Corporate Communications Archives | Sprout Social Sprout Social offers a suite of <a href="/features/" class="fw-bold">social media solutions</a> that supports organizations and agencies in extending their reach, amplifying their brands and creating real connections with their audiences. Wed, 27 Mar 2024 19:39:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://media.sproutsocial.com/uploads/2020/06/cropped-Sprout-Leaf-32x32.png Corporate Communications Archives | Sprout Social 32 32 The Rise and Fall Of New Platforms: What Threads Has Taught Us About Emerging Social Media https://sproutsocial.com/insights/webinars/rise-new-platforms-threads-emerging-social-media/ Tue, 22 Aug 2023 15:54:39 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=webinars&p=176023/ Threads burst onto the scene this summer and quickly became the fastest-growing social media platform of all time with 100+ million users in one Read more...

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]]> Threads burst onto the scene this summer and quickly became the fastest-growing social media platform of all time with 100+ million users in one week. As the heat of its entrance has died down, what does this new platform mean for your brand and social strategy? What have we learnt about Threads, where does it fit in in the social media sphere, and well, is it too late to be an early adopter?

As social media teams across the world figure out strategies to not only incorporate Threads  but also excel at it, this webinar will examine what we’ve learnt so far and explore thoughts on what we think is in store. 

Hear insights from social media consultant and industry analyst, Matt Navarra, and Senior Social Media Manager from financial favourite and industry disrupter, Monzo.

You will learn:

  • The current state of Threads and how early adopter brands leverage its capabilities
  • How businesses can use Threads for community building, customer care and more
  • Key distinctions and differentiations between Threads strategy vs. other social channels
  • Predictions for 2024 and beyond

Your speakers:

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]]> Why it’s time to break up with your biannual brand survey https://sproutsocial.com/insights/brand-survey/ Wed, 26 Jul 2023 14:28:17 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=158212/ Maybe you think you’re in a happy relationship with your current brand survey routine. Twice a year, you go on the brand health reporting Read more...

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]]> Maybe you think you’re in a happy relationship with your current brand survey routine. Twice a year, you go on the brand health reporting equivalent of an excellent date. You get romanced by charts, figures and juicy audience insights. But what about the rest of the year?

Every six months may have been enough in the past, but now, consumer preferences can change instantly. Commissioning a five-figure biannual brand reputation survey—and spending multiple months on data collection and analysis—means the research you conduct will always be stale.

You deserve real-time insights, unfiltered audience opinions and speedy results. It may seem like asking for too much but trust me, you’re worth it. Plus, social insights can give you everything you got from your brand survey and more.

If you’re wondering whether it’s the right time to say goodbye, keep reading. We’re making the case for moving on to bigger and better things.

What is a brand survey?

Brand surveys measure how an audience thinks and feels about a brand. These surveys are designed to gauge overall brand health and perception with specific audiences. For example, if you seek insights on how your brand stacks up against its competitors, you’d probably survey prospects and customers. Alternatively, if you’re trying to understand how your brand resonates as an employer, surveying your colleagues would provide stronger insights.

Survey questions can vary based on your goals. Here are four types of brand survey questions marketers use to learn more about how audiences perceive their brand:

  • Cognitive: Questions that assess what audiences associate with your brand. For example, people might associate Apple with “minimalism” or “innovation.”
  • Emotional: Questions that measure the emotional connection a respondent has with your brand.
  • Descriptive: Questions that prompt respondents to describe your brand in their own words. These questions are typically open-ended.
  • Action-based: Questions that ask respondents to rate the quality of their experiences with your brand.

These questions can be used in different combinations to better understand how people view your brand and how that differs from your company’s perception of itself.

Evaluating brand health—why traditional survey methods are not enough

A healthy brand is like having an emergency line of credit for times of crisis. The stronger your brand health is, the more forgiving your audience is likely to be in the event of an issue.

Routine brand health evaluations help you better understand how an unforeseen event might impact your brand’s reputation. This information enables you to determine the perceived threat of a crisis, making it foundational to your response strategy.

If you’re only conducting biannual brand perception surveys, you could be missing meaningful shifts in audience sentiment. If that’s not enough, here are three reasons you should reconsider your brand survey distribution plans.

  • Your brand health is constantly changing: Biannual surveys used to make sense because up until recently, there were only a few ways to move the needle on brand perception. Now, social media and online review sites have empowered consumers to speak their minds whenever the inspiration strikes. If you’re not consistently monitoring your online brand health, you’re likely missing vital feedback.
  • Your survey design could lead to biased responses: You don’t know what you don’t know. Even now, an online conversation could impact how people will perceive your brand for months to come. Even the most intentional question list can return biased results if it’s not informed by accurate insights.
  • You need timely insights: Brand health survey design and distribution takes a long time. If you need to understand how a current event is affecting your brand perception, you don’t have any time to waste.
  • NPS and star ratings don’t provide the whole picture: Net promoter scores (NPS) and star rating systems aren’t the most dependable brand survey methods. They give you no contextual insights and are notoriously difficult to trust given that most users provide ratings arbitrarily. For example, ratings may depend on the mood of the customer or have nothing to do with the product but rather their interactions with staff. Unless there is a comment accompanying the rating, you have no way of getting actionable insights to improve your brand health.
  • Ratings discount customer segmentation: Customer demographics play a key role in market research as brand experience may differ vastly based on segmentations such as age groups or ethnic backgrounds. For example, a resort may get different ratings from families with little children than from older guests based on the holiday, in-house entertainment facilities or proximity to transportation. That’s why blanket biannual brand surveys for customer ratings can give you skewed data.

Brand survey functionality across social networks

Brand surveys on social are typically used to gauge ad effectiveness. That said, they can also provide valuable insights into brand perception and awareness. If your team often relies on paid social, use any of the following in-network survey tools to get more out of your budget.

Twitter Brand Surveys

On Twitter, brands aren’t just part of the fun. Sometimes, they’re driving the fun themselves. Seven out of 10 Twitter users even say that “Brand Twitter” is one of the best parts of being present on the network.

Using Twitter Brand Surveys can help you better understand what drives brand lift among an already receptive audience. These surveys are typically used to measure awareness after repeat ad exposure. They can also be used to dig into message association for your brand and its competitors.

LinkedIn Brand Lift Tests

LinkedIn Brand Lift Surveys help marketers measure several brand awareness metrics as they run ads on the platform. The surveys use test and control groups to determine the overall effectiveness of an ad, alongside key perception metrics like brand favorability, familiarity and product consideration.

While these brand surveys are technically free, there are some strings attached. Marketers must spend a minimum ad budget of $90,000 in a given period to use the Brand Lift Survey feature.

Facebook Brand Survey Tests

With Facebook, you can use the Experiments tool to run a brand survey test. Like LinkedIn, these surveys reach a test and control group to calculate the impact a Facebook ad has on brand awareness and perception. These tools are particularly useful if you’re wondering how well an awareness campaign is resonating with a target audience.

There are minimum ad spend requirements to use Facebook’s brand survey tools, but they vary by country.

How to conduct rolling, real-time brand surveys with Sprout Social

In-network survey tools best measure brand awareness after repeat ad exposure. But that only scratches the surface of brand insights available on social media. According to The 2023 State of Social Media report, 95% of business leaders agree social media data and insights are important to inform business decisions outside of marketing.

Sixty-nine percent are already investing in social media tools, with 62% using listening features to capture all the conversations about your brand on social and review sites. This is crucial for meeting KPIs and keeping track of competitors as social listening helps synthesize discussions across social networks into actionable business insights. Here are three Sprout tools that will help you get it done.

1. Brand Health Social Listening Topics

Sprout’s Listening tool helps brands keep a pulse on the conversations that matter most. Think of it as a real-time focus group that provides honest, unfiltered feedback.

You can use five Listening Topic templates to tap into social insights at scale. For this case, let’s check out the Brand Health Topic Template.

The Brand Health Topic template will help you gauge the public perception of your brand or products. By using the right social listening platform you can decide what counts as a mention using the Query Builder, so you can factor in your brand name, popular product names, common misspellings and more. Whatever it takes to get a comprehensive picture of what people are saying about your brand online so you make improvements as needed such as better customer support or better-targeted content.

