What is strategic communications?

The term “strategic communications” has become popular over the last two decades. It means infusing communications efforts with an agenda and a master plan. Typically, that master plan involves promoting the brand of an organization, urging people to do specific actions, or advocating particular legislation.

It can refer to both a process, and to a specific job title.

Why strategic communications?

The field of ‘communications’ is broad, encompassing professionals who create news or want to push information to the public (public relations, public information, marketing), people who deliver news and media to the public (journalists, audio and video producers, public speakers, educators), and people who study the interplay of media and society (researchers).

Strategic communications fuses the “pushing” and the “delivering.” According to Shayna Englin, who teaches public relations and corporate communications at Georgetown, “being strategic means communicating the best message, through the right channels, measured against well-considered organizational and communications-specific goals. It’s the difference between doing communications stuff, and doing the right communications stuff.”

Several factors spawned the field:

  • New methods of outreach — There are now many more avenues available to reach the public than the now-crumbling empires of advertiser-sponsored newspapers, magazines, and television. For example, a scientific or arts organization might simultaneously pitch stories to journalists, write a blog for the public, and post to Facebook and Twitter.
  • Consistency & coordination — There is a greater need for consistency between departments, since the public can easily Google anything online. More coordination is also needed, as the same communication channels (e.g., Facebook) are useful for education, marketing, education, advocacy, fundraising, etc, and organizations need to strike a balance between getting out important messages and also attracting readers.
  • More professionalism — Also, there is a problem of amateurs running amok. Just as desktop publishing allowed anyone with a PC to make a newsletter or magazine; the Internet de-professionalized communications. The first generation of web sites in the 1990’s were created by tech departments and kids (not communications professionals), and the first generation of Tweets and blog posts were typically made by young staffers. (‘Let’s have the intern start our Facebook page!’)

Against this ever expanding variety of media, and low barriers to entry, it was easy to waste resources or embarrass an organization. Unstrategic communication became more common. Sure you got a lot of hits, impressions or followers, but so what? Executive management wanted their communications to accomplish more concrete goals.

According to Tom Kelleher, chair of the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii, the opposite of strategic communications is “seat of the pants” communications. He says that cranking out press releases and seeking media coverage can feel productive, but without a master plan, there’s a risk of misallocating effort. This is particularly a problem for junior staff or people who come from an advertising background, because they can be too focused on media impressions (e.g., how many people listened to our advertisement on the radio) instead of concrete outcomes (e.g., how many people got flu shots, or how many people learned about the melting arctic).

Depending on the nature of an organization, strategic communications can range from marketing to policy. According to Emily Tynes, Director of Communications for ACLU, and coauthor of a guidebook for nonprofits, “In the world of nonprofits, strategic communications is an orchestrated use of channels of communication to move and influence public policy or to promote an agenda. By comparison, strategic communications planning in corporations is mainly geared towards the promotion of products.”

Karen Green, manager of communication and outreach at the Renaissance Computing Institute at UNC, says it’s about having a plan, not “simply reacting and responding.” For her, it’s about “framing a discussion on topics and issues that are important to my organization in a way that gets the organization’s name out there. This in turn builds the organization’s reputation and street credibility.” As an example, with the recent explosions at the nuclear reactors in Japan, since her organization is involved in high-end computing, she promoted her organization’s director to journalists as an expert on computer modeling of the inner workings of nuclear reactors.

The importance of branding is echoed by Rena Pederson, the communications director for the National Math and Science Initiative. She says, strategic communications “includes tactical steps like branding so that the public image is a good one, positioning yourself in all materials and media outreach to maximize your impact, all with an eye to where you want to be not just this month, but next year and five years from now.”

Other definitions

Warren Mason a professor of business and communication studies at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, says that in his course, strategic communication is about dealing with “issues that might jeopardize an organization’s very survival” and nothing to do with marketing.

To Mason, it’s about ‘Issues Management/Planning’ and is an effort to anticipate problems and crises before they occur. Mason says, “For example, with an internal audience, such as employees, this planning could include planning for a potential layoff by management or a strike by employees.  As to external threats, this could be anything from a fire or explosion at a place of employment, to an oil spill improperly handled by a large oil company, or workplace violence anytime, anywhere.” These issues can be internally or externally driven, and call for planning, meticulous planning, and diplomatic followup. “Proper media relations, both during and after these scenarios, will drive perceptions in the court of public opinion and greatly impact the organization’s image and reputation.”

