The New Communication Heroes of 2020
This blog post isn’t about specific people. No…this blog post is about communication tools that have risen above the nightmare that IS trying to communicate with the public since COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Why are these tools so important? Let me tell you two quick stories.
First story. Early March 2020, I had a client who was holding six public meetings (charrettes to be specific). The first three charrettes were held right before the media began reporting on this new thing out there called Coronavirus. Well, those first three meetings went swimmingly. Then…everything blew up. Needless to say, our tried and true public meetings became persona non grata and attendance plummeted. The day after our last public meeting, local governments actually cancelled all public meetings and as of today, have still not allowed in-person public meetings to occur.
Second story. Colleague of mine was out hanging door hangars in an area that was affected by a local government project she was working on. Don’t roll your eyes. Door hangars are still a very effective communication tool for certain projects and certain audiences. Anyway, this was in the early days of the virus, and she was wearing a mask and gloves, just as a precaution. After placing a door hangar on one house and walking away, the door swung open and the homeowner proceeded to verbally accost her for endangering her health by putting this piece of paper on her door. Needless to say, my colleague stopped immediately and went back to the office to call the client. Unfortunately, the homeowner beat her to it and the ensuing client phone call was less than pleasant.
These two stories illustrate what we all already know – that in many cases, the way we communicate with our various publics has changed drastically due to COVID-19. Here are a few communication tools that have been very useful during these trying times.
Telephone Townhall Meetings (www.telephonetownhallmeetings.com)
Telephone Townhall Meetings (TTMs) are not new. They are very popular with elected officials and government entities. They allow an entity to reach out via phone and online to a very specific target audience. The communication occurs over the phone and participants not only listen, but also ask questions and participate in surveys. Ever since in-person public meetings have gone bye-bye, TTMs have successfully taken their place and in many cases, have resulted in drastically higher participation numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see TTMs continue to be used more frequently instead of in-person public meetings, even after things return back to “normal.”
Zoom (www.zoom.com)
Zoom (or GoToMeeting or Skype for Business or whatever) has seen a drastic increase in usage as so many people are now working from home. Nothing surprising about that. But what is interesting is the “Zoom Fatigue” that is occurring for so many people. In an interview with Gianpiero Petriglieri from BBC, he explained that being on a video call requires more focus than a face-to-face chat. “Video chats mean we need to work harder to process non-verbal cues like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language; paying more attention to these consumes a lot of energy.”
So while Zoom and other online meeting sites have been a lifesaver for businesses during this time, I know many people (including myself) will be happy to sit down face-to-face with our colleagues and clients once it is safe to do so again.
Social Media
It’s not surprising that social media made it onto this list of Communication Heroes. I don’t know if we could have survived this thing if not for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. etc. etc.
What IS shocking are the numbers of people using these platforms. Facebook has seen a 50% increase in messaging since this crisis began. Twitter as seen a 30% increase. Instagram Stories have seen a 30% increase and active users on the platform have increased by 4.4 million people.
The bottom line – if you aren’t already using social media to communicate to your clients, you are missing out. Your clients are on at least one of these social media platforms. Find the ones that they are using and start communicating with them. Trust me, your competitors already are.
Email Marketing
I was on a…wait for it…Zoom call the other day with several local business owners. I was talking with a local dentist and asked him if he was using email to communicate with his patients in order to keep them up-to-date. His response…no, we don’t use email to communicate with our patients.
What?!?! That shocked both me and the other marketing consultant on the call. I don’t know about you, but I have received many e-mail newsletters from businesses that I interact with, giving me updates and letting me know how and when they are opening back up for business.
And as long as those emails weren’t the generic, “We are taking all necessary precautions because we care about you, blah blah blah,” then I appreciated receiving them.
Email is still the number one way we communicate with each other. Admit it…the first thing you do when you wake up is grab your phone and check your email.
So use email marketing to let your customers know that you are still there and explain what you are doing to make sure you will be there to take care of them as things return to “normal.”
No matter what is happening in the world, communication remains integral to a business’ success. But how we conduct those communication activities is changing.
