5 tips to communicate across the digital landscape
Are your digital communications skills up to scratch? Or are you struggling to keep up with the ever changing digital world? In an age where nearly everything is connected to the internet, it’s essential that you are able to communicate effectively online and convey an atmosphere of professionalism while doing so. You want to be able to fully engage with your coworkers and most importantly any potential new clients.
Communication has changed significantly over the past decade and those who have kept up-to-date on the latest trends will always be ahead of the game over those who are set in their ways. By embracing new ideas, better technologies and keeping up with new regulations and security measures, you will have no issues in maximising your digital outreach capabilities.
But how is this done? Which strategies should you employ in order to get your message across in the right way? Here at Glandore we’ve put together a handy list of tips so that you can help develop your skills and dominate the digital landscape.
1. Make sure your methods are at least effective
One of the biggest issues facing companies and their ability to communicate effectively is outsourcing. Most companies tend to outsource certain processes to other countries and most of the time they tend to be in a different time zone. As a result, this means cross-communication can be quite difficult.
It’s important to remember that you need to have the best communicative software installed on your computers to make sure that any and all conversations which happen with your outsourced teams are carried out in a clear manner.
If you use video call software, make sure it’s highly rated. The same goes for an IM system. It’s worth spending the money on these types of things if it means you can communicate clearly with your offshore teams.
2. Know what your employees are using
Are your employees issued an official company phone and laptop? Or do you encourage them to bring their own tech? Knowing which your employees are using can only benefit any future communications, especially considering the amount of employees who now work in off-site locations.
If all employees are working off one particular system (e.g everybody has a MacBook), you can easily deploy a communications tool which will be simple for everyone to download and use. The same goes for work phones. Certain brands of phones have their own native communication applications, ones which could be beneficial to your company.
3. Consider security and compliance—GDPR and the cloud
Keeping up-to-date with current communications legislation can help you avoid making any major mistakes when connecting with clients.
GDPR, for example, is a new regulation which will be introduced in Europe in May 2018. This will significantly change data protection law across Europe and will force businesses to become more responsible when handling sensitive data. Businesses will also have to show accountability for their data processing activities.
Becoming more aware of new regulations such as GDPR can help you become more confident when you communicate, as you can then avoid the monotonous practise of triple-checking because you feel unsure.
4. Introduce and support changes
Change can be good or bad. It can completely revolutionise the things we do, or make things worse. However, the inability to make any sort of change can only be harmful to your business, as over time it will leave your company processes obsolete.
You need to be able to change up the way you communicate with co-workers or clients, especially when it comes to technology. Do you still write blocks of text or use the same Powerpoint theme? It might be time to brush up on more modern approaches to communication and introduce them to colleagues.
If you are in a position of management, try to support any changes suggested by your employees. Take a chance and make a change when needed.
5. Continually work on user adoption and engagement
It’s all well and good implementing a new piece of communication technology into your company, but without continued training and engagement people will soon revert to their old ways.
Worse again, employees may want to use this technology regularly but might be facing teething problems that they cannot fix and have to await the assistance of an already swamped IT team.
When implementing a new system or piece of tech, you must understand what the user needs. If there are any issues, they need to be noted and passed on to the relevant department immediately, don’t leave them on the back burner. Then finally, evaluate employee performance and see if anything else needs to be done.