What Can Internal Communications Learn From Marketing and PR?

I'm really looking forward to facilitating a 'Be Heard' session this week for the Victorian chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

The session is titled 'What Can Internal Communications Learn From Marketing and PR'.

(The title is a bit of a misnomer because internal comms is part of the public relations discipline, but essentially what we're talking about is consumer-facing marketing PR and communications).

However, I'd like to kick off the conversation in advance with some thought-starters.

Essentially there will be two general streams of thought I'd like to explore at the event:

Firstly, we seem to forget sometimes that employees and internal stakeholders are still consumers.

• Who ever said internal communications needed to be bland?
• Why can't we add the same 'wow' elements to internal communications that we do (or attempt to) in marketing PR campaigns?
• How can we increase levels of buzz internally by incorporating word-of-mouth marketing techniques generally reserved for consumer campaigns?
• How can we inject more personality and openness into our internal communications?

Secondly, social media is changing forever the way we communicate, connect and collaborate with each other.

• Has your organisation integrated social media into its external marketing communications?
• Is your organisation changing its mindset (and culture) in an effort to become a more 'social' enterprise, and is this influencing your internal communications?
• How can we take the learnings from external-facing social media efforts and incorporate them into our internal comms?

These will be some of the questions I'll be posing on Thursday night with a view to sparking conversation around the broader topic of what internal communications can learn from marcomms - and vice versa.

I look forward to seeing you there!

EVENT DETAILS:

Details re the IABC 'What Can Internal Communications Learn From Marketing and PR' event are as follows:

Date/time: Thursday, 24th February, 6pm - 7:30pm

Venue: Mercure Hotel, 13 Spring Street, Melbourne 

Cost: Members $30 Non-Members $60  

BOOK HERE.

Corporate members contact events@iabc.com.au to register. Wine, cheese, tea and coffee will be provided.

The organisers are anticipating a solid stream of tweets from the session - if you can't attend, please feel free to follow the conversation on Twitter (#IABCVIC) and engage with participants throughout the evening.