To demonstrate excellent employability and communication skills in the modern workplace one essential skill is to be able to use information technology to aid communications. You need to be proficient in using a number of different communication channels for different purposes and be familiar with the software packages needed to communicate across these channels. This article will look at the different channels in more detail and also at specific application software that you can use.
Communication Channels:
To maximise your chances of making communication accessible for all you need to use IT to aid communication using the following channels documents; presentations; emails; blogs; vlogs; podcasting; websites; video conferencing and other methods such as social media and CRM systems. We will look at these below to see how a number of IT channels can be used to aid communications in the workplace.
Documents: In order to have good working procedures and practices everything must be documented so that employees have guidance on how to carry out their roles as expected by the employer. Documentation is also needed to communicate information to colleagues and customers in a formal manner. Word-processed documents can be used to generate reports, user guides, memos, information booklets, letters and many more types of professional documents. Being able to use word-processing software effectively to maximise the effect of the communication is an important skill to develop. Using features such as mail merge can help automate the process of generating the same document for a number of your customers in an efficient manner. Being able to create templates that are specific to your business and ones that convey a house style and your business brand is important to make all communications professional in terms of presentation. Many companies will have in house training on how to generate documentation based on a set of guidelines that are used so that all employees communicate in a similar and professional manner.
Presentations: Some uses of professional presentations are to communicate information on your company’s internal policies or to demonstrate features and functions of your company’s product or service to external clients. Presentations can be customised with a company branded template and are a good visual aid to support someone that needs to stand in front of an audience to communicate information. Being proficient in the use of presentation software enables you to automate the entire presentation so that the slides change automatically. Other features of presentations that are useful is that they enable you to present graphs and charts effectively and videos and audio can also be embedded for maximum effect. Presentations can be printed with more detailed notes and with a section for your audience to make notes in pen so that they can summarise what the presenter is saying. A presentation is normally followed by a question and answer session so giving your audience a nice pack to make notes on I preparation for this shows that you are considering their needs. Some workers main tool would be presentations, for example a travelling sales person giving overviews of a product or service to other companies in business to business marketing may deliver the same presentation 2 or 3 times a day so careful planning and practice is essential to maximise effect.
Email: One of the key tools for communications in business is email or electronic mail. Whilst email can be frowned upon in terms of tracking on-going communication you probably won’t be able to avoid using it to communicate using IT. Email offers a personal touch to open up simple communication and is the most accessible format used to communicate in written format for the widest possible audience. Email software can be used to communicate with colleagues informally and be used as a discussion forum for project progress. You need to be careful when using email to always communicate professional as it is written word and a company will have full ownership of all emails that you send and receive. So even though email can offer the personal touch, the golden rule is to remain professional even in informal context. Email lists can be used to reach out to a wide audience to try and follow up and engage your current customers and generate repeat business. When send mass emails for business purposes it is best to used specialist software with built in analytics tools to track who has opened your email and who has clicked particular links within your email. Doing this means that sales staff can follow up with customers that show the most interest first to maximise effort. Businesses must be careful with email to ensure that they offer an opt-out option and are not seen as sending spam content. Managing your current customer email list effectively is very important when communicating over email. Where email falls down is when it is used as a project or document management tool. This should be avoided and files and project information should be stored on external drives and email used to communicate information about the location of these resources.
Blogs: We have already looked at documents, presentation and email that can be used to communicate information as and when needed. Web-based information that is always available can be effective in terms of pointing people to the correct place to obtain what they are looking for. One way to communicate information about your company is by using a web log or blog. Blogs are efficient in terms of getting traffic to your site as they will rank highly in search engines for terms that people are looking for in relation to your business. Blogs can be used for many purposes within your businesses such as communicating latest news, providing information on product updates or even just to provide useful information based on what your business does. Blogs with comments can help engage your audience to ask questions and if your monitor the comments you can supply useful information back to the customer to show that you offer a good level of customer service. In terms of the type of content that can be communicated on a blog there are no limits really. Blogs can include images, links to other articles, videos and can be 10 words or 10 million words in length. Blogs can be set up as an add-on to your main website on a subdomain or your main site can be blog based depending on the type of business that you run. The most popular blogging software is WordPress and this comes with many customisable features that enable you to manage your content and gain the best results in search engines. A blog can be used to get one off traffic but a key strength is the ability to gain regular traffic by building a fan base. This is normally done by focusing on a very key area where people look for information on the same types of products or services due to their personal interests or needs.