Speaking of diplomacy, in diplomatic/military contexts, strategic communication is a process for delivering a unified message through public diplomatic channels, public affairs (government spokespeople) and information/psychological operations.

A profitable adjective

According to Simply Hired, the average U.S. salary for a ‘communications director’ is $65,000. But for a ‘strategic communications director,’ it jumps 17%, to $76,000. (Includes all sectors, not just nonprofits; salaries are higher in major metropolitan areas.)

An increasingly common phrase

On idealist.org, a leading web site for posting job listings in the nonprofit sector, there are currently 72 full time job listings that contain the phrase “strategic communication,” and more generally, 1208 full time job listings that include both the words “strategic” and “communication.”

The phrase “strategic communications” became more commonly used in the 1990s. The following graph shows how often the phrase appears among all the books in a given year scanned by Google’s books project:

For another view, this is a timeline of the number of occurrences of “strategic communication(s)” in web pages indexed by Google. In this frequency graph, use of the phrase takes off more in 2001. Google’s algorithm looks at the dates in context. For example, the sentence in a 2005 press release, “Founded in 1908, the Missouri School of Journalism has set the standards for journalism and strategic communication training for almost a century” appears on the graph for 1908:

In a later post, we’ll look further at the process of strategic communications, how some of the activities can be adopted for promoting science or culture agendas, and possible pitfalls.

23 comments on What is strategic communications?

Trudi Baldwin

23 Mar 2011, 8:59 am

At Columbia's MS program in Strategic Communications, our core courses ground students in the rigor of research, analysis, and insight required to develop a strategy for communications to address a business objective – as relevant to the nonprofit world as the private sector. It is the opposite of 'seat of the pants' reacting.

Reply

Get to know me and some of my work. « Jaime N. Flynn

27 Jun 2011, 1:15 pm

[…] Jaime. My degree hails from Wisconsin’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication, in Strategic Communication. That means advertising; that means public relations; that means I secretly try to sell you […]

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harunoko

17 Aug 2011, 6:26 pm

Hello I'm student of social communication and always I asking to professors what really is strategy communication but never I got a coherent answer even from the professor who hold strategic communication course…(funny) But I read and a very good article by a professor and researcher who are studying just Strategic communication for 8 years, he say that is strategic communication is not marketing, public relations,business, advertising, journalist, psychology , sociology, social communication. but Strategic Communication select, leads, integrates, coordinates, activates and executes the resources of these disciplines. He say that strategic communication is an integration between Strategy science and Mass communication. For me is the best professional, serious and relevant explanation ever. here the link of definition of Strategic Communication by professor Guerrero-Castro; http://www.strategic-communication-model.com/08/s

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bakumatsu

22 Sep 2011, 10:21 pm

Thanks! Harunoko, is a very good article! I get contact with the professor I now I'm going to include the model in my thesis. (but the link doesn't work ) I got the information here: http://strategic-communication-model.com/strategi

Reply

rusicom

21 Aug 2011, 7:47 am

Strategic communications are oriented towards orchestration
and synchronization of actions, words and images in order to achieve the
desired effects.
Successful strategic communication means integrated actions
and messages and clear leadership behavior.

Main principles:

§ Building confidence, respect for the truth;
§ Active dialogue and multilateral exchange of ideas;
§ Understanding, knowledge of others;
§ Single-effort integration and coordination;
§ Responsibility-selected audience, message, time, location;
§ Effectiveness-striving desired state;
§ Continuous-analysis, planning, execution, rate;
§ Leaders are the driving force of strategic communications,
they must put communications at the heart of every action.

Reply

Strategic Communications « missclairekathryn

23 Oct 2011, 11:41 pm

[…] I had no idea what strategic communications was. I have since learned that strategic communications means, “infusing communications efforts with an agenda and a master plan.” Different focuses within […]

Reply

Why I’m Taking Comm 306 « The Bugbee Times

01 Dec 2011, 8:17 pm

[…] required in order to fulfill requirements for my major, I hope to gain a better knowledge of what Strategic Communication entails. My grasp of strategic communication is the focused direction of communication to specific […]

Reply

“So what exactly is strategic communications?” « horizoncommunications

01 Mar 2012, 5:31 pm

[…] closer relationships with key opinion formers. As communications expert Shayna Englin says in this useful article, being strategic is “the difference between doing communications stuff and doing the right […]

Reply

THANDO

08 Mar 2012, 4:34 am

Please explain to me Ive got an assignment and it says I must discuss what is the strategic role of communication under the following headings

1. strategy communication
2. Communication Strategy
3. Communication of Strategy

Reply

What’s my interest area? | Michelle Bedker's Blog.