This ongoing analysis has several advantages to a traditional brand survey. Most notably, ongoing sentiment tracking.

A screenshot of Sprout Social’s Sentiment Summary Report, available through the Social Listening tool.

Sprout’s social media sentiment analysis tool monitors the positive, negative and neutral mentions of your brand within a particular time period. It also provides vital details on how sentiment is trending over time.

2. Competitive Analysis Social Listening Topics

Brand health survey questions typically don’t assess your brand performance in a vacuum. Your competitors are an essential piece of the puzzle. In Sprout, you can track their public perception and compare it to yours using the Competitive Analysis Listening Topic Template.

A screenshot of Sprout Social’s Share of Voice report, available through the Social Listening tool.

This report will help you visualize your brand’s share of voice compared to competitors’. These insights are a critical tool in assessing what differentiates your brand from the competition, whether they’re indirect, direct or aspirational.

A screenshot of Sprout’s Social Listening Query Builder, which uses keyword combinations to surface insights from conversations happening across social.

To get started, decide on a few priority competitors. Once you’ve created your shortlist, you can add their brand names and related keywords to the Listening Query Builder. Related keywords might include product names, branded hashtags or direct profile mentions. Finally, add in your brand information. The Listening Topic will backfill data for the past 30 days and continue to collect it over time for consistent, rolling insights.

3. Inbound Message Tagging and Tag Reports

Thirty-one percent of consumers prefer to leave feedback about products or services via social media, making it the most popular channel to do so. These messages are rich sources of brand health information and influence business decisions outside of marketing such as improving product features and customer care.

Sprout’s Tagging feature can help identify and organize incoming messages from across all social networks. You can then report on those Tags using the Tag Performance Report. This information can help you translate large volumes of customer feedback into actionable insights that illuminate your audience’s thoughts and feelings.

A screenshot of Sprout Social’s Tag Report, showing the volume breakdown of inbound message Tags.

Creating this system requires ongoing collaboration with whichever team typically manages social support requests. This process may not seem natural at first, but it’s critical to breaking down information silos and accelerating time to insights.

The team at Grammarly, a cloud-based typing assistant, pulls this off by sharing quarterly reports on themes found within their social messages to keep others up to date on trends and opportunities they’re seeing in customer support.

Brand surveys: It’s not you, it’s them

Breaking up is hard to do. Still, when your current brand survey practices are standing in the way of faster, more accurate insights, you’ve got to rip off the bandage and say goodbye.

If you still find yourself wondering if you’re ready for what’s next, check out this social media market research worksheet. This tool will give you a framework for extracting unbiased audience feedback from social in less than two hours.

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]]> How AI is changing communications and PR: Risks and benefits https://sproutsocial.com/insights/ai-in-communications-pr/ Wed, 31 May 2023 14:15:53 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=173561/ Managing communications has become quite the juggling act. Each passing year throws in a new challenge, whether that be keeping up with audience interests, Read more...

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]]> Managing communications has become quite the juggling act. Each passing year throws in a new challenge, whether that be keeping up with audience interests, navigating tough economic conditions or even defusing an unexpected brand crisis.

There’s been a lot of discussion around the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and communications and for good reason: AI has the potential to reshape the corporate communications landscape. Corporate communications teams have become responsible for safeguarding their brand from potential misfires caused by AI technology. However, knowing where to begin in assessing the risks and benefits can be challenging.

Rachelle Bedell, Communications and Engagement Manager for the City of Gilroy, CA, has been experimenting with generative AI as she develops content to build connections between Gilroy’s local government and its 60,000 residents.

We spoke to Bedell about her big takeaways on the benefits and drawbacks of using AI in communications roles. In this guide, we’ll cover her tips, along with more advice on how communications leaders can empower their teams to use this technology with confidence.

What can communications teams do with AI?

Many people claim that AI can increase your team’s productivity, but is there any evidence to support this? According to Bedell, there is.

“Not only does it make us more efficient, it makes us go further,” says Bedell. “It’s like the invention of the graphing calculator for math. We don’t have to sit around and add numbers with paper and a pencil anymore. Instead, we can take what it provides and do so much more.”

But what does “more” look like exactly? Here are three practical corporate communications applications that can help your team save time.

Streamline content ideation and creation

Coommunications professionals not only have to come up with creative, compelling brand messaging, they also have to tailor that message for specific channels, audiences and events. Meeting the right person with the right message at the right time is only getting harder.

Luckily, AI is here to help.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can’t provide you with ready-to-publish content: There’s still a lot of ambiguity around whether AI-generated content is protected under copyright law. To safeguard your business, it’s important to customize the final output with your brand’s distinctive tone. This will ensure a personal touch that maintains your brand’s image.

“I use it most often for rewrites,” says Bedell. “I’ll ask for ideas on how to rephrase content so it’s more engaging or so that it drives a specific action, then I evaluate its response and refine from there.”

AI-powered tools can give you a new perspective and spark creativity, guiding you in the right direction without having to wait for inspiration to strike. To maximize the efficiency of a tool, we need to master the art of writing an AI prompt or query so that the tool can pick the exact aspects of what needs to be delivered.

“It’s a great starting point for creative ideas,” says Bedell. “For example, I’m working on the city’s annual Pride Month campaign. We’ve done campaigns in the past where we’ve explored the symbolism of the Pride flag, and another where we highlighted important historical figures of the movement, but this year I wanted to do something different. I asked ChatGPT to generate some ideas and dove in from there.”

At Sprout, our communications team employs generative AI to develop creative titles for press releases and media pitches. A simple prompt like “Write 3-4 press release headline variations related to X, Y, and Z” can return valuable starting points for further refinement.

A screenshot of a chat in OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The prompt says, "Please write 3-4 headline variations for a press release covering Sprout Social’s new investments in artificial intelligence (AI).” The response says, “1) Sprout Social Supercharges Its Platform with Significant Investments in Artificial Intelligence, Transforming Social Media Management. 2) Sprout Social Reinforces Industry Leadership with Major AI Investments, Empowering Brands with Cutting-Edge Social Media Solutions. 3) Sprout Social Bolsters Its Arsenal with Strategic Investments in AI, Paving the Way for Advanced Social Media Marketing. 4) Leading Social Media Management Platform, Sprout Social, Boosts Capabilities through Significant AI Investments, Enhancing Customer Success.”

Collect social insights

Audience insights are the foundation of better brand positioning. With AI, communications teams can gain a deeper understanding of the customer’s mind through social media sentiment analysis.

Sentiment analysis tools use machine learning to gather information about consumer attitudes and assess their emotional state. In communications, these insights are commonly used to sharpen media pitches, messaging and executive comms.

For example, the Indiana University marketing and communications team relies on insights from Sprout’s Social Listening tool to stay up-to-date on campus conversations and get ahead of potential crises. These insights allow them to take proactive measures toward managing their reputation online.

A screenshot of a Listening Performance Sentiment Summary in Sprout. It depicts percentage of positive sentiment and changes in sentiment trends over time.

At Sprout, we’re committed to building on this technology with a series of new AI features across the platform. We’re combining the power of our proprietary machine learning and automation capabilities with OpenAI’s GPT model. The new features will be available throughout the Sprout platform, starting with additions to listening, publishing, customer care and advocacy.

Gain a global advantage

Multilingual sentiment analysis uses native language machine learning to gather meaningful sentiment data from content across several languages. These tools capture the nuances specific to each language’s unique grammar rules.

These insights strengthen communications efforts geared toward non-English audiences, allowing you to build a brand that serves the diverse needs of your audience. For communications professionals like Bedell, such insights can ensure that all audiences receive messages that are both effective and equitable.

“California just passed a state-wide law allowing sidewalk vendors,” says Bedell. “Now, we’re changing our processes to accommodate state law. That includes creating ways to make the permit accessible to both our English- and Spanish-speaking populations.”

In the future, Bedell could use multilingual sentiment analysis to ground this work in data gathered from Spanish speakers in the region. This would help her create a more personalized message that reflects how residents are discussing the issue.

