5 MEDIA MONITORING STRATEGIES FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. AND THE healthcare industry

Transcription

1 5 MEDIA MONITORING STRATEGIES FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS AND THE healthcare industry

2 Regardless of size, businesses need to implement external communications strategies to acquire customers and build their brand. This can be done through marketing, public relations and communications, or advertising using a variety of channels like traditional, digital and social media. But it s equally important to consider the role that internal communications strategies can play. A good internal communications program is more than just sending group s when something new happens within the company. According to Melcrum, a leading internal communications training firm based in the US, Internal Communication... is at its most basic, facilitating strategic connections and conversations within your organization. Internal communication is about ensuring everyone is engaged, on the same page and working cohesively to accomplish an overarching company goal. It s about being successful. And rest easy you don t need to hire a team that specializes in internal communications to create an effective, cohesive strategy. You just need the right tool.

3 MEDIA MONITORING AND ANALYSIS FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS Many external communicators use media monitoring and analysis for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the management of journalist and influencer relationships, or issues, crisis, and brand reputation tracking. But did you know that it can also be used for strengthening internal communications efforts? Media monitoring and analysis can help your business build a powerful foundation by engaging and empowering your most valuable asset: your coworkers or employees. Media intelligence research can be as basic as using a search engine s news filter, or a free service like Google Alerts, or as sophisticated as having a company do your monitoring and briefings for you. Regardless of which route your business takes, media monitoring and analysis can: Increase employee/coworker engagement with company projects and each other; Create a unified brand voice and a culture of open communication; Empower employees/coworkers with the knowledge they need to succeed; Increase productivity through involvement and transparency; and Empower employees to become brand advocates by providing them with shareable news, content and intel. By keeping everyone informed you re solving common internal communications pain points like waiting for information to trickle down the corporate pipeline, inefficient communications between staff members, and communication barriers.

4 MONITOR YOUR COMPANY You work in the healthcare industry developing tools to help surgeons minimize scarring and general tissue damage during surgery. Your organization has recently created a new product, one that will change the way thoracic surgeons perform their jobs. No other organization has come close to innovating something similar. Every individual in your organization has contributed to the development of this product: your research and development team, communications team, management team, and client services team. But how do you show them the value of all their contributions? How do you keep them excited about the project and motivated to continue innovating? By monitoring traditional, digital and social media for mentions of your company or product, you can gather intel to show your business just how impactful everyone s contributions have been in making your new product or service a success, or building the brand within your industry. The intel gathered in these articles can also help guide new research and development efforts, demonstrate ROI for communications professionals, and give other coworkers and employees the insight to know how the product, service or brand is perceived. It may also motivate coworkers and employees to openly communicate about positive and negative issues surrounding the product or service, and allow for interdepartmental collaboration on current and/or future projects. PRO TIP: Open lines of communications within your organization and grow your corporate culture by identifying your company s successes and failures through media research, and discussing them with all members of your team.

5 KEEP AN EYE ON THE COMPETITION You work for a pharmaceutical company that focuses on developing serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) commonly used to treat mood disorders such as depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. Your organization has recently released a new product that has been statistically proven to decrease negative side effects typically associated with SNRIs. But your competitor has also released a product that markets itself similarly, and has statistical data comparable to your product s. To healthcare providers, your products seem nearly identical. How can your organization get the competitive edge? How can you gather compelling insights about your competitor s products when it s so similar to your own? How can this intel affect internal communications? By implementing media monitoring and analysis strategies for internal communications, your team can have a better understanding of how media outlets and your key publics differentiate your product from your competitors. By communicating these findings internally, your team can break down communications barriers between departments and collaborate with external communications teams to effectively differentiate your product. This strategy should involve everyone within your organization, allowing your business to develop a corporate culture of transparency and open channels of communication. PRO TIP: The key to differentiating similar products is how they are positioned. Use intel collected from media outlets and public conversation to give your team the ammunition it needs work collaboratively and shape new market placement strategies it takes cohesiveness between internal and external communications departments to effectively position or reposition a product or service.

