The More Things Change: Everything old is new again—including communications

Everything old is new again—including communications

A communications professional shares information. The communicator represents something – a product, an organization, a person – and they have been hired to tell others about their client. Writers have the fun challenge of considering all the different audiences to address and designing specific messaging for each of them.

We are bombarded with information, good and bad, with more mediums than ever to share that info. In the pre-internet days, you had television, print, outdoor advertising, radio and events. Those mediums all still exist, but the internet has brought web sites, banner ads, social media with all its individual companies that appear and disappear. Meanwhile, phones became handheld supercomputers, instantly delivering all the internet has to offer to the world, with a zoom in or swipe out at their fingertips. There’s also the weird internet/smart phone/radio hybrid of podcasts, supported by advertising. 

The writer takes the communication skills and formats they have learned and decides how to adapt those to each medium. As a 20+ year communicator, I have noticed some things, for better or worse…

• The News Release

  Then: This old warhorse has been around a long time. When I started as a communicator, the goal was to write a story that was newspaper-ready—it had a dateline, it followed AP style, it could easily be placed into the paper with little to no editing. It also served as a pitch to attract the attention of a print or television reporter, who would hopefully follow up and write their own version of a story, influenced by the content you supplied. 

  Now: There are a lot of online content creators. A lot. They’ve developed blog sites, podcasts, YouTube channels, and they need a constant stream of content. Chances are very good – I’d say 100 percent good – that there are multiple content creators interested in what your client does. A professionally written news release can do a lot of the research work for them, and has a better chance of being featured as-is by a harried creator. Amateur-level content creators also have some obvious downsides. They’re more unpredictable, as they fly by the seat of their pants to meet their voluminous content levels. Also, with today’s splintered audience, you’re not always talking to a lot of people. Look for creators with a quality track record, to make it worth your while.

• Social Media Posts

  Social media posts use a lot of the same muscles as a media pitch. Unlike a news release, you are limited in time and in description. Boil down the essential elements of what you want to communicate about your client. Deciding what those essential elements are depends on what social media service you’re using. They each have their own special audience. 

  A LinkedIn post addresses career professionals—think news release lite. Facebook audiences are more general and mature (Boomer, Gen X, a Millennial here and there)—you’re giving a glorified elevator pitch to your uncle at the dinner table with a picture. Instagram audience are younger than Facebook (Millennials, Gen Z) and images are what you lead with here, along with a bite-sized description—they can find more info if they’re interested. YouTube has a massive age range in audience, and is obviously centered on video—think short-form with images or footage that support your message rather than someone reading a news release. If you have an established product and audience willing to watch a video longer than two minutes, you can do that here—but be judicious.

• Ad Copy

  Talk about a skill that still exists just like it did decades ago. A communications art form in miniature. Here’s the thing, and here’s what I want you to think or feel about the thing. There was a time long before most of us when billboards were their own attractions. Drivers would slow down to take in the latest ads. Now, we have a lot more choices of things to look at, and ads have been around for generations. Media savvy is baked into children at this point. But, that being said, we’re still using ads—they’re just on more mediums. 

It's a fast-moving world, and we know more about each other than we ever have in human history. That’s kind of scary, and exhausting. But the one thing that hasn’t changed as a communicator is the chance to connect with someone else, be it intellectually, emotionally, or a little of both. If anything, there are more ways than ever to share your message—and that’s pretty cool.