Web 2.0 communication model

Traditionally companies relied on the media to tell their story to the public. True, that’s a simplified explanation, but basically the flow of communication went something like this:

Company — Media — Consumer

Today, the communication model is more like:

Company — Media — Consumer — Blogs — Social Networks

Communicating effectively is more complicated because the company is no longer the only one creating content.

Not only do business communicators need to manage media relationships, now they’re tasked with keeping up with all that’s said about a company in the blogosphere and on the social media front.

Now more than ever it’s imperative that communicators use monitoring tools. Those tools range from free to very expensive. While I’m of the opinion that you usually get what you pay for, I have to say that Google offers a suite of tools for free that provide at least a very good foundation from which to measure conversations.

There’s Google search, alerts, analytics, finance and more.

The takeaway here is that old, traditional models of communication don’t work in our complex digital age and it takes a savvy communicator — in touch with social media, blogging and new technologies — to know how to best reach key constituencies.