Professionals in strategic communication need more than basic communication skills. We live where everyone is competing for attention, and strategic communications professionals are no exception. Strategic communication skills include understanding what goals the organization wants to achieve, what platforms or media it uses to distribute content, and how the effectiveness can be measured.
How can we develop strategic communication skills then? Here are some tips to follow.
1. Build the right team
The right team with the right knowledge, skill, and potential to develop their capabilities can develop good communication skills among them.
2. Build a strong foundation
The team can begin to build one by setting the goals, duties and functions of each member.
3. Create good communication management tools
Develop a good communications tool to guide the planning and executing the creative process. Using what/how/who model can help. This model allows the team to define what message to convey (what), the media to use (how), and the audience to reach (who).
4. Initiate planning and implementation process
Include ones to allow you keep on the track, prioritize workflow, and control the possible cost.
5. Tackle overload in the team
Assess the key activities and how much time the team spent on it, then determine which one can be prioritized and which one can be eliminated. By this, the workflow can become more effective and efficient.
6. Develop measures of PR value
Set goal using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) approach at the beginning of the project so that they can be assessed once it is completed.
7. Demonstrate good performance
Make sure everything is documented. The documentation then can be used as a reference in the future, both within the internal team and when communicating with the externals.
8. Improve professional knowledge
Join a PR association to increase professional knowledge from networking with other members. (Claudia)