How communications teams can mitigate risks when working with AI

AI will undoubtedly transform the field of communications, but the professionals behind the screen are irreplaceable.

“The other day I saw a headline that said communications teams will eventually be replaced by AI,” says Bedell. “I knew it had to come from someone who isn’t currently working in communications. There’s too much nuance in the role for it to be fully automated. The tech isn’t there yet.”

On top of that, there’s a foundational communication skill that will always need a human touch: relationship-building.

“I don’t think people realize how much relationship-building goes into communications,” says Bedell. “It’s half the battle. The success of our content is dependent on our relationships with downtown businesses, the public health department—the list goes on.”

Instead of asking whether AI will replace our jobs, we should consider how it will transform them. The collaboration between AI and communication professionals creates a path toward a future where technology enhances human creativity, insight and productivity, redefining what’s possible for individuals at every level.

However, it’s crucial to acknowledge the risks associated with adopting AI. Finding the right balance between AI and human effort is key to achieving the best outcomes. As you embrace AI’s potential in communications, it’s important to understand and address the risks that come with it.

A text-based graphic that says, “How communications teams can reduce AI risks. 1) Double-check everything. Always ask for sources from AI-powered assistants. Take time to verify their validity. 2) Prioritize data security. Work with IT and Legal teams to create policies around employee AI usage at work. 3) Embrace experimentation. Encourage your team to engage in responsible AI experimentation.

Double-check everything

Professionals who use text-based generative AI solutions should be cautious of potential avenues for misinformation, like “chatbot hallucinations” or faulty claims.

Bedell has experienced these issues firsthand. “I’ve had times where I’ve asked ChatGPT to share its sources and it hasn’t always worked out. Once, when I was looking for a source for an example it included, it told me that it didn’t realize I wanted a real example and had included a hypothetical option instead.”

When using AI-generated content, it’s crucial to ensure its accuracy and originality by reviewing it thoroughly. Always ask for sources from AI-powered assistants, and take the time to verify their validity. These steps are essential for maintaining your brand’s safety and avoiding potential crises.

Prioritize data security

Speaking of crises, any comms pro will tell you that even a mild data security mishap can be an absolute nightmare.

Communication teams aren’t responsible for setting the rules around how and why teams use AI. They will, however, have to deal with any fallout that occurs if an employee shares confidential information with an AI tool, creating an unfortunate privacy issue.

“You have to have conversations with legal and technical teams to understand the pitfalls your organization may face when working with AI,” says Bedell. “It’s important to find safe ways to let your employees leverage this type of tool.”

At Sprout, we’re prioritizing the security of our data and intellectual property by educating our teams on safe usage of generative AI. To ensure responsible use, our legal and IT teams worked together to create a policy outlining approved and prohibited use cases.

The policy is concise and straightforward, even for individuals with limited experience using AI tools. This helps busy teams navigate changes more easily, even with the rapid developments of generative AI.

Embrace experimentation

There are risks that come with using AI. That said, not using AI also presents risks of its own.

Bedell broke it down like this: “On one hand, you have companies that are embracing AI. On the other, there are companies that have chosen to prohibit its use entirely because it’s too new. I understand being concerned about the risk, but I feel like they’re missing a huge opportunity to let their people learn how to truly leverage it.”

Artificial intelligence is here to stay. We’ll continue to find more applications for AI in communications, media and PR. To avoid falling behind, it is essential to encourage your team to experiment frequently with AI technology.

Harnessing the power of AI in communications

Artificial intelligence can be a powerful ally in the ever-evolving world of corporate communication. When we combine AI with human expertise, we open ourselves up to a new era of communication that allows professionals to connect, resonate and drive success at scale.

For more insights on how communications leaders are extracting value from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and more, check out Sprout’s 2023 State of Social Media Report.

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]]> How to use brand safety tools to protect your brand’s reputation https://sproutsocial.com/insights/brand-safety-tools/ Thu, 11 May 2023 14:00:07 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=172847/ Operating on social media without brand safety tools is like browsing the internet without malware protection. Technically, you can do it—but it opens you Read more...

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]]> Operating on social media without brand safety tools is like browsing the internet without malware protection. Technically, you can do it—but it opens you up to unnecessary risks and incidents that can cause financial loss and permanent reputational damage.

Brand safety has traditionally been relegated to just protecting brands from advertising on or near inappropriate content online. But it also encompasses monitoring your organic content and what people are saying about your brand on social, and scoping out imposters or other security threats.

Keep reading for actionable ways you can use brand safety tools and examples of effective tools that will help you minimize risk on social.

What are brand safety tools?

Brand safety tools are automated solutions that protect your brand from threats on social media and other digital channels, including major reputational risks such as your ads appearing alongside distasteful content.

A gold graphic that reads: What are brand safety tools? Automated solutions that provide your brand with threat protection on social media and other digital channels.

Brand safety tools can also track conversations about your company online: They monitor what people are commenting on your posts and ads, how your brand hashtags are being used and the discourse surrounding your brand.

With this intel on hand, you are empowered to respond to reputational risks before they become a full-blown crisis, and expand the breadth of your corporate communications strategy.

4 ways to use brand safety tools to protect your reputation

Here are specific ways you can use a range of brand safety tools to preserve your brand’s reputation.

1. Use the built-in brand safety tools for each social network

Your first line of defense against your branded ads appearing alongside offensive content includes the in-platform tools provided by the major social networks. Factor them into your social media advertising strategy to minimize risk and maximize the impact of your campaigns.

  • Meta platforms: Meta offers several brand safety controls that work across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. These features allow you to choose the level of control over where your ad appears. Placements can be restricted by content topic, format and source.
  • Twitter: Twitter’s Brand Safety Marketing Collection offers both technical and general advice on how to keep your brand safe on the network. These features allow you to keep Twitter a safe place for your brand and community.
  • YouTube: In 2022, YouTube received content-level brand safety accreditation from the Media Rating Council for the second year in a row. Their continued accreditation speaks to the many initiatives Google has taken to ensure advertisers get the most out of their investments in the network. YouTube’s brand safety features are consistent with those available through Google search and display ads.
  • TikTok: TikTok launched its Brand Safety Center to provide marketers with up-to-date news and recommendations on brand suitability within the network. As its footprint in the social media landscape grows, the TikTok team has been hard at work creating brand safety solutions within their ad platform including the TikTok Inventory Filter and some pre- and post-bid safety tools.
A screenshot of Adidas' video ad featuring WNBA star, Candace Parker. The screenshot is zoomed in on Parker's face as she looks down at something out of frame. Text across the screen reads: Candace "Ace" Parker, Chicago, Illinois. It also includes captions of a voiceover being read: "To some, the name is Candace..."

Adidas’ recent campaign is a brand safety success story. The retailer used TikTok to highlight its partnership with basketball star Candace Parker. To deliver the message, Adidas wanted to make sure the ad campaign would be surrounded by content suitable for the brand “without sacrificing scale or performance.” By using the TikTok Inventory Filter brand safety solution, Adidas could reach their audience without compromising their brand values. The campaign received 57 million impressions, a 99.9% brand safety rate and a 99.9% brand suitability rate.

2. Use social listening to see what people are saying about your brand online

Social listening helps you keep a pulse on what people are saying about your brand online, even when you aren’t tagged or mentioned. This intel gives you the audience insights you need to create a customer-centric social strategy. And, if a brand crisis emerges, listening reveals “the why” behind negative feedback to help you understand the root cause.

Social listening allows you to:

  • Monitor brand sentiment to get ahead of a crisis.
  • Analyze how people respond to your organic posts and paid ads in one place.
  • Track branded hashtags and related keywords.
  • Find and address copycat or impersonation accounts and other security threats.

You can complete a social listening exercise today to find out if there are any risks you should be aware of. Mind you, if an unexpected emergency does come up, manual social listening might not be proactive or extensive enough.

With a tool like Sprout’s AI-powered social listening solution, the platform does the heavy lifting for you, sifting through millions of data points to deliver the trends, insights and key learnings you need in seconds.