Vlogs: Another way of using information technology to aid communication is to use vlogs, otherwise known as video logs. Vlogs are similar to blogs in that they are web-based and again the way in which they can be used is limitless. A vlog can be embedded in your existing website or hosted on a third party video channel such as YouTube or Vimeo. A video log can be used in the same way as a blog to build up a regular following or just to provide information on your brand, product or services. The main advantage of a video log over a blog is that it can engage the audience more with the use of video and audio. Many individuals have been able to make a living by running their own vlog in a niche area on a video channel such as YouTube. If their vlog is interesting and they gain a large following they can generate a lot of revenue through display ads on their videos and references to products or services within their videos based on partnerships. Businesses can use vlogs to replace presentations to demonstrate products and then follow up with face to face question and answer session. They can also be used as how to guides to support customers to show to use software or products. A vlog and a blog working together can be a very effective tool in terms of offering information on your products or services if managed effectively and updated regularly.
Podcasts: Podcasts are used for audio broadcasting and can be live or pre-recorded release material on to the web at a later date. Podcasts can be used for many purposes like a blog or vlog. Many radio stations record popular channels so that they are accessible from their website at a later date. This is used to build a following for a podcast and can also be useful in terms of engaging the audience using an online commenting forum. Podcasts can be used to reach out to different audiences and can be sent to podcast channels so that regular listeners are updated when a new podcast appears. Podcasting can be used in business to communicate information on products or services or to give regular updates on company news to send out to your customers. For podcasting you need to communicate clearly and ensure that the final format is as accessible as possible for all popular devices e.g. mp3.
Websites: Another way that makes you valuable to any business is having the ability to communicate information over the web using web pages. Whilst not all of us are going to be professional web developers or designers, it is a good idea to become efficient in the use of popular content management systems. Having a basic understanding of web content formats such as HTML, CSS and Javascript for the more technical users will enable you to manage and edit content on web pages that have been in place in different formats. Having the ability to combine different information types such as text, images, video, audio and animated content is an important skill to have in terms of being able to produce content for an online audience. Remember if you can create and edit content in document format it does not take much to teach yourself basic web standards to be able to do this online. Imagine being in a team of 3 people that are led by one manager and being the only one that has taken the initiative to edit content online. You will be seen as a motivated self-starter and more useful to the team in terms of opening up more communication channels.
Video conferencing: Can be used to communicate with both internal and external bodies. The one advance that video conferencing has over telephone conversation is that it can give that face to face feel when communicating with someone thousands of miles away. Video conferencing is a great way for teams with multiple members to collaborate on projects giving each team member the chance to discuss their own opinions on a project and get feedback from the group. This is advantageous as opposed to one person leading the call on both ends and not everyone being able to input into the conversation. Another advantage of using video conferencing is the ability to integrate visuals into discussions. Video conferencing can be used to present information on products or services offered by your company and cut down the travel costs of going to the other place of business. Online video conferencing and voip are becoming more and more companies are trying to work in a cost effective manner. With services such as Skype and Google Hangouts the ability to screen share and comment on the other persons machine state or materials is becoming more and more effective in terms of working in a collaborative manner.
