Chris Guizlo, The Fearey Group

Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

This quote from author Brené Brown often comes to mind when I think about communications strategy. Though it’s geared toward how senior leaders should communicate to their teams, its key message also applies to how organizations, especially municipalities, should approach communicating with your key audiences.

Let’s face it: communicating the city’s daily movements to a public that sees small snippets of the impact in their daily life is a big challenge. When it’s an issue that directly impacts a resident, they will say that you never informed them or gave them an opportunity to weigh in.

Encountering these individuals is inevitable, so it’s important to make sure that your city has a strategic communications plan that utilizes traditional and nontraditional methods to elevate your community voices and encourage them to come to the table.

It starts with messaging

The workings of city government are complex to most people and can discourage the public from paying attention to the operations of their city. Most of the time, it comes down to the city not putting out clear and consistent messaging across all of its communications channels and members of its staff.

When considering an issue, it’s easy to jump straight to the language of a policy fix. At the same time, you should be convening the relevant internal stakeholders to think through the communications messaging about the policy as well. It’s the perfect time to build out a communications messaging map to outline:

• What does the city believe on this issue? Where are we starting this policy from, and how will it impact our residents?
• What is the key message we want them to take away? This is a one- to two-sentence message that should be heard in any external or internal conversations on the issue.
• Who are the key audiences? This includes both internal and external stakeholders. They should be receiving and using the same messages.
• What are the secondary messages that support your key message? Your overall key message should be supported by three to four message pillars that are backed up with specific data or policy language.

A communications messaging map allows you to simplify the policy process and show how the city is approaching every issue while keeping community input at top of mind.

Working with messengers in the community

As mentioned, a key part of any communications effort is identifying your target audience. Often, we simplify that to say we want to reach residents or business owners. It’s great to have a wide audience goal, but it is also important to think about who can help you reach those audiences and who the community leaders are that speak to those audiences directly. Leaders of community nonprofits, neighborhood associations, local youth, leaders of communities where English is not the first language, etc., are just as important to include as key audiences in all of your messaging.

It’s important to make sure that your city has a strategic communications plan that utilizes traditional and nontraditional methods to elevate your community voices and encourage them to come to the table.

In including them, your goal should not be exclusively focused on persuasion or recruiting them to support your efforts. Rather, focus on educating them about proposed changes, providing the supporting messages that back the city’s position, and asking how you can help them inform their communities of the changes and, most importantly, how they can have their voices heard.

Engaging social media

Another key component of your messaging strategies should continue to be social media. But don’t think of this as a one-way microphone for the city to use to reach key audiences. Instead, it should be thought of as what it is, a social platform. It’s a two-way mechanism residents can use to get involved, provide feedback, and start important conversations with their city.

Additionally, any information posted on social media should be educational, not only to inform the initial reader but also to encourage them to share it on as a resource for other interested community members to participate in the discussion at hand.

Communicating in a crisis

Building a clear messaging strategy, engaging community leaders, and utilizing social media all help show the community that you are interested in not only informing them but engaging them in the process of city business. Building this trust is critical, because in times of crisis our usual methods of communications can break down. But if you’ve done the above work during regular times, you help set the stage for a strong crisis response because your community knows:

• Where they can find city information and resources.
• How they can ask questions and provide input during a crisis.
• Which community leaders outside of city government are likely able to answer questions or provide resources.

Setting up these feedback mechanisms and partners is also critical after a crisis, because you need to know how much damage has been done and what reputation repair efforts are needed in what parts of the community.

Tell your story

No matter if you are communicating a policy, promoting an upcoming community event, or experiencing a crisis situation, a unified communications strategy is essential for reaching your key audiences. This is more than just telling your side of the story. It’s about educating the community, allowing them to engage in the process, and finally empowering them with resources to share what’s going on with their circles of influence. At its best, a unified communications strategy helps create a more informed and engaged public.

Chris Guizlo is vice president of The Fearey Group, a Seattle-based firm specializing in public relations, digital media, public affairs, and crisis communications.

For more information: feareygroup.com