A screenshot of a Listening Performance Sentiment Summary in Sprout. It depicts percentage of positive sentiment and changes in sentiment trends over time.

You’re enabled to track unfiltered conversations about business-critical topics, like how people are reacting to your latest ad campaign, product launch or social responsibility initiative. For example, you can view brand sentiment trends at a glance within the platform, which helps you visualize how people are reacting to your brand in real time.

To see it in action, read how the Atlanta Hawks use social listening to track relevant keywords and hashtags related to their campaigns, and use the data to demonstrate the organization-wide impact of their efforts.

3. Monitor message activity and frequency to stay ahead of a crisis

Your social inboxes are like a vital sign that measures your brand health. For the most part, an average volume of messages means things are business as usual. But an unexpected spike can be cause for concern. It could indicate a PR disaster is on the horizon or has already arrived.

Manually monitoring incoming messages 24/7 is unrealistic, which is why having a tool that monitors message activity and notifies you of a sudden influx is imperative to stay ahead of a crisis.

Take Message Spike Alert notifications connected to Sprout’s Smart Inbox. When incoming messages across your social platforms exceed the hourly average, you immediately get email or mobile push notifications. Plus, you can customize the tool’s sensitivity settings to ensure the protocol is appropriate for your team.

A screenshot from Sprout's platform that demonstrates message spike detection. In the screenshot, the Smart Inbox features a message alert that reads: We started detecting a spike 5 minutes ago.

4. Use employee advocacy tools to reduce risk from in-house posts

Something we believe wholeheartedly at Sprout is that a brand’s employees are its greatest superpower. When your employees share your content, they amplify your reach and give you a powerful endorsement. However, even the most well-meaning employees can tip public favor against you by saying the wrong thing.

By using employee advocacy, you empower your employees by providing them with pre-approved social messages to share. These message ideas help you maintain a consistent brand voice and enable your employees to comply with your brand guidelines. To that end, you’re able to restrict the available social networks your content can be shared on, too—decreasing your risk of liability even further.

A screenshot of Sprout's Employee Advocacy platform where a post is being curated for employees to share.

Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform enables you to put all your shareable content in one place so employees can quickly and easily post to their social networks. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness, generate leads or attract top talent, advocacy can make a measurable impact, while reducing the risks that come with employees’ individual social media use.

Read how our Advocacy platform helped Vizient transform their awareness strategy during COVID, triple their impressions and make thought leadership accessible to their employees—all while minimizing risks to their brand.

Effective brand safety solutions

To get started crisis-proofing your brand, learn more about these brand safety tools and how they can help you face (and overcome) common threats.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a powerful solution for social media management. And, as we mention throughout this article, our platform improves your brand safety on social with automated tools and processes.

A screenshot of Sprout's Performance Summary tool which demonstrates key metrics (like volume, engagements and impressions) related to a Topic.

To recap, you can use Sprout to:

  • Quickly gauge public perception of your brand and products, and proactively monitor emerging risks.
  • Stay alert to increases in message volume that could indicate crises, time-sensitive events and other urgent situations.
  • Centralize all your shareable content into one secure place and provide pre-approved, shareable social messages to your employees—reducing risk, while helping you make huge impacts on your social performance.

Ready to put your brand’s safety first? Start using Sprout’s intuitive platform to dig into conversations about your brand online and monitor your inbound messages today with a free 30-day trial.

While Sprout can cover many important brand safety and reputational needs, here are a few other targeted solutions you can consider to round out your strategy.

2. Proofpoint

Proofpoint is a threat-protection solution that fortifies brands and data against cyber attacks. On social, their Digital Risk Protection tool provides real-time security features for branded accounts.

You can use it to:

  • Search accounts by image to discover brand misuse.
  • Scan for fraudulent and brand protest accounts.
  • Receive alerts for risky accounts that require takedown or legal review.
  • Send automated alerts to internal stakeholders when risky accounts are detected.

3. Adobe Analytics

Adobe Advertising Cloud Brand Safety Tools deliver industry-leading solutions that ensure your ads display in the best possible light. With these tools, the computer software company goes beyond creativity and enters the world of brand safety and security.

Adobe tools protect your brand by:

  • Detecting and mitigating faulty inventory.
  • Identifying and preventing fraud, brand violations and suboptimal viewing.
  • Ensuring you only pay for meaningful media placements.

4. Zefr

Zefr enables digital advertising effectiveness, while ensuring brand and social responsibility values are upheld in the world’s largest platforms (i.e., Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest).

This leader in brand suitability allows you to:

  • Activate and measure brand suitability according to industry-leading Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) standards.
  • Enable brand-suitable advertising efforts and precise activation.

Make brand safety part of your workflow

Incorporating brand safety solutions into your workflow will strengthen your brand and prevent reputational risks from morphing into serious business damage. Because what happens on social doesn’t stay on social. An event like your ad appearing alongside distasteful content could be devastating, as 49% of consumers say their perception of a brand is negatively affected when it’s presented next to offensive posts.

And that’s only scratching the surface of the brand safety risks you face today. Negative customer feedback could spiral into a full-blown crisis, an employee could accidentally share proprietary knowledge, the list goes on and on.

To continue your efforts to protect your brand, download our corporate communication plan template to help you keep up with the many risks in social’s changing landscape and chart a clear path forward.

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]]> [Toolkit] Communications Toolkit to Safeguard Your Brand https://sproutsocial.com/insights/templates/communications-plan-template/ Tue, 25 Apr 2023 14:32:31 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=templates&p=172190/ The post [Toolkit] Communications Toolkit to Safeguard Your Brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

]]> The post [Toolkit] Communications Toolkit to Safeguard Your Brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

]]> Decoding corporate communications: Functions, goals and skills https://sproutsocial.com/insights/what-is-corporate-communications/ Thu, 09 Mar 2023 15:00:02 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=170632/ Corporate communications cover many verticals and each of them needs a separate strategy and skill set. In a world of information overload, corporate communications Read more...

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]]> Corporate communications cover many verticals and each of them needs a separate strategy and skill set.

In a world of information overload, corporate communications is your way to expand your reach and build your brand. You need to be able to convey your message clearly and consistently across a variety of stakeholders.

It can be difficult to correlate corporate communication efforts to business impact. This article will help you position the importance of this multifaceted discipline to others. We also included examples from brands to inspire your strategy.

What is corporate communications?

Corporate communications refers to the strategies businesses and organizations use to communicate with various audiences both internally and externally. These audiences commonly include customers, prospects, employees and investors.

An effective communications strategy helps brands deliver on a compelling narrative that captures and deepens customer loyalty.

What is the function of corporate communication?

The functions of corporate communication vary according to the different audiences being targeted and the goals you need to achieve.

In most cases, companies hire specialists for each corporate communication function, such as internal communications, public relations and executive communications. However, there is often an overlap of functions across different teams. For instance, the content creation team may also handle internal communication initiatives.

In this section, we’ll look at the different corporate communication functions based on their goal and include creative examples from real brands.

Internal communications

Internal communication consists of the measures an organization takes to communicate with its workforce to maintain employee relations and streamline their work.

As companies switch to hybrid work models, effective internal communication is essential now more than ever.

There are two main aspects of internal communication: employee engagement and internal marketing. The former is to enrich employee relations, increase their productivity and retain them, while the latter is to build more awareness about the company’s offerings among employees.

Internal marketing is a strategy to help employees make an emotional connection to the products or services the company sells. Techniques such as regular email updates, company-wide newsletters and bulletin boards can be effective.

Some companies, like QAD Inc., host annual sales kickoff events to bring together employees, share best practices, product updates and get everyone re-aligned with company goals. They also give out awards to the top-performing employees and partners.

External communications or public relations

To manage and regulate the public perception of your brand, companies need to execute external communications strategies, also known as public relations (PR).

The main functions of PR are:

  • Manage a company’s identity in terms of vision and mission.
  • Generate awareness on new products and company milestones.
  • Communicate the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

PR needs have undergone a massive shift in the past few years, thanks to emerging technologies and changing media landscape. Today’s public relations professionals are fusing traditional skills to work with modern tools and channels to create consistent narratives that reach varied audiences.

