The face of entertainment communications is changing.

With the rise of social media, celebrities can reach out directly to their fans. Media consumers can interact with the day-to-day lives of their favorite entertainers. It creates a sense of immediate connection that the world has never seen before.

For public relations professionals schooled in the more traditional methods of entertainment communications, these new ways to engage consumers also come with a set of challenges.

Where past entertainment communications could be released more sporadically, today’s media consumers have come to expect regular outputs of content – sometimes even multiple times per day! What’s more, the number of potential channels for distributing this content has exploded in the past few years.

With so many media and social media platforms to choose from, how does a public relations professional select the right one for a certain client or type of content?

This is where strategic communication comes in. By choosing a branding strategy that takes your goals as a business into account, you’ll be well on your way to building an engaged and loyal consumer base.

Are you ready to get started with defining your strategy and building your entertainment brand? Let’s go!

How Do You Define Your Strategy?

Before you can start with your communications content creation, you need to have a clear understanding of your overall business strategy.

Strategy may seem like a simple concept, but many business leaders find it challenging to clearly state their business goals. In the most basic terms, a strategy is a set of guiding principles that give a common theme to all of your business decisions.

Once you know your strategy, the next step is to base it in research. Know exactly who your consumers are and what’s going to motivate them to engage with your communications.

What’s their age? Where do they live? Why would they want to engage with your content? What do you offer them that no one else can?

Sometimes this is as simple as analyzing the data you already have. The information you’ve gathered on your current client base may have all the answers you need to define your strategy.

After you’ve done your research, it’s time to think logically and systematically about the best ways to reach your consumer base. Do you have a young target audience? You might not want to focus your communications on Facebook.

When you think about your strategy, it’s really about how best to tell the story of your brand. It’s not all about numbers. Instead, a strategy should give you a sense of narrative and have the flexibility to change over time.

What is Strategic Communication?

Once you’ve got your strategy it’s time to put it to good use.

A clear business strategy is a vital tool for communications. It provides a guide and template for crafting public messages and helps the public to understand the central message of your brand.

Not only that, strategic communication has an important internal use. When your internal communications effectively convey your company’s aims and goals, you’re giving your employees a clear understanding of their mission in working for you.

When you make your employees feel passionate about the work they’re doing, they’re more likely to feel loyalty to your brand and protect its reputation.

This captures one of the key rules of strategic communication: you need to think both internally and externally.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of assuming that communications is all about your public message, but strategic communications are also about your employees. Make sure your message gets through to everyone!

Tools of Strategic Communication

Strategic communication isn’t just about the ideas. It’s also about the tools.

With so many platforms out there, there’s almost endless potential for reaching out to new target markets.

Creating engaging social media content can be a great way to boost your business through strategic communication.

Yet it’s not just about social media. Other strategic communication tools are proposals, press releases, advertising, website content, and public relations.

Make sure your message is joined up across all different departments of your company. If your departments aren’t communicating with each other, there’s a good chance your company’s messages are going to feel disconnected.

It’s also important to think carefully about the words and images you use to create your messages. In some cases, a powerful personal story might be best for getting your point across. Sometimes a photo might do the trick.

One of the best ways to learn about strategic communications is to look at examples from companies you admire. See what they’re doing well and try to emulate it.

The entertainment public relations firm 42West, for example, shows how to use clear, simple, and engaging Instagram images to build interest in their clients’ work.

How to do Strategic Communication

When you’re creating strategic communication, there are a few important guidelines to keep in mind.

The first, and most important, is to know your audience. Understand what drives people to look at your content. When thinking about internal communications, know what inspires members of your team.

Once you know what you want to say, keep your message consistent across all media channels. You wouldn’t want your Facebook account to say one thing and your Twitter account to say something completely different.

It’s also vital to keep your messages concise and to repeat them as often as possible. Remember that you need to communicate message not just to the public, but also to your employees.

Finally, keep it simple. The most successful brands have the simplest stories.

When your message is easy to understand, people won’t need to fill in the blanks to understand your brand’s goals. When consumers and employees know your central message, they’re far more likely to feel loyal to your company.

Positioning Your Messages for Maximum Exposure

By now you may have noticed that strategic communication has to do with understanding your various audiences.

Particularly for entertainment brands, a diverse range of people are engaging with your content. You’ll want to make sure that you’re reaching all of them.

Think about what particular aspects of your message you want to convey to each audience group.

Sometimes a message that resonates with young people won’t have much meaning for older people. People living in urban areas might have a different set of interests and priorities than people living in rural areas.

If you’re targeting younger audiences, for example, you might want to focus on creating compelling Instagram posts.

Older audiences might be more likely to engage with more traditional media channels, such as print materials or TV advertising.

People living in certain cities might respond to content that reflects the experience of living in that city.

When thinking in terms of strategy, you might want to build engagement with a new audience. You’ll want to be sure that you understand any barriers to effective communication and take steps to overcome these.

Be a Good Listener

Strategic communication can change over time, and should have the flexibility to adjust if people aren’t responding to a certain message.

First you need to ask yourself: do you know how the public is responding to your strategic messages?

Are you engaging with the public across social media platforms? Are you responding to online reviews?

All of these activities are vital to strategic communication. They not only allows you to manage your company’s reputation, but they also keep you informed of what your competition is doing.

Make sure you’re keeping track of public responses to your content. If certain posts are getting tons of likes while others seem to be passing virtually unnoticed, ask yourself why.

And don’t forget to listen to what your team members are saying! Often the people doing the day-to-day work will have the best insights into opportunities for development.

Be Forward-Looking

Sometimes, to be an effective strategic communicator, you have to be a bit of a fortune-teller.

You have to stay one step ahead of the trends.

A good way to do this is to pay close attention to what’s happening in the moment and forecast how current trends might change over time.

You might also want to keep a close eye on forward-looking brands that you admire. By tracking the way that they’re communicating, you can match up your communication style.

New Ways to Tell Your Brand’s Story

A good strategic communicator is, fundamentally, a storyteller.

You’ve thought about your brand’s origin, your key goals, and your audiences. You’ve developed a simple, hard-hitting mission statement, and now you’re ready to take that message public.

When learning the basics of strategic communication, you’re always building your awareness of how your message plays to the public and to other members of your team.

You’re always thinking about what works, what doesn’t, and what could be tweaked to create a more powerful message.

If this has gotten your attention, check out our other content for useful advice, how-to guides, and ideas for sparking conversation!