A new decade full of challenges for strategic communication and brand management begins. Therefore, during the month of December, we consulted colleagues and experts to summarize some of these conversations and key points to keep in mind for the times to come.
1. Reputational risk remains at stake.- Risk management is increasingly important given the dynamics of the environment and public scrutiny of business performance. Time is running out for companies, regardless of their size, to assume once and for all a business model based on sustainability principles, which is one of the main risk factors.
2. People first.- Internal communication and brand work will be key to developing and sustaining the competitive advantage; however, new generations of professionals demand a new relationship model and a more spontaneous, open and dynamic leadership style. This implies rethinking the corporate culture and making deeper changes in the management processes.
3. Purpose.- It is not what you do, but why you do it. Although this topic has been sufficiently discussed, the corporate narrative takes a new angle. The challenge is no longer communicating what a company does, but how and why it does it and what benefits it generates for society. We enter an era in which brands true character will be defined by the individual and collective well-being they generate for the public.
4. Digital but not so much.- Digital saturation generates new behaviors and more and more people are seeking to disconnect temporarily and rest from the digital maelstrom and the intensity of social networks. The ability of companies and their brands to generate a more humane and closer experience with the consumer means returning to the basics, using the power of social media as business catalysts.
5. Less is more.- It is no longer about the number of followers, but the quality of the communities and their interaction. The management of social networks is no longer the same as it was in the recent past, as most people have reached a greater level of maturity in their use, they look for relevant content and spend their time on communities that have something important to say, as well as useful and attractive information.
6. Transparency is communicating performance.- Companies that use transparency as a performance model, reputation building tool and risk mitigator, will have greater opportunities to succeed in this turbulent environment, since they will have the support of the public despite their mistakes.