Here’s an example of an innovative PR campaign that went viral—Rocketlane announced their Series A funding round with a custom rap song.

Executive communication

Both internal and external channels need to be leveraged for executive communication. Internally, the leadership team engages in direct communication with other teams, while externally, executives’ strong social media presence can serve as a thought leadership platform.

Executive members of an organization typically communicate externally through social media, media appearances and talks at conferences. This aims to promote brand awareness and increase sales. In fact, 32% of consumers say CEO transparency on social would inspire them to purchase from that brand.

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, actively engages with her audience on Twitter by sharing company milestones and also helpful Canva tips.

In many companies, there’s a communication gap between the C-suite or leadership team and other employees. A study by Gallup found that only 13% of employees strongly agree that their leadership communicates effectively with the organization. Breaking down silos with communication from leadership can help earn the trust of employees, provide stability in the workplace and a better understanding of the company’s goals.

Brand and marketing communications

Any interaction with customers and target audiences falls under the umbrella of brand and marketing communication.

There’s a wide range of channels to conduct branding and marketing activities including social media, traditional advertising media, emails and review websites. Unlike other functions of corporate communication, marketing and branding can be directly related to the company’s revenue.

Here are the main goals that marketing communications can help you achieve, especially through social media:

  • Increase brand awareness: Create content that emphasizes your brand image and values.
  • Gain leads and sales: Drive traffic to your website from social media and leverage social commerce to help you get more customers.
  • Community building: Nurture long-term growth by engaging with your audience directly.

Delta used brand and marketing communication to launch Faces of Travel, a free 100-image library that represented diverse travelers around the world. The goal of the campaign was to inspire creators to present a more inclusive picture of global travel, supporting increased brand awareness while building community.

Creating expensive ads is not the only way to market your brand. Leverage mediums that reach your target audiences, like social media where you can reach larger audiences, interact with them and measure the impact of your activities.

Allbirds, a vegan footwear brand, attracts conscious shoppers by spreading awareness on how harmful regular sneakers are for the planet via social media:

Crisis communications

With the prevalence of social media, all businesses are susceptible to controversies that were once reserved for big brands.

Crisis communication is how you respond to an event that potentially hurts your brand’s reputation or ability to do business. This includes product failures, criticisms, employee errors, site outages, broken links and responses to global events.

It’s essential to have a strategy in place so that you can take quick action and bring the crisis under control.

Monitoring social media frequently for a potential crisis can be a tedious task. And there’s a risk that once your team notices the issue, it might have already snowballed. A social media engagement tool like Sprout Social can identify early warning signs of a potential crisis through social listening. You can then quickly take steps to resolve the problem.

A dashboard view of Sprout Social showing the sentiment summary of of a brand with a chart. These helps discover how user sentiment changes over time.

Skills required for corporate communications professionals

Corporate communications has evolved over the years, requiring more diverse skill sets to execute sophisticated omnichannel campaigns. Professionals need to have a deep understanding of the company’s business goals, culture, target audience, industry and the context in which it operates.

Here are some of the skills required:

  • Hard skills: Proficiency in creating and editing written content, understanding company values and drafting guidelines, ability to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), managing digital communication channels, familiarity with crisis communication strategies and protocols.
  • Soft skills: Relationship-building skills, leading multiple teams, problem-solving and critical thinking, strong verbal communication skills and the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Develop a communications strategy and roadmap

A strong communication strategy should help you deliver a cohesive brand presence, expand reach across channels and gather audience insights.

This will help you streamline your goals and activities, minimize gaps in communication and bring everyone on the same page.

Your communication strategy should outline four major things:

  • Audience: who you’re communicating to
  • Distribution channels: how you will reach them
  • Timeline
  • KPIs

A detailed communication plan will act as a course of action and also help you get buy-in from executives.

Make sure that your communications plan is continually optimized. It should be as dynamic as the discipline itself—use data and feedback to make decisions and align your strategy with compelling narratives.

Corporate communications: the megaphone for a company’s voice in this crowded world

An effective corporate communications plan can do more than just build a positive public image—it’s an essential part of business success.

It can be a challenge to manage your brand reputation across multiple channels. With Sprout Social’s sentiment analysis and social listening features, you can keep tabs on brand health and sentiment, as well as get deep audience insights. Giving your team more time to focus on making data-driven decisions and optimizations that will impact business goals.

Ready to level up your corporate communications strategy? We’ve created a customizable corporate communication template to help you develop an actionable plan. This template can help you create a roadmap that positions your brand as an industry leader to the audiences that matter most.

Download your free corporate communications template now to maximize the effectiveness of your internal and external communications.

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]]> Social media for strategic communications: 4 ways to strengthen your brand narrative https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-for-strategic-communications/ Thu, 23 Feb 2023 16:00:54 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=170215/ Over the past few years, corporate communications has undergone quite the makeover. Today’s always-on digital world has drastically increased the work it takes to Read more...

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]]> Over the past few years, corporate communications has undergone quite the makeover. Today’s always-on digital world has drastically increased the work it takes to craft a memorable brand narrative. When it comes to standing out, social media for strategic communications isn’t just helpful—it’s necessary.

This advice isn’t limited to promotional efforts, either. Integrating social into every aspect of your strategy drives more compelling, authentic messaging from the ground up.

Communications and social media are a match made in heaven. Keep reading to learn how social media can take your strategic communications strategy to the next level.

How to use social media for strategic communications

Social is the perfect vehicle for connecting with your most valuable stakeholders. Consumers, investors, employees—they’re all there waiting for you. If you want to capitalize on the opportunity, here are four ways to elevate social’s role in your corporate communications toolkit.

1. Power up public relations efforts

Once upon a time, “marketing” and “public relations” existed in their own respective lanes.

Now, social media has blurred the boundaries between the two, driving even closer collaboration between the functions. It’s no wonder almost three-quarters (73%) of PR professionals don’t think the term “public relations” as it’s defined today will describe the work they’re doing in five years.

Forward-thinking strategic communications professionals are partnering with social teams to pressure test media pitches, messaging and more. These efforts support a more cohesive brand experience that spans beyond a single channel.

To explain how communications and social media teams might work together, let’s look at a practical example. Say you’re preparing to write a press release on an upcoming campaign launching in partnership with a high-profile spokesperson.

Before starting your draft, you could use a tool like Sprout Social to run two Social Listening Topics: one to assess your current brand health and another to determine the cultural conversation surrounding your spokesperson.

A screenshot of a Listening Performance Topic Summary in Sprout's platform. In the image, you can see total volume, engagements, impressions and sentiment analysis.

Your Listening Topics will track and analyze the conversations around relevant topics to understand consumer sentiment. Review dynamic word clouds, related keywords and hashtags, sentiment data and more for information that can guide your draft.

Some key questions to ask while digging could be:

  • How are people currently talking about your brand? Has sentiment been trending up or down in recent months? What can you gather about your content or customers from these results? How can you use that information to create an exciting, highly-tailored press release?
  • How are people talking about your spokesperson? How is consumer sentiment around them trending? Is there anything that could be cause for concern? What terms and phrases are frequently coming up in these conversations?

Share these findings with your social media team to get more bang for your buck. From there, you can tailor the social arm of the campaign strategy to complement press initiatives for maximum impact.

2. Mitigate employer brand risk

An employer brand is made up of more than just approved messaging grids. It’s a combination of all the macro and micro customer, employee and candidate interactions that happen every single day. When these conversations happen online, they’re out there for everyone to see.

Authentic social conversations can’t be restrained by a multi-step approval process, but that doesn’t mean you need to accept any and all risk. The right toolkit can empower your team to strive for cohesion and accuracy when discussing your company with their extended network.

Graphic with text that reads 72% of engaged users would post about their company if content was written for them

More than half of engaged social users would post about their company if somebody wrote the content for them. Tapping into this opportunity can elevate your brand message in a way that feels authentic to potential hires, consumers and other stakeholders.

Brands using Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social curate pre-approved employee advocacy content right alongside their brand social media posts. Brands navigating social in highly regulated industries can even require the use of pre-approved messaging on specific posts, so compliance is never left up to chance.

