New Delhi, September 06, 2021:
What has been the impact of Covid on the communication business, how the digital transformation has changed the landscape of internal and external communication were the topics discussed upon during a weekend webinar organised by Public Relation Society Delhi
Emergence of social media and digital transformation has changed the entire landscape of communication especially for public relations, said Bhaskar Majumdar, Head corporate affairs communication digital at Egis India on Sunday. He was speaking at the Sunday webinar organised by Public Relations Society Delhi. “Digital media and social media increasingly becoming a de-facto choice for content consumers. There has been a paradigm shift in the role of PR professionals and corporate communication experts too from relying on media relations to strategy centric approach. Exploring new tools as Facebook live, Insta live, podcast, #Twitter chat are new digital tools,” Majumdar said.
“Covid fast-forwarded adaptation of digital transformation. It transformed the PR industry and leapfrogged to digital information. Consumption of news has become digital during the lockdown.
The emergence of social media and digital transformation has changed the entire landscape of communication: be it media or advertisement or public relations” he said. “Availability of low-cost smartphones even for office boys is a new norm. Now news first gets published on the Twitter handle of a media house, then on the Twitter handle of journalist and then website and next day in print. By that time it is old news,” the communication veteran added.
Talking about the mix media, he said, “While planning campaigns and devising communication strategies, brands are going for kind of mix media which has both digital and traditional approaches called integrated communication.” “In Corporate Communication, we have four types of media: earned media, shared media, owned media and paid media. The blend of all these will now be an integral part of communication campaign planning. Like mobile manufacturing companies, auto companies, etc. are engaging more You tubers, bloggers than traditional media,” he added.
Rakesh K. Singhal, Former Executive Director, Corporate Communication, SAIL said, “Corporate Communications is top management function and is always based on company strategy. CC cannot be carried out in vacuum. CC adds value to company activities.
Speaking on various aspect of internal communication, he said company priorities like production target, sales target, branding of products, project management and attention to employees should form part of internal communication. He said company performance can be improved with effective communication and by involvement of people at every level. He also said in any project management inadequate communication lead to 85% of problems. You have to give correct details on various aspects including specifications.”
About strategic branding he said that our brand name is very important. In international trade especially brand name impacts the country, company and product in that order. Quoting experts on Branding, he said anything can be branded with segmentation and differentiation. He highlighted the point how companies these days are not only branding their names rather than the product. He gave live examples and upcoming trends.
He also said even Iron Ore is sold under brand names in international trade from countries like Australia And Brazil .He further said increasingly Steel Companies like SAIL, Tata ,AM/NS and JSPL are branding their steel products. Even Mid-sized steel companies have taken to branding.
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