Once your organisation chooses which channels it will use to communicate with its audience, it’s important to understand how they will integrate with each other.
Once your organisation has clarity around which channels it should use to best serve its audience and goals, then it becomes important for all the communications across channels to flow well together. For example, it is most useful for your audience when the emails they are getting communicate similar information to the social media posts they see. It’s also important to think about the communication to stakeholders and how that fits your strategy. Perhaps your target audience and donors will get different emails, but a recent blog post that would be helpful for both audiences is linked in each email.
Here are some tips for navigating how your varying communication channels should look similar and different. Please note that your organisation may not be utilizing all of these channels, but these guidelines are intended to help you determine how to best use the channels that you are using.
Emails should always link to another piece of communication, which is typically a particular page of the website, a recent blog post, or a video.
If you use more than 1 social media channel, adapt your content for the channel you are posting it on. Keep in mind:
- You can have the same post on Facebook and LinkedIn and can include more words in these posts than the other social channels.
- Adapt Instagram posts to have most of the information in the image or video itself with a shorter caption accompanying it.
- Tweets should be very short and link to any other information the viewer might need.
- If you post on TikTok, you can share that video on Instagram.
If you have a blog, be sure to always share it via email and/or social media.
If you send print mail, include images in the letters that also appear on the website and social media. Be sure to invite the recipient of the letter to explore a certain page of your website or follow you on social media.
It is helpful to have a separate landing page, or page of your website, set up for any ads you are running (digital or non-digital). These pages can contain very specific information and help you track how effective your advertisements are.
If you have an email newsletter or list of people you email with information on a regular basis, be sure to invite your audience to subscribe to that list through your social media posts, mailed letters, and on your website.
Consider running campaigns. Think about what information would be valuable to your audience, then use multiple channels to discuss that topic for a period of time. You may use your ads, a blog, a mailed letter, and a few emails and social media posts during the campaign.
Use multiple channels to go deeper into a topic. If you mention a service your organisation offers on social media, you can create a blog post with stories about the impact of that service, then link to that blog post in an email. Then, you can share a video on social media that further discusses the impact of that service. You could then send a donor letter out asking for specific donations to invest further in that service.
Typically, all your stakeholders and target audience will view more public communication channels, like your social media posts. These should appeal mostly to your target audience. It’s best to use emails and mailed letters to communicate specific messages to your varying audiences, like donors and volunteers.
If you are paying for Google Ads or social media ads, be sure your website and social media accounts are updated regularly. You do not want to invite your audience to view these channels if they are not accurate representations of your organisation.
This should give you a taste for how channels can work together and serve one another in best reaching your audience with your message. In the next activity, let’s reflect on what channels your organisation should be using to serve its target audience and accomplish its goals.