Social Media: Many businesses use IT to aid communications and customer relations using social media. Being proficient in the use of social media and understanding the different social channel is an important skill to have in terms of building a good online presence. Using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus to name a few is becoming more and more important in terms of engaging audience and highlighting your interests in key areas. You can use social media to boost your own profile by showing expertise on certain topics and also show your commitment to developing a good online presence with regular updates. Obviously it gives companies a first-hand insight into how an individual or business communicates in terms of professionalism. They can look at the level of knowledge that they present and how they respond to others. Even though Twitter only allows us to send 140 characters of information. One tweet could have amazingly positively or drastic effects on a business. Understanding how to communicate over social channels and maintain speed of response and professionalism showing a good knowledge of current trends in your area of expertise is something that everyone who works in the digital world should be aware of. Adhering to your company’s social media guidelines both for personal and business accounts is something that we all need to do to maintain professional standards.
Customer Relationship Management Systems: CRM systems are used to store information on how your business engages with individual customers. CRMS can be used to communicate with groups of customers depending on the different segments that the customers can be placed in based on location, age, hobbies, interests etc. CRMs can manage email lists and be used for mass communication through automated processes to send update on products and services based on customer buying history and their needs. CRM systems are a tool that can be used to store customer details and their purchasing history so that businesses can maximise their communication effort with customers to make sure they maximise the life span of each customer.
Related Software Packages:
To communicate effectively across a number of different channels you need to be familiar with the software packages needed to access these channels. Here is a summary of the type of software options that are available for basic documentation, presentations and emailing. We will also look at specialist
Word-processing Software: Obviously the first one that comes to mind is Microsoft Word but there are many other options and plenty good free options these days too. Word processing software can be used to create a number of different professional documents and there are so many beneficial features such as using templates, paragraph styling, table of contents, hyperlinking to external sources and these skills are easily transferable across different software packages when you have grasped the basics in one application. Striving to achieve a recognised qualification in using word processing software is a useful thing to have on your CV and employers will look at this and see that you are proficient and this will boost your chances of gaining employment.
Presentation Software Packages: Popular presentation software packages are Powerpoint by Microsoft, Google Slides which links up to Google drive so that presentations are saved after every change and Impress included in Open Office. These are just some examples but there is a big move towards online interactive presentation tools such as Prezi also. The key area of development in presentation software packages is to move towards a very interactive multimedia experience. Many of the features of different presentation software are similar and normally presentations can edited across a number of packages if saved in the correct format. Presentations can also be uploaded to online sharing sites such as Slideshare.com so that they can reach out to larger audiences.
Email Software: Email software stored on a client machine is the best option for businesses at the minute. Software such as Microsoft outlook has many excellent features such as calendar integration, contact management, email scheduling, adding attachments and archiving. Software such as this allows you to manage all your work email and the accounts can be configured to be available in a web browser when using a different machine when on the move. Cloud based email is becoming more popular and Gmail have provided a solution to businesses where they can easily run the own domain email addresses through Gmail. This works well with mobile and for mobile workers. Again having a recognised qualification in using email can be advantageous in terms of gaining employment. It will show that you can use IT tools to communicate effectively and that you are comfortable in using the advanced features of email. Many companies use online services such as Mail Chimp to manage email campaigns for marketing. This enables the sender to track activity in terms of who opened the email how many links they clicked and can help with follow up actions for individual customers.
Specialist Software for Communications: The key point to remember when thinking about using IT for communication is to take every opportunity to upskill and learn how to use a new software package when the opportunity arises. Specialist graphic and web design software like the Adobe suite will enable you to demonstrate a range of skills that are useful in employment. The ACA (Adobe Certified Associate) exams can also be taken for a number of the software packages ensuring that you can become officially certified in their use. Having your finger on the pulse and being aware of new free services can aid your communication effort and show your desire to improve your communication skills. Looking at free applications like Evernote, Google docs and obtaining qualifications in these can improve your CV and have new things on it shows that you keep up with communication tool trends. You can also look at advertising tools such as Google Adwords or Website tracking tools like Google Analytics that enable you to reach out to larger audience by communicating information on your products or services and also to track results. In terms of using software tools for communication there are no barriers to improving your own skill and this is something that can really have an impact in terms of communicating effectively and producing online and paper based content that impresses customers much more that your current resources.