Advocacy content populates in a centralized feed where employees can pick and choose what they’d like to share with their personal networks.

A screenshot of the Compose window in Sprout Social. There are four drop down menus below the text editor: 'Publishing Workflows', 'Sprout Tags', 'When to Post', and 'Send to Advocacy'. The 'Send to Advocacy' drop down is expanded and selected.

These curated content round-ups benefit both communications teams and their cross-functional colleagues. They keep people up to date on need-to-know announcements and content offerings, empowering colleagues to advance their social presence in a brand-friendly way.

3. Empower your executive team

Delivering on a strong executive brand presence is a unique challenge for strategic communications teams. You want your C-suite to share sharp, incisive thought leadership, but that can often fall to the wayside in favor of running a company.

That said, executive communications is too important to slip through the cracks. According to a recent report from FTI Consulting, 82% of business leaders agree that there is a wider reward for the company if they have an active leader on social media.

Don’t just meet executives in the middle on drafting or brainstorming, meet them at 80% and give them something to react to. Time is an exec’s most valuable resource, so if they’re investing it in comms, you need to maximize the ROI.
Hannah Fleishman
Director of Executive Communications, HubSpot

Efficient workflows are at the core of executing an executive communications strategy. Members of your C-suite should be able to review content, provide feedback and approve messaging in just a few clicks.

Sprout’s External Approvers workflow supports this process by allowing collaborators who do not have a seat in the platform to review, approve and reject content.

This type of teamwork can have a lasting impact on everything from marketing and sales to investor relations. It’s a great way to support your C-suite as they step into their role as a face of the brand.

4. Control the narrative around potential crises

There’s nothing more anxiety-inducing than a potential brand crisis. The first bits of chatter on a defective product or out-of-touch statement can kick off a snowball effect that feels impossible to stop.

That’s where social media comes in. Social plays two significant roles in any successful crisis communication plan. It’s both a proactive monitoring tool and a reactive engagement tool.

Social media is a consumer go-to for voicing concerns when a brand crisis strikes. A social media listening strategy can help your brand stay on top of messages across networks to ensure you don’t miss any red flags.

A screenshot of a sentiment summary of Sprout that demonstrates changes in sentiment over time on a bar graph.

Sprout helps both communications and social media professionals keep tabs on brand health with a sentiment analysis tool that provides immediate context around the conversations surrounding your brand and industry.

In the event of a crisis, brands can use those insights to inform their response to the situation. Sharing a public apology from the brand account may seem straightforward, but an insensitive response can land your brand in even more hot water.

Hopefully, you’ll only ever need to use social media’s proactive crisis management benefits. Still, it never hurts to be prepared.

Harness the power of social media for strategic communications

A social-first approach to strategic communications has the power to reinvent a brand in the eyes of the people who matter most. Ground your strategy in real-time social insights to ground your strategy in the voice of your ideal customer.

Sprout Social offers a suite of tools designed to help brands strengthen their market position with actionable insights. Sign up for a free trial today and future-proof your brand for tomorrow.

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]]> How to create an IPO communications strategy for social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/ipo-communications-strategy/ Tue, 07 Jun 2022 15:02:49 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=161087/ Initial public offerings (IPOs) are major business and career milestones. It’s only natural to want to knock your IPO communications strategy out of the Read more...

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]]> Initial public offerings (IPOs) are major business and career milestones. It’s only natural to want to knock your IPO communications strategy out of the park. After all, it’s a major opportunity.

So, how do you make the most out of the big day? For an outsized impact, let social media be the secret sauce that elevates your strategy from “good” to “great.” Social’s role in investor relations has blossomed over the past few years, making it a go-to channel for listing day communications. Your day-of presence will lay the groundwork for connecting with a brand new audience of investors post-IPO.

Keep reading to learn more about social’s role in your IPO communications strategy. Plus, we’ve also outlined a detailed timeline with instructions for a successful listing day social moment.

3 reasons social needs to play a role in your IPO communications strategy

If your IPO is the first day of school, then your social strategy is the outfit. It’s what helps you make a stronger first impression with potential investors. Beyond that, here are the three main reasons social needs to be included in your IPO strategy:

1. It’s a key tool for investor relations

Social media doesn’t just move markets on its own. Specific platforms have built a strong audience of investors, big and small.

“Social media has become a key platform for investor relations professionals to gauge important conversations around their company and the broader market. Particularly in recent years, platforms like Reddit and Twitter have become popular destinations for retail and institutional investors to discuss and analyze market trends.”

— Abigail Schmitt, Corporate Communications Strategist at Sprout Social

Your listing day social presence will be your launchpad to connect with this new audience. Being thoughtful about your strategy can help you court your first few investors.

2. It’s essential for risk management

Going public comes with a whole new set of communications responsibilities, including SEC regulations. As you make the transition from private to public, social listening will play an essential role in your risk management toolkit.

In the days leading up to the IPO, you’ll be working under a microscope. Any information shared that’s at odds with SEC rules can derail your whole listing process. With social listening, you can monitor the conversations happening around your brand to ensure everything is above board.

Once your first trade is live, you can also use social listening to track brand health in real time. These insights will be crucial while preparing for your first few rounds of investor Q&A.

3. It’s where your IPO story will unfold

The bell ringing ceremony creates a major social media moment. For one day, your brand will be amplified by the Nasdaq brand. The impact this will have on your reach will be huge.

Businesses like Expensify use this opportunity to reinforce their brand stance as a public company. This example shows how much they’ve grown while staying true to their vision by repurposing a popular social post format.

Social allows you to lean on more immersive visual storytelling tools, like images, video and audio. Compare that to a standard text-only press release and you can probably guess which will leave a more lasting impression.

These conditions combined make social a heavy hitter in your IPO communications strategy.

Creating a social communication plan for your upcoming IPO

The road to an IPO is paved in confidentiality. When and how conversations move beyond the C-suite and into your communications team will largely depend on the structure and operating norms of your company. That said, you can anticipate needing three to four months to get your social strategy in order.

Use this timeline to effectively collaborate with your social media team in the months leading up to listing day:

3 months to listing day

Complete the following steps to set the foundation for a great working relationship throughout your IPO planning process:

Share overarching IPO marketing strategy

Kick off your partnership by sharing the strategy documents you’ve created thus far. This will help your social team better understand the goals and expectations around your IPO while also shedding light on SEC rules and regulations.

Some important items to include:

  • Your IPO narrative: What is the message you want to communicate alongside your IPO? Social will play an integral role in telling this story. The more details you can share here, the better.
  • Priorities and concerns: If there are opportunities you want to capitalize on or pitfalls you’re trying to avoid, be sure to outline them upfront.
  • Important timeline information: Be clear about any content review deadlines. Social teams are notoriously lean, so anything you can do to make their process more streamlined will be appreciated.

Request social team feedback

Your social media manager will be able to provide more insights on network-based opportunities. If you give them space to develop their channel game plan, your entire IPO communications strategy will be stronger for it.

Ask them for thoughts and feedback on social’s role before, during and after your listing day experience. They can illuminate risks and opportunities you may have missed.

Outline team roles and responsibilities

Your IPO social strategy will extend far beyond more than just posting and engagement. Here are some additional items that will need owners for a successful listing day:

  • Day-of inbox management: The increased brand exposure will likely cause a huge influx of inbound messages. You’ll likely have to tap multiple people to handle this to account for breaks and after-hours monitoring.
  • Event highlights: C-suite-level executives will want to see how people reacted to the day as a gauge for communications success. Deciding who will be responsible for those highlights can streamline the process while allowing you to share examples live as they happen.
  • Employee advocacy: An employee advocacy strategy is essential to ensuring your IPO goes off without a hitch. Whoever is responsible for this will need to ensure all employees are aware of what they can and can’t say leading up to the big event.

1 month to listing day

By now, the planning is done and the wheels are in motion. Now is the time to lay the groundwork for increased reach on listing day.

Decide on a branded hashtag

Your cashtag will help you monitor stock-related conversations happening on Twitter. Still, if you want a tag you can use across all networks, you’ll need a branded hashtag.

