Talking to your customers (and others)

Companies are communicating more than ever before. So why does so much of it fail?

Amid entreaties to engage customers, an important first step languishes in a mire of jargon and self-aggrandisement. Think “About Us” pages, profiles, bios, product and service descriptions, vision and values statements, and media announcements. It seems nothing is immune to the rampant mediocrity befalling communications of all kinds. And let’s not forget internal company communications, which are generally so bad they deserve an article all their own.

I’m not sure what’s to blame, but the advent of social media, millions of blogs and the so-called democritisation of content creation sure hasn’t helped.