Strategic Communication In Interactive And Social Media

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Strategic communication
Communication is termed to be strategic when it is consistent with the corporation’s values and mission. Strategic communication enhances a company's strategic position and competitiveness. Organization adopts strategic communication by using a variety of communication-related aspects like public relations, brand communication, and advertising (Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2014).
Strategic communication involves using communication media to negotiate and influence people. Strategic communication involves developing appropriate messages or creating key points and ideas after conducting high-level research and proper planning. The message is developed with the specific audience in mind to help the organization to position itself to achieve its objectives. The main idea behind strategic communication is to assist the organization understand how to deliver effective messages to its key audience (Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2014).
Strategic communication in interactive and social media
Social media have significantly affected the process of developing strategic communication. Social media has overtaken traditional methods like direct mail, television advertisements and fliers. Instead, social media provides readily available platforms for marketers to create interactive conversations with its target audience. Social media is the most convenient platform to share information and receive instant feedbacks (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014)
Within the public relations arena, social media have provided easy access to news for media outlets, for instance, one of the common public relation communication to reach out to the public is via Twitter. In several ways, social media has made it easier for organizations to be more accountable to consumers because consumers can easily reveal information that would destroy the company's image in the public domain. Users can also provide instant feedbacks by airing out their opinion using social media networks. With the advent of social media, organizations have been challenged to control their brand and present consistent messages across the social media platforms (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).
How do strategic communicators justify their practices and why are these strategies ethically indefensible
Strategic communicators justify their practices in different ways because they believe that there is a strong link between policies and strategy, therefore for them, it is important to balance the two to achieve the desired outcomes. Strategic communicator needs to have a strategic purpose, which is to shape the conversation to achieve the desired results (Colleoni, 2013). If the intended objective is misunderstood, the communicator runs the risk of attitude and understanding based on the self-informed perception of the target audience hence loosing the actual intended goal. The organization develops values through policies using both the context and content of strategic communication (Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2014).
Public relation message is not always transparent as it should be. Companies try to manipulate stories for their benefit. For example, much of what transpires in the advertising in social media are the public relation. For example, strategic communicators according to the American marketing association are required to foster trust among its target audience, embrace good communication practices and ethical values to improve consumer confidence (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).
In other words, strategic communicators need to act honestly, based on the universal law. Unfortunately, tobacco markets have failed to achieve these standards, making most of their marketing strategies unethical. According to the state laws, tobacco companies are required to list its ingredients on its packaging. However, the companies argue that by doing so, their right to protect their secrets will be violated (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).
It is widely known that cigarettes are not good for our health and people do not know the content of the cigarette. With increased statistics about disease associated with cigarette, smoking strategic communicators still reach out to teenagers and even adults using all means possible. There are cigarette brands with a floury type of substance and candy cigarette meant to appeal to children to make them curious at an early age (Colleoni, 2013). It is not surprising that tobacco advertisers are not willing to display cigarette content; this is...