Controlling your communications

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An issue that’s plagued marketers since the rise of digital communications has been figuring out how to control the integrity of their message. 2 underlying causes of this concern are the editable nature of the internet, and the ease of online-self-publication. The evolution of search & social media has begun to aggravate this concern again.

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I believe a user’s perception of your message can be interpreted many different ways & your message should account for that interpretation; meaning, message control isn’t as important as a user’s interpretation of the message.

There are 2 primary arguments:

1.     Ensuring each user receives a properly vetted message will provide the best chances of users interpreting the message correctly.

2.     Allowing the message to be altered by each user and redistributed will increase the efficacy of the message. Miscommunication is understood to be the responsibility of the sender, rather than that of the originator.

I think these arguments represent two divergent views on the same continuum. At one end, the marketer wants complete control over the message; at the other end, the marketer submits his message for redefinition to the crowd. Two good Canadian telecom examples are Bell who tried to keep control of the message (http://www.bell.ca) and Wind who turns to the crowd to define a majority of its communication (http://www.windmobile.ca)

 

Digital communications channels that allow a high level of control

Display Ads

Paid Search

Email

Status Updates

 

Digital communications that do not offer as much control

Video Channel

Contest/ Content Integration

Organic Search

Social Bookmarking

Social Networking

Mobile Networking

Twitter/ Microblogs

Blogs/ RSS

 

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Combined with the knowledge of which channels deliver the best results based on your business, you now have a framework to help you throttle the control you have over your message. The idea of throttling control is to find the ideal balance between accurate branding, reach, and influence.

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