Communication is one of the human activities that everyone knows but few can define satisfactorily. Communication is of central importance to life in our culture: without it, no form of culture can survive. Consequently, the study of communication includes studies of the culture in which it is integrated, it can be in society at large but also in the company's own culture.
Social interaction through messages
A general definition of communication as "social interaction with the help of messages". In the material, we examine both these social relations, and the communication processes themselves. It is important knowledge to acquire when it comes to the internal communication among the employees at a company as well as the company's external communication and associated graphic communication with its target group market and its customers. There are two real schools when it comes to communication studies. The first sees communication as the transmission of messages. The other sees communication as the creation and exchange of meanings.
The purposes of communication
Among people, communication is means to community - through communication, experiences, feelings, thoughts, desires, opinions, etc. Become common to several people. Another way of looking at communication is that it gives people:
The opportunity to better adapt to their surroundings.
Constantly changing themselves or the environment towards an adaptation that in their eyes is appropriate.
Instrumental Communication
Communication is thus a means to achieve certain purposes: it is instrumental. There is also something called expressive communication, which refers to when someone speaks loudly to themselves, laughs to themselves or expresses feelings without wanting to convey any meaning to another person. We will talk about instrumental communication.
Instrumental communication requires a sender and a receiver and where the sender wishes to provoke certain reactions in the receiver. The sender, does this for different purposes and the person who receives a message, the recipient, reacts in different ways. The transmitter aims to evoke certain reactions in the receiver with the message.
Communication or Information
There is a distinct difference between the words inform and communicate which we shall examine here.
Information is used in the case of a process that goes in one direction only the transmitter's documents, e.g., the management informs its employees at the company about the company's financial situation or the company informs its customers that a new store is opening online.
Communicating and the other side is an expression of interaction between people and it means that it is a two-way process where the transmitter considers and is influenced by the receiver. When a company chooses to inform its employees or customers about something, a large part of the activity is that the recipients are approached. It then applies that the recipients have an obligation or a strong interest in absorbing information within a certain issue.
For all people and companies working with marketing and graphic communication issues constantly has ourselves if we communicate with or inform our recipients, employees, and customers because there is an elemental difference in the process.
The word inform is used today to a greater extent than the words "tell" or "talk about" and communicate more than "communicate with".
Informing means that:
A large part of the activity is that the recipients are approached.
The recipients have an obligation or a strong interest in absorbing the information.
People who work in a creative profession, such as graphic communication, can get annoyed at these words because the words inform and communicate mean something more than telling something to someone. The concepts place demands on the people in the work process because systematics should be applied to be able to communicate successfully with their recipient groups, which in turn is often in conflict with intuition and creative ability. Systematics and creativity should be combined if they are to lead to the same goal. Something that is even clearer today with the quick responses achieved in social networks and online communication.
Information as a tool for relationship marketing
In the late nineties and early twentieth centuries, the concept of relationship marketing grew stronger and with the help of the internet became an increasingly effective tool. With the help of the internet, companies were able to communicate with their customers with the help of newsletters, VIP clubs on their own website. Through the great impact of social networks and social media, it is seen that relationship marketing constitutes an increasing part of the companies' total information and communication for even the loyal customers.
Another tool that has gained a large foothold among marketers to inform customers about what is happening in the company is something we choose to call "Direct Newsletter" which is automatically sent to recipients as soon as they have agreed to use a certain service or application online.
Today, individuals' corporate e-mail accounts as well as private e-mail accounts are flooded with emails containing company information and advertising. This type of service has replaced the type of print direct mail that we could previously receive in our physical mailboxes at home.
Admittedly, acceptance of receipt is required before information of this kind can be sent, unfortunately models are used to force customers to receive information to use a service or product online. Something that should be understood by communicators and marketers has the opposite effect on the recipients. Unfortunately, it is again that the brand needs to have a large foothold in people's memory to be considered able to grow and gain larger market shares. Direct newsletters can have a good effect if they are used in a good way to inform their customers and can be a good way to create communication between company and customer on social media.
Digital communication gives more space to:
Streamline the connection internally.
Create dialogue with:
Customers
Authorities
Unions
Press
Use of communities and social media in information.
Using social media people and companies inform and communicate with the reader or listener in such a way that some thought content becomes common to speakers and listeners or perhaps writer and reader.
With the increasing use of social and digital media, the information has increasingly been used in various forms of shared workspaces online, messaging tools and in e-mail contexts within organizations while various social networks, and digital newsletters are used for information to loyal customers who wish information from the company. It’s in the comment lines the communication might start. For people in company public relations all communication taking place (good or bad) in the comments is a win at the end for what been informed in social media.
Social media is another tool for companies for its relationship marketing and is applied as a means of informing its customer groups. By effectively using digital media, you increase the opportunity to be able to communicate with your target groups both within the company as well as with the external groups outside the company such as customers and various authorities, trade unions, press etc.
Social media is more often used for companies to share news to its customers than the previous News pages on a company website. Still News publishing tools are used to present press releases toward journalists and media channels. However, most of the news tools available online today mimic the look of social media as a means of simplifying communication and information between journalists and media houses.
What constitutes a communicative act?
When you intend to communicate instead of informing, you want some form of confirmed reaction from the recipient. Then it is important (and often comes naturally) to ask: How do I know that I am really communicating?
1. Some form of confirmed response from the recipient is desired.
2. Feedback is a central concept in the communication processes.
3. When this is successful, we know that a communicative act has been performed.
The answer given is that there is great importance in studying the recipients. Feedback thus becomes a central concept in the communication processes that when we know that this has been successful, we also know that we have performed a communicative act.
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