6 3 KEEP AHEAD OF NEWS IN YOUR INDUSTRY You re a startup in the biotechnology industry. You and your partners have an idea for a product that could create a completely new peanut one that would reduce the allergen protein in the nut that causes severe anaphylaxis for those with peanut allergies. You have an idea of what research has been done in this area from peer-reviewed journals and using online resources such as Google Scholar and researchgate.net, but you re wondering how the general public has been, if at all, receptive to the idea. This information can highly impact the future of your company s project. By monitoring traditional, digital and social media, your team can stay ahead of other technologies in your industry and understand trends and public opinion that could potentially affect your upcoming projects. This information will allow you and your partners to establish a plan of action, and communicate with your other employees about your project s position in the marketplace. It will also help your business keep ahead of other organizations in your industry because your employees will have a better understanding of what goal they re collaborating towards. PRO TIP: Having an understanding of the general public s sentiment towards a project can allow your business to effectively delegate resources and allow your team to work cohesively towards building impactful products or services.

7 4 EMPOWER POSITIVE INTERNAL CHANGE You re a medical office manager for a large, local healthcare clinic. Recently, you ve noticed that three other clinics have stopped taking new patients due to capacity and infrastructure-related issues, two clinics have been amalgamated as an extension of the local hospital, and one clinic has permanently closed due to recent changes in federal healthcare policies. Due to the quickly changing medical landscape in your area, you want to know how these changes will impact your current patients and employees, and what internal changes you may need to make to keep operations running smoothly. By implementing a media monitoring and analysis program, you and your team can understand what s happening in your industry as it happens and how significant it is to your clinic, along with how it will impact your patients, employees and general operations. Knowing that two other clinics have stopped registering new patients, and that one clinic has completely ceased operations, is crucial to your bottom line: if your clinic has room for new patients it s an opportunity to develop business, but it could also increase wait times and physician availability for current patients. This information can be distributed in the form of an executive-ready briefing to all clinic employees, with additional analysis to dictate why the news featured in the brief is important for the clinic. It can also let staff know about possible upcoming changes in policies, procedures and patient intake. By keeping staff informed, all changes can be discussed openly and slowly integrated to increase productivity and employee engagement with new policies. PRO TIP: Analyzing local and national media can offer your business a lot of business intelligence. Keep a finger on the pulse of what s going on in your industry, understand how it can impact your business, and openly discuss findings with all members of your organization.

8 5 ESTABLISH AUTHORITY You work in the communications department of a local hospital. The hospital s facilities span six different buildings, which has encouraged your department to implement a more varied communications strategy including integrating social media accounts for the various departments. Not only are patients and others in the medical community intrigued by the content being posted to the account, but it has also turned out to be a great way for departments to communicate about policies and procedures internally. With so much social media activity, you ve found it difficult to track all conversations and demonstrate internally the value of using social media over more traditional communications methods. How do you convince the C-Suite it s worth investing in additional resources to run these accounts? How do you take the knowledge you ve gathered through those conversations and internally communicate them in a clear, concise way? Media monitoring and analysis can monitor all conversations from each department s social media accounts. This can quickly identify patients positive and negative experiences through their social interactions, allowing you and your team to more easily communicate possible solutions to these issues through traditional internal communications methods. By having your entire staff understand what patients are saying about the brand, they can work together to create new policies and procedures to enhance the patient experience at your hospital. You can also work with the various departments in charge of social accounts to create a unified brand voice one that establishes social media as a voice of authority for both internal and external communications. By having media monitoring and analysis data to back this communications strategy, you and your team can increase the resources allocated to social media by presenting to the C-Suite with actionable data. PRO TIP: Offer your employees more than one channel to communicate internally. If the information being shared isn t private or confidential, consider using social media for general communications it s trackable, measurable and you can leverage it for external outreach, patient relations and communications efforts, as well. By having all members of your organization on social media, you re also promoting transparency within your business.

9 OTHER USE CASES FOR MEDIA MONITORING AND ANALYSIS IN INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO: Staying ahead of external crises by identifying potential risks and quickly communicating them internally; Understanding your brand s reputation and working with your team to create a unified brand voice for external communications channels such as social media; Identifying issues that may impact your industry, and quickly working towards implementing internal policies; Understanding the pain points of employees hired by similar companies and improving workplace conditions and communications. MediaMiser s media monitoring and analysis experts can work with you to develop the program needed to be effective with your internal communications.