Corporate Communication - External communication

I am back with another concept today – external communication. Just like the previous post, this too will be explained in detail in the simplest form possible.

photo credit: Hallvarsson and Halvarsson

External communication - How the book says it!

External communication is the process in which, information is carried in and out of the organization.  This information is usually transferred through the exchange of messages with consumers, distributors, journalist, vendors, competitors and community representatives i.e. the stakeholders of the organization and the community as a whole.

External communication is the link between the organization and the public. External communication is done to generate favorable impressions with its public.

Yep! That was dry!

We have already discussed what internal communication is, so external communication should be rather easy to comprehend. External is nothing but that which forms the outer surface or structure of something. With context of an organization, external audience, are those who form its outer surface like the consumers, distributors, journalist, vendors, competitors and community representatives while the internal audience, are the employees.

Taking forward the example given for internal communication where in, the organization was a family of six (who decided to buy a new car), external communication can be explained as follows: -

Example
Imagine the family of six (grandparents, parents and a couple of teen children), are living in a building housing about 50 odd families. During Diwali it is a tradition to give ‘Faral’ (sweets and savory food items) to ones’ neighbour’s/friends/relatives. Now, as per the tradition, the mother (of the teen children) goes to every family with a plate of ‘Faral’. She talks to the ladies of the houses she visits and then shares the news of the family buying a new car. In this way the news is shared with all the families in the building and now everybody knows that they are expecting a new car in the compound.

Now lets look at the same scenario from the organizations’ point of view,

Family of six = Organization

Building = Distributors, Stakeholders, Journalist, Vendors, Competitors and Community representatives

Mother = Spokesperson  

Made sense? Okay so looking at this scenario from the organizations point of view one can understand that, the organization took a decision (of buying a car) and then shared the news with its external audience (the families in the building) through a spokesperson (mother) and thus the external audience is now aware of the new development that the organization is about to see.

This communication that the organization undertakes in order to acquaint its external audience with the changes/trends/decisions etc. is known as external communication. Keeping your external audience informed about the missions, vision, new development etc. helps to gain trust and reliability. It helps to create a favourable impression of the organization in the eyes of its external audience.

It is of utmost importance that the organization keeps its audiences, be it internal or external, well informed about its working or the changes that are about to take place. In a family transparency is the key to healthy relationships, and the case is no different with the context of an organization.  We as humans are always curious and want to know what is happening in the lives of our loved one or the ones we deal with. Well-informed audience is always happy audience, don’t you think? :D

I will be back the next time with another concept, till then see you all. :)

“Being relevant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something means choosing to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.”

― Stan Slap