matter of days. The external peace, and they can work quite nicely hand in hand. But either way, as I said before, both external communications plans and internal communications plans need to be founded in the truth, clear, operative, effective, and clearly intentioned.
