Digital Communication: Who's in Charge?

A recent survey found that more than half (54%) of corporate communications professionals say that digital communication is having a significant impact on their organizations' overall communications plan.

Who are these other 46%, and do they live in a hole? Apparently that group says the digital impact on their strategies is “fair” (36%) or “not much” (10%).

So why are so many corporate communicators not convinced of the impact of digital communication? I doubt it's because digital communication might not have a big impact. Rather, corporate-communications folks are not necessarily in the loop about digital efforts. Digital communication at companies might be brewing in the tech department or marketing, for instance.

According to the survey (by Heyman Associates Executive Search), here's who corporate communicators think are most responsible for digital communication:

• 53% - corporate communications
  
• 27% - marketing
  
• 8% - IT
• 12% - other
  

Those results illustrate how many companies do not have a handle on their digital communication strategy and have allowed various departments to do their own thing in this area. On one hand, it's been beneficial for the digital self-starters (many of them Millennials) given the go-ahead. It has also been beneficial for companies, who obviously need to have a digital strategy, regardless of who promotes it.

However, the downside is that the digital strategy could lack cohesiveness if various departments in a company do their own thing. Or, even worse, digital communication could be isolated to one area that lacks broader knowledge about the company. Digital strategy requires all areas of a company to work together.

For instance, for those 8% who say it is mostly IT's responsibility to get the digital message out, would you also say it is mostly the printer's responsibility to get your print materials out? I didn't think so.