09 Mar 2012, 10:23 am

[…] I was researching this new-found career possibility, I found an interesting blog post about strategic communications.   It has some pretty interesting graphs about the use of the phrase strategic communication vs. […]

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BP Singh

01 Apr 2012, 5:36 pm

This is an interesting site. I'm researching STARTEGIC COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR at UKZN and hope to throw some questions your way

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strategist

25 Aug 2013, 11:37 pm

Hi BP Singh
I am researching strategic communications within the public sector in NZ and wonder if you would mind sharing your findings with me?

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Adam

18 Jul 2012, 9:32 am

“strategic communication” if you want serious answers = the theory and model of /guerrero castro/. I have been working in social communication in the goverment since 1998. and this theory and model is the best in my opinon.
Adam

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What is strategic communications? | Mindful Leadership & Strategic Communication

29 Aug 2012, 3:06 pm

[…] What is strategic communications?. Share this:More Pin ItLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in Communication, Strategy and tagged Communications, strategic communication, strategy by bxljenny. Bookmark the permalink. […]

Reply

IDEA » Blogging at IDEA

17 Sep 2012, 12:26 am

[…] museums to mobile devices to ebooks to blog networks. The most popular articles have been about strategic communications and QR Codes. These articles were written by Michael Douma, and many were long-form articles, […]

Reply

IDEA » Blog bites

10 Oct 2012, 5:58 pm

[…] museums to mobile devices to ebooks to blog networks. The most popular articles have been about strategic communications and QR Codes. These articles were written by Michael Douma, and many were long-form articles, […]

Reply

MArk

26 Dec 2012, 2:53 pm

Agree Adam. Guerrero’s definitions and model is the best at the moment, with strong arguments bases on theories and models of strategy and communication.

Was not easy to find the right resources. I have been working in Defense area for decades (public affairs) and there are 1000 of people using SC as they want, with a lot of attempts of definitions and process. But for me the guys who really have been making a contribution in this area is Cristian Guerrero with his model and definitions and Christopher Paul with his research about the evolution of the concept.

To get a free access to the Guerrero’s papers you need to apply: http://stratcom-model.com/papers/
And to get access to Paul’s book you can find it in googlebooks: http://books.google.de/books/about/Strategic_Comm

This two guys are the best in my opinion.

Cheers

Reply

Evelynn

03 Jun 2013, 9:38 pm

The variety of definitions reflects the varied nature of the field of strategic communications. Though the given descriptions of strategic communications differ, a common theme of the article is the idea of "strategy." The author of the article describes strategic communications as the "'pushing' and 'delivering'" of information to an intended audience. The quotes from communications specialists in the article align with the first key in Propel: Strategy. When designing a communication plan, it is important to plan methodically and to be intentional in order to achieve results.

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Cat

10 Jun 2013, 8:41 pm

The most important aspect of Strategic Communications if following the master plan to achieve the outlined goals for a company. It is essential to intensively think about all tactics and strategies necessary for the goals to be actualized. The master plan serves as a "road map" to getting the best results for whatever is the desired outcome. Getting off track can negatively impact the intended success of what the final product of the plan should be.

Reply

Introduction to Agricultural Communication Theory | Dr. Baker's agcom844

24 Aug 2013, 6:18 pm

[…] theory to engage the public in conversations about agriculture. Your book talks about the need for strategic communication, which is a term you will continue to hear throughout this course. Communicating strategically is […]

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Kevin Von K.

02 Dec 2013, 7:24 pm

The most important aspect of strategic communication is STRATEGY.

“…Without strategy, we can only communicate. Only with strategy we can communicate strategically.”

Guerrero-Castro, C. E. Strategic Communication for Security & National Defense: Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Approach. Connections: The Quarterly Journal, Volume 12, Issue 2, p.27-51 (2013)

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Peter McG.

26 Jan 2014, 1:40 pm

I found the link: to Guerrero-Castro’s article:
http://connections-qj.org/node/5573

Reply

aguemperlein

26 Feb 2016, 3:38 pm

I enjoy your clear definition of strategic communication, both modern and ‘old school’ methods. What do you find the most important aspect of strategic communication? Audience, objective or measurement?

Reply

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