By Shrijay Seth
The basic idea for communication is to get the message across in the right manner. And when it comes to engaging in communication within or outside the business, you will need a consistency in the narrative.
Right from registering a new business to expanding your business and registering growth – be unequivocal.
It all starts with the idea that you want to communicate with a vision to make a difference with the idea(s). One of the key features in the founder’s communication is delivered value even while communicating.
Below are the few tactics that every founder must follow and inculcate in day-to-day workings.
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Planning the communication
Just like everything else in business, the communication, too, will require proper planning. The idea is to create value for the third party especially when they hear it come straight out of the horse’s mouth.
There are some points that will be great when shared directly by the founders while some may need validation from others.
Communication planning helps to identify channels to put the message across what all channels and where will you need validation from key people within or outside the organization.
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Make your team believe in the vision
Rather than pushing your team to say what you want them to, have a vision that the team believes in feel proud of sharing it.
It is always better to have many mouths than one, and when there are many, controlling communication plays a vital role.
Then it comes to choosing the right platform to get the message across from your team members – be it social media, Google reviews, or even print media and radio.
Choose a platform they are comfortable sharing at and get your message out that speaks of your leadership, vision and have a fair bit of their positive experience.
The key is that they believe in what the company is doing and are on the same page as you as a founder.
You cannot force or command the respect and ask them to talk about the company outside the office.
But you should rather make them believe in you, in the company and the vision that you share. This will get the ball rolling without much effort to reach out overpaid campaigns.
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First push is always from friends and family
Break the personal and professional wall to an extent of bringing in the friends and family to speak about your business. Feed your internal network with insider and early bite of what is happening in your company. Talk to them when you are bringing in any interesting changes and let them tease your perspective plans subtly over various mediums.
This is ideal since they are the first and the fast ones to spread it around organically. The big plus is that it is lighter on pockets as well.
To break such ice as a founder, start discussing your work casually and them the part of your journey to push it beyond the workplace. Always remember that a positive word of mouth from third parties is far better to create an impact without much noise and spending.
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Have a strong social strategy
What you write, matters. And what matters is for whom you write. This helps you determine the value proposition that you will be bringing on the table for them. The social strategy will ensure reaching out to your crowd from time to time. This involves, not only knowing your audience but also where they hang out on social media.
If they are always on the move, you might as well reach out via podcasts rather than blogs. If your product needs a recall, videos work the best.
And to know what to write, you need to know them matter. The typical process involves knowing your audience first and then writes for them which in turn will help you go viral on social media.
Most companies work the other way round around to eventually fail to hit the target.
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Keep important people in the loop
Make sure to keep the interactions open by keeping in touch with the influencers, popular public figure connected to your business and the related communities. Keep the communication going for those who benefit from your message which will have them praising you or at least, speaking about you for the work.
Tag them on social media to grab their instant attention, if found useful, they will drop in their comments and might as well share across. This will help you reach wider audiences to get into the sweet spot of social media.
Most of these influencers will welcome the appreciation and value-added content, tagging them will lift their already high credibility and open new avenues for your business.
As a founder, staying in touch with the community and with constant communication will yield immense success in a longer run.
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Stick to the basic rule of communication – Recency
Always try pushing the relevant content while reaching out on behalf of the business. Make sure to set it in the right frequency and give too much empty time in between the content that goes online.
Use platforms where your target audience hangs out and understand the type of content your audience consume the most. This includes audio, video, text, etc.
Spreading messages in a right frequency is another rule to stick to as a founder. You cannot have too much of gap in between the two communication. This demands to set the communication frequency to reap benefits of recency such that your brand stays on top of your audience’s head.
Hammer only when needed, you cannot have loud and constant beating for this purpose. The key lies in balancing the communication and identify the sweet spot to that assures right time and the right place, reaching to the right set of people.
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Power of community and co-branded content
Networking is one of the things that no one told you about startups. It is something that is harnessed once in the community. And then it comes to community content as a part of reaching out to your community that help you spread the right message deep and wide.
The power of community content is that you will acquire new audiences having parallel interests to that of your business.
Moreover, current audiences also need to hear you out. Make sure you have the deep reach and reach newer audiences.
Also, the current audience needs to hear from you and if they get so from a different channel, it will create an impact.
Again, this will have your brand present in their recent memory albeit, from a different channel or probably a different medium.
Move outside of your ecosystem and amplify your reach by creating co-branded content that speaks of your thought leadership.
Seeing you on multiple platforms and associated with other brands will help you leverage on the brand loyalty they have for your associated partner.
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Implement the Big River Strategy
The big river strategy works on the theory of how small lakes benefit from the waters of the big river.
Imagine setting up a stall in a mall and capitalize on the footfalls that it gets. Same goes for the communication where you can be present with your ideas at a place where a large quantity of content is consumed.
For example, putting your stuff on SlideShare, Medium, etc. will have more chances of higher visibility than posting a one-off article on the small website.
You should be looking to fill your canal (read: your website traffic) from the other big rivers (read: high traffic websites) purely by communicating your ideas and business knowledge and grab some more eyeballs.
Eventually, this will create a stream from where you will regularly get relevant traffic.
Conclusion
Do you think there are other similar tactics that you can try out as an entrepreneur? Or, are you using any of the above mentioned methods? Do share your thoughts on how you manage inter and intra-organizational communication as a founder and where it helps you in business.
Feedback: connect@startupanz.com
Author Bio: Shrijay is an entrepreneur with more than ten years of experience in working with hyper-growing digital commerce companies across the globe. Currently, he runs an eCommerce strategy and Analytics consulting company, along with a LegalTech venture in India called https://www.legalwiz.