A listing day hashtag can make reporting on the success of your IPO communications strategy much easier. Your cashtag will be included in social conversations for years to come. Conversations including your branded IPO hashtag will be specific to your listing day.

Create listing day content

All IPO-related communications will need legal approval, which takes time. Prepping your copy and visuals ahead of schedule gives enough breathing room for final sign-off.

Sprout Social's Calendar Notes feature, which helps social media managers create placeholders for upcoming content.

Pro-tip: The Nasdaq team will have a social professional suggest some opportunities for event promotion on their channels. Once you know when they’re going to share their message, you can include a placeholder for it in your schedule using Sprout Social’s Calendar Note feature.

Outline patterns of engagement

You won’t be able to engage with every message that you’re tagged in on listing day and you shouldn’t try to. Interacting with stock predictions or updates can look like an endorsement, which falls under tricky legal territory.

Create a document that outlines what types of messages your team should engage with and how. Include some legal-approved canned responses so your teams can keep their social media response times quick on listing day.

1 week to listing day

It’s the final countdown. Time to prepare for the exposure that comes with becoming a public company.

Set up your social listening tool

Set up a brand health listening topic to monitor IPO day conversation trends.

A screenshot of Sprout Social's Listening tool displaying sentiment data.

Setting this up in advance will ensure it doesn’t get missed in the listing day madness. Check it throughout your IPO to monitor real-time reactions and sentiment data.

Get all your assets in one place

Once you receive all the necessary legal approvals, create a folder to organize your final assets. This will speed up your publishing process on IPO day while mitigating the risk of any unauthorized posting.

A screenshot of Sprout's Asset Library tool, displaying an IPO Content folder.

This folder should house everything you plan on sharing on IPO day—copy, image files and any other creative assets you have on deck. If you’re using Sprout Social, the Asset Library will help you sort and label each file for easy access. If not, a Google Drive file with the proper permissions in place can work, too.

Confirm your inbox management strategy

If you manage your social inboxes natively, you’ll want to divide and conquer on IPO day. Create an hourly schedule that details who is managing which inbox and when. Those individuals will also be responsible for flagging any day-of social opportunities or risks.

A screenshot of Sprout Social's automated tagging feature.

If you’re using an inbox management tool, set up a rule to automate day-of message categorization. During Sprout’s IPO in 2019, we set up an Inbox Rule that tagged any message with our cashtag as stock-related so we could easily filter them in or out as needed.

Listing day

On the big day, your main priority will be getting your company to that first trade with no hiccups. More eyes will be on your company than usual, so make the most of it with these tips:

Reiterate employee advocacy guidelines

The risk of sounding like a broken record is way less dangerous than the risk of an SEC violation. Reshare guidelines on what employees can and can’t share leading up to your first trade on listing day eve, and the morning of, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Rely on internal channels

This is an absolute must if you’re managing an IPO within a hybrid work environment.

A screenshot of a the Slack channel creation window, displaying the set up of a private channel for IPO-related discussions.

Use your business messaging platform (whether that’s Slack, Teams or other) to create a channel for IPO day communications. This will increase visibility across task owners for a smoother workflow.

Celebrate your achievement

Navigating an IPO isn’t just a milestone for your company. It’s a career event for you and every member of your team as well.

On listing day, you’ll be participating in something that only a handful of communications professionals will have the opportunity to do. Don’t forget to step back, soak it in and take tons of behind-the-scenes photos for even more IPO-related social content.

Get listing day-ready

Becoming a public company is a major turning point for businesses. The months leading up to ringing the Nasdaq bell will be busy, but all the work will be worth it once you’re celebrating this impressive career milestone with the rest of your team.

Remember: going public is only half the battle. Soon, you’ll have to navigate being a public company, and all the opportunities and obstacles that come with that.

Work closely with your social team to keep tabs on both. Check out this guide to social media for investor relations to get an idea of what you need to be looking out for and why.

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]]> Grow & Protect Your Brand With This Corporate Communication Plan Template https://sproutsocial.com/insights/templates/corporate-communications-plan/ Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:21:48 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=templates&p=159858/ The world of corporate communications is changing faster than ever. The pandemic, the rise of stakeholder activism, social justice issues and geopolitical conflicts are Read more...

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]]> The world of corporate communications is changing faster than ever. The pandemic, the rise of stakeholder activism, social justice issues and geopolitical conflicts are just a few catalysts reshaping the communications landscape. The current climate has increased the need for communications professionals to grow and protect their brand’s reputation. 

This new environment requires expertise in multiple areas, from social media and risk management to employer branding. Being proactive is not only key to maintaining a positive public image and building trust—it’s an essential part of business success. 

A corporate communications plan is the backbone of how you create and share key information with employees, partners, investors and more. As a guiding light for the best methods to communicate, the plan can also help professionals navigate any situation, from a public relations crisis to product launches and social campaigns.

We’ve crafted a customizable corporate communications plan template to help you build an effective strategy for your team, including:

  • Goals/objectives for your company
  • Key performance indicators
  • Key stakeholders and target audiences
  • A distribution strategy 
  • A calendar roadmap with quarterly initiatives

Our corporate communication plan template is an excellent starting point for creating a stellar strategy that identifies challenges and provides a set path of action. Download today so your team can deliver communications with intention and ease. 

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]]> 11 corporate communications tools to boost team performance https://sproutsocial.com/insights/corporate-communications-tools/ Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:08:00 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?p=158989/ Communications tools are make-or-break for modern companies Because every missed deadline, bottleneck and minor misunderstanding trickles down to impact your team’s productivity. But the Read more...

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]]> Communications tools are make-or-break for modern companies

Because every missed deadline, bottleneck and minor misunderstanding trickles down to impact your team’s productivity.

But the bigger your company, the faster these issues tend to snowball out of control.

That’s why dedicated business communications tools have become a staple of in-person, remote and hybrid teams alike.

The problem? There’s no shortage of software out there. Couple that with the fact that onboarding your team to new tools is no small feat. This is especially true for enterprises.

If you don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered in our comprehensive guide to corporate communications.

What are corporate communications, anyway?

Corporate communications refer to how stakeholders in business interact with colleagues (internal) and customers (external). From updates and expectations to messaging and results, businesses prioritize communications for the sake of organization, productivity and accountability.

And so corporate communications tools represent the software and apps that stakeholders use to manage the interactions above.

These tools can be put into two buckets based on their respective audiences — internal and external.

Internal vs. external corporate communications tools

Internal communications cover interactions that happen among stakeholders within an organization. This includes employees, folks at the C-level and other internal collaborators (think: freelancers or contractors).

To manage these relationships and keep stakeholders up-to-date, companies might use:

  • Project management tools
  • Team chat tools
  • Video conferencing tools
  • Company Intranet or wiki tools

On the flip side, external communications tools are used to deliver key messages to customers, subscribers or partners. These tools might include:

  • Marketing tools (think: social, CRM, email)
  • Customer communication tools (think: live chat or help desk software)
  • PR and media tools

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to adopting comms tools. That said, a combination of internal and external tools is key to keeping everyone involved with your business in the loop.

Why business communications tools matter so much

Investing in dedicated digital communications should be a matter of “when” and not “if” for companies of all shapes and sizes.

Enterprise. SMBs. Solo. You name it.

Consider the well-documented benefits of streamlined communication below:

  • Encourage meaningful collaboration among your team. When teams’ tasks and goals are aligned, they create better business outcomes. There’s a reason why effective communication and higher rates of employee engagement go hand in hand.
  • Empower people to be more productive. Recent research from Teamwork notes that people are up to 25% more productive when they have quick access to deliverables, requirements and other critical project information. With the right business communications tools, you can consolidate all of the above in one place.
  • Create a more connected company culture. Food for thought: only 7% of workers feel that communication is “accurate, open and timely” at work. This signals the need for businesses to really put their corporate communications under the microscope for the sake of not only productivity but their workers’ well-being.

Also, keep in mind that the efficiency of internal communications has a direct impact on how you communicate with customers.

For example, consider how marketing messaging and creatives for campaigns require multiple steps, stakeholders and approvals.

