Last night, I was honoured to give the keynote address to the Annual General Meeting of the International Association of Business Communicators on the topic of “Communications 2.0: How social media has changed the way we do our jobs.”It was a great night, full of lively and productive discussion.
After a delicious barbecue which featured one of my favourite things in the world: corn on the cob, I took the podium and spoke about how social media is affecting the practice of professional communication and how it is offering an opportunity for professional communicators to take their seat at the senior management table.
In the very lively ensuing conversation, we talked a lot about how professional communicators can take hold of the social media function in their organizations and use it to justify communications as a core management function. Social media is a whole organization function that impacts each of the brand, reputation and relationships of an organization. The challenge faced by many organizations is twofold:
- How apply the principles of strategic management to social media management;
- How to create necessary and sufficient KPIs, benchmarks and metrics accurately measure the cost, impact and return on investment
- How to set up a measurement program for your organization on a small budget
