What Constitutes Your “Organizational Image”?
Seems like an easy question. It’s how others perceive your image, right? Or is it how your organization sees itself? Wait, what about how the organization’s perception of itself matches with what others think? What about establishing an alignment of inward and outward perception? What media will be used to communicate your values, culture, and ethos? Down the rabbit hole we go.
According to the International Encyclopedia of Organizational Studies, the concept of the “organizational image” varies among disciplines and industry perspectives. From a marketing perspective, organizational image refers to how customers or clients perceive the organization. Among scholars of organizational studies, the focus shifts to how internal members of an organization interpret outside perceptions of it. Dubbed corporate image, organizational identity, organizational culture, or even corporate branding, this cross-disciplinary concept touches marketing departments, organizational studies, corporate communications, human resources, and C-level executives. While different lenses scrutinize organizational image, for the purpose of this writing organizational image is the perception of an organization’s culture, benefits, attitudes, and relationships with people and community, as well as its measured credibility, expertise, and value in the marketplace among internal and external constituents.
How Does Content Strategy Fit In?
The nature and structure of content strategy provide a key roadmap for creating or redefining organizational image. Author of Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson’s core content strategy definition – that content strategy’s focus is on the planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content – establishes a framework of prescribed steps to align branded content deliverables with business goals and consumer expectations. The most forward-thinking invest in content strategy because they understand the value of getting content right.
Content strategists perfect content and stitch together the wide, wide world of optimizing page load times, web accessibility, brand standards, SEO, multi-platform responsiveness, all things UX/IA design, copywriting, and performance metrics. The CS professional constantly works to improve the user experience and support business objectives. The pay-off can be significant. At scale, a small change can mean big wins. A favorite example, outlined in the very first pages of Halvorson’s book, content strategist Sarah Cancilla began her career at Facebook when the discipline was in its infancy. She noticed an opportunity to take action and get a quick win with low risk. She describes identifying a seemingly long-forgotten section of lonely links at the bottom of Facebook’s home page. Without divulging the exact copy, she notes that “…these links offered people a chance to invite friends to Facebook, connect with friends already there, and try Facebook Mobile”. With a small change in microcopy, the few links on the bottom of Facebook’s homepage saw a 56% gain in net traffic. That equates to over 6 million people who found an old friend, invited someone, and tried Facebook mobile for the first time.
Organizational image is being scrutinized before the content has even been seen. The time between when a user clicks a link and the time it takes the page to load begins said scrutiny. In this fast-paced 5G+ world, if content takes more than a few seconds to appear it could be a disaster. In the world of e-commerce, 79% of users will not return to an online store if it loads too slowly and 52% say that page load time is important to their loyalty. At the time of this writing, a study by Hubspot reported that 51% of smartphone users said they discovered a new product or company while using a smartphone. That first impression is