When a department is on the same page and able to communicate effectively, its messages to external stakeholders are more likely to resonate.

11 corporate communications tools to try

Below is our breakdown of the best comms tools, all proven to bring businesses together and help workers communicate better.

Of course, no company necessarily needs everything on this list. That said, the internal and external tools here can highlight areas where your business’ comms might need a tune-up.

Internal communications tools

Building an internal communications strategy is a must-do, especially for remote and distributed teams. Let’s start by looking at tools to help your team internally.

1. Asana

Especially given the rise of remote teams, project management tools are a must-have for companies big and small.

Tools like Asana provide businesses with a unified place to plan and track the progress of any given project. From tasks and to-do lists to full-blown project timelines and department calendars, Asana makes it all easy to track with:

  • Multiple project views (including Kanban boards, lists and calendars) that provide a constant pulse on the progress of a task
  • The ability to assign roles and permissions for collaborators (including entry-level employees, contractors and C-level) to keep workflows structured
  • Automated updates and notifications to keep a constant pulse on task progress
Screenshot of Asana project management

2. Slack

It’s hard to find a team that isn’t using Slack (or a similar team chat tool) to stay connected.

Slack is one of the top corporate communications tools.

With Slack, you can organize your team’s communications into company-wide, department-specific or role-specific channels. This allows for immediate, timely communication that doesn’t totally interrupt workers or cause needless meetings. Arguably the biggest selling point of Slack is its ease of use and endless integrations (including many of the tools on this list).

3. Teamwork

A project management solution that’s almost a hybrid of the two tools above, Teamwork sets itself apart with its ability to track granular project data in addition to updates and messaging. For example, you can track individual contributions to any given task as well as team-wide time spent on tasks.

Teamwork answers “what’s been done, what needs to be done and what’s next” in one place. The platform’s project tracking features represent a massive time-saver and create fewer back-and-forths among collaborators.

Screenshot of the Teamwork workload planner.

4. Confluence

From internal docs and policies to reference pages and wikis, Confluence represents a sort of “home base” for teams to refer to.

The platform serves as a project management tool in its own right but also provides teams with a digital whiteboard to brainstorm and make notes as needed. Confluence’s features are yet another example of how you can consolidate corporate communications rather than jump between multiple apps, inboxes or internal drives.

Screenshot of Confluence internal Wiki and project outline.

5. Employee Advocacy by Sprout

Employee advocacy is all the rage right now. Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform empowers your teammates internally to earn maximum on external marketing messages.

For example, Employee Advocacy makes it easy to boost your brand’s biggest announcements and latest blog posts. Rather than craft individual updates or captions, the platform provides templates, inspiration and creative options to boost your social posts messages in the most engaging way possible.

An example of the Sprout EA curation tool

6. Dialpad

Dialpad represents an all-in-one video conferencing, chat and phone solution that’s ideal for distributed teams.

Perhaps the most “corporate” of our corporate communications due to its enterprise clientele, Dialpad boasts a number of features to improve team comms. This includes AI tools such as call sentiment analysis, automated notes to address sales objections and automatic call transcriptions.

Screenshot of the Dialpad team communication tool.

External communications tools

For the second half of our breakdown, we’ll look at external tools you might consider as part of your marketing tech stack.

7. Sprout Social

No surprises here! Sprout Social is a powerful, all-in-one tool for streamlining internal and external comms related to social media.

How so? For starters, we allow teams to consolidate all of their social messages and notifications in one place. Not only does this mean less jumping between platforms, but also empowers teams to respond to more messages faster via collaborative features. The ability to combine your inboxes is a massive time-saver and likewise gives you a more comprehensive view of your customer comms.

Sprout Social screenshot showcasing the all-in-one power of the tool.

Beyond that, Sprout also serves as the home base for all of your external social content.

Updates and announcements. Videos and images. Stories, Reels and everything in-between.

With Sprout, you can schedule and optimize your content across multiple social networks at once. Having all of your social media assets and updates in a single platform allows you to maximize your reach and get your message across to the appropriate audiences faster.

Sprout screenshot showcasing previews of social posts before scheduling.

And we don’t stop there!

Below are a few more ways you might use Sprout as a corporate communications tool:

  • Developing and rolling out your social media crisis plan
  • Listening to crucial social conversations and shout-outs to uncover opportunities to intervene or answer questions for customers
  • Encouraging cross-team collaboration and unified comms among your entire marketing department (including social, design and content marketing)

8. SendinBlue

While trends in marketing come and go, email remains a staple of external comms.

Newsletters. Welcome messages. Winback campaigns. The list goes on.

Platforms like SendinBlue are scalable and make it a cinch to set up automated workflows for any campaign you can think of. The ability to assess engagement metrics and fine-tune your campaigns over time means that you can maximize the eyes on your marketing messages.

 

Screenshot of the SendInBlue email workflow

9. HubSpot

HubSpot’s suite of corporate communications tools includes a robust CRM, email marketing platform and CMS rolled into one.

Having all of the above in one platform gives marketers the opportunity to have a more complete understanding of their customers and their needs.

For example, which content do our leads engage with the most? What’s our most common sales objection? Which of our campaigns results in the most direct revenue?

With HubSpot, you have a holistic view of your marketing channels and likewise what makes your customers tick.

HubSpot's CRM serves as a corporate communications tool both internally and externally.

10. Muck Rack

PR and relationships with bloggers, journalists and media outlets are key for businesses looking to earn some much-needed exposure.

Tools like Muck Rack make the process of finding relevant outreach targets and pitching them faster. Providing instant access to thousands of journalists, the platform allows you to track the progress of your pitching campaigns and automate the process of conducting follow-ups as needed.

Screenshot oof the Muck Rack pitch tracker.

11. Shorthand

Shorthand is a self-proclaimed “scrollytelling” tool that allows users to create digital experiences (such as websites and landing pages) to share with customers. The tool boasts a variety of team collaboration features that makes it easy for writers, designers and other marketers to come together to create the most compelling stories possible.

Below is a snapshot of how the platform works:

How to pick your corporate communications tools

We get it: choosing between tools can be tough.

This is especially true if you’re on the hunt for an enterprise solution.

To wrap things up, let’s review a few key details that’ll help you make a decision faster.

Be mindful of your budget

No-brainer, right? Most SaaS tools require negotiated pricing for larger teams. Regardless, try to pick solutions that are reasonable to scale and don’t involve usage-based pricing.

Screenshot of Slack's pricing tiers as an example of different budgets.

Onboarding should be a breeze

Ideally, you should be able to adopt and roll out corporate communications tools across your team ASAP. Many tools go to great lengths to educate and empower teams when it comes to onboarding. Some will basically hold your hand through the process to make it less daunting.

For example, Asana has a ton of resources, guides and videos to help teams get started.Example of onboarding resources for corporate communication tools.

Don’t second-guess security

Security matters for any piece of software and your business communications tools are no different. Potential breaches or data loss isn’t an option when you’re dealing with sensitive company materials.

For example, many businesses defaulted to Zoom during the pandemic. However, ongoing privacy concerns highlight how choosing a tool prior to shopping around can result in headaches down the road.

Double-check integrations with your current software

As noted earlier, anything you can do to consolidate tools and communications is a plus. Most major comms tools connect with each other to help boost productivity and likewise reduce notification spam.

Below is a snapshot of two of Sprout’s most popular integrations for both internal and external comms.

This screenshot example shows integrations between corporate communication tools.

Make sure your comms tools have a track record

When in doubt, read reviews! Although there’s nothing wrong with test-driving brand new tools, we recommend sticking to a more “proven” platform for comms.

Review sites like G2 can highlight which apps have long-term users and the most satisfied customers. Insights from buyers can likewise break down specific features or concerns that might be relevant to your team.

Screenshot of reviews for various corporate communication tools.

Which corporate communications tools do you use?

If you want your teams to communicate more effectively, start with your tech stack.

Any combination of the tools above is a solid starting point toward building a more connected and aligned business. Doing so not only makes your workers’ lives easier but also empowers your team to send the right message to your customers.

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out or guide to leveling up your corporate communication skills to do exactly that.

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