The Art & Science of Key Messages (part two)

(See Oct. 31 post for part one, which covered identifying target audiences)

Limit Key Messages to Three and Back Up with Proof Points

There's no magic to three key messages other than it's usually easier for people to remember items in threes. Coming up with three targeted, memorable messages will help everyone in the organization serve as ambassadors, delivering consistent messages each time they communicate on behalf of the organization. Developing proof points to accompany your messages will help bring your messages to life and make them stand out. This is where you can come up with a "kitchen sink" list of proof points for each message. Examples of proof points may include: awards and recognition, research, statistics, real-life examples, practical applications, etc.

Key messages Should Be One or Two Brief Sentences

Messages that are three or four sentences each will not be memorable or resonate with your target audiences. By writing your messages down, this will help you focus on making sure they're brief, concise and understandable.

Practice Makes Perfect

Once you develop key messages, it's critical to vet them. Practice your messages with people outside your company or organization. Deliver your messages to friends, family, neighbors and complete strangers, asking them to repeat back what they heard to ensure you’re accurately communicating your key messages. If your messages don't easily flow from your tongue and the recipient is having trouble repeating them back, they may need more work.

Train Your Employees, Volunteers

The final step, and one that is often overlooked, is training your spokespeople, employees, volunteers and other ambassadors for your company or organization on how to effectively deliver key messages and proof points when speaking to target audiences. Media train your spokespeople and have them practice delivering key messages in mock interviews. Role playing in groups where employees can team up in twos and practice sharing the messages in different mock settings (cocktail party, business lunch, child's soccer game) is another effective way to learn and become comfortable with the messages.

Uses for Key Messages

Your key messages and proof points should be incorporated into all internal and external communications efforts including media interviews, news releases, speaking opportunities, marketing materials, proposals, social media outreach, employee communications, website, etc. They should be reviewed and updated, especially your proof points, several times each year to ensure they remain relevant and timely.

GroundFloor Media recently worked with several nonprofit organizations, including Youth Opportunity Foundation, Colorado Youth at Risk and Rose Community Foundation, to help them develop key messages and proof points for their respective organizations.

~ Barb Jones

WikiLeaks Provides Painful Reminder to Review Plans and Policies

If you're like me, you've been hearing a lot about WikiLeaks in the past few weeks, but the real background and potential ramifications of the site and its contents have been a bit of a jumble, muted against the background of the holiday hustle and bustle. This article from Fast Company, however, quickly snapped me back to professional reality and provided a timely reminder to review communications plans and policies for the companies that we, as public relations professionals, represent.

According to the article, "...Julian Assange said at least half the treasure trove of documents the organization is holding belong to private corporations..." Sometime early next year, WikiLeaks plans to start adding these materials from private corporations to its site. Naturally, I wondered how WikiLeaks got its hands on its first round of materials, and slapped myself on the forehead when I saw this piece from CBS Sunday Morning about 23-year-old Bradley Manning who basically cut and pasted data he found simply searching documents to which he had access on the job.

As part of any fully-rounded communications planning process, we encourage our clients to try to head off crises like leaked documents by developing clear policies about document access and sharing. Of course, given the intersection of confidential documents and social mediums like Facebook, Twitter and wikis, there are no guarantees. In addition to having a reactive crisis plan, we also recommend the following common-sense steps when it comes to internal and external communications strategies:

• Remember that anything in writing can be forwarded, copied, saved or rebroadcast
• Confidential communications are best handled in person, not via e-mail
• Never say anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't want your boss or competitor to read
• Engage legal and communications team counsel early for particularly sensitive issues and documents
• If a confidential document must be distributed electronically, be sure to watermark it "Draft" and/or "Confidential" and ensure the recipients understand the importance of keeping the document confidential

As we head into the New Year, it's a great time to learn from WikiLeaks and review your communication policies. At GroundFloor Media we'll be doing so on behalf of our own communications as well as for our clients. Don't let your company be the next victim of WikiLeaks!

Epiphany Half-Life

On the heels of the Ragan Communication 2^nd Annual Employee Communications, PR and Social Media Summit, I am officially facing what CIO Magazine recently dubbed the “Epiphany Half-Life” – the time that passes between an inspiring event and the implementation of new ideas.

You feel it as the opening speaker of a conference psyches you up with new campaigns and best practices – yes, Microsoft spent millions on a Cirque de Soleil marketing spectacle to launch Kinect for Xbox 360, but if they sell five million units this holiday season, the risk will have paid off as the company’s biggest Xbox product launch – wow!

Microsoft-sized dreams do feel possible, particularly when you’re away from the office and listening to some of the leading minds in marketing and communications.

Every speaker talked about transparency, honesty and consistency as core to effective employee communications. These attributes are now more important than ever before as social media and the 24/7 news cycle are driving new ways of connecting with people and sharing information. Today, no one can hide, so why try?

Sara Tatchio, global integrated communications manager for Ford Motor Company, shared that CEO Alan Mulally asks his executives to invite an employee guest to staff meetings – brilliant! And to think he didn’t even need to invest in new technology to put that idea into action. It’s actually not a coincidence that he was recently recognized with the Fortune Magazine Businessperson of the Year award; Ford used internal communications channels to rally employees together to vote for him.

But, technology can be helpful, and the conference highlighted a handful of new ways to use familiar tools – such as Dell’s use of Saleforce’s CRM Force.com – into employee communications campaigns.

My former employer deployed Microsoft’s My Site to more than 5,000 employees nearly three years ago – no small undertaking – and it stalled. The lack of employee buy-in was not the fault of the technology, but rather the way we used it. Beyond the initial launch, we never created any incentive for employees to return to the site.

To think we could have done something as simple as hyper linking to employee My Site pages from feature articles on the company’s Intranet. Doing so would have directed eyeballs from more familiar Intranet pages to My Site, while also encouraging employees to keep their My Site content up to date. My Site could have helped a company sometimes struggling with employee morale to create a greater sense of connectedness and shared understanding of everyone’s contributions and expertise. Again, brilliant – thank you Deloitte.

With all these fresh (and doable) ideas ripe in my mind, it’s time to avoid the distractions of the holidays and year-end deadlines to share them with my peers and more importantly, our clients.

The Epiphany Half-Life challenges that if inspiration isn’t “put into practice by the end of the first half-life that it will fade into wistful daydream.”*

I’m of the mind that with 21 pages of notes from the event and closing keynote David Pogue’s Britney Spears-inspired jingle, “Oops, I apped it again,” seared in my brain, I’ll have a good chance of extending the first half-life beyond New Years and well into 2011.

~ Kimmie Greene

^*Source: CIO Magazine, “How to Keep Your Team Fired Up,” Bob Lewis, Nov. 1, 2010.