Communicating In the Web 2.0 Age

The amount of information available and easily accessible today is staggering. There are more ways than ever before for people to communicate. Consumers and corporate decision-makers — and those include cable’s customers — have access to unprecedented volumes of content.

In the new Web 2.0 environment, technologically savvy customers evaluate what you say and often write what they think about it — and they do so at their own convenience. When they do, what they say travels via blogs, discussion groups, social and visual networking sites, video-sharing sites and more, and influences others.

With the constantly growing volume of available information, finding ways to get messages through the clutter and controlling content is more challenging than ever before. Traditional vehicles still have a place in the mix, but expectations are for more immediate access than most can provide.

The upside to all of this is that this convenient, fast access to information and communications tools presents unprecedented opportunities for reaching customers and exchanging information with them.

Our mission at the Association of Cable Communicators is to develop and promote cable communications excellence through professional development. One way we do this is by providing information to assist communicators in presenting their messages and dealing with situations they may encounter along the way.

A July 2007 ACC brief on understanding consumer-generated media presents information on how new media and the maturing of technologies such as the Web 2.0 environment affect organizations and offers ways to tap into them. Among the suggestions:

• Develop a system for monitoring what consumers and content generators are saying and for evaluating that content for its ability to influence search, news aggregators and other places where consumers and opinion leaders go online.
• Implement a proactive protocol to guide when, where and how to respond to brand, product or issues-focused mentions that occur online. In today’s online environment, there is no time to wait and see if negative, false or misleading content about your brand that appears in blogs or other consumer generated media will bubble to the surface. Nor is that the best time to decide your policy on how to respond. In fact, such on-the-fly decisions will likely be a recipe for failure.
• Develop a company-sponsored and identified blog where executives and other employees write about topics related to their business and, at times, personal experiences.

I challenge cable communicators to seek new ways to open the lines of communications within their organizations and between the organization and customer. Take advantage of the rich media choices available. Present your organization’s messages in the ways your customers want to receive them. Develop ways to reach individual audiences and customers with personalized messages that resonate with them.

As cable industry communicators in the age of Web 2.0, we have a wealth of resources available to us. Now, it is time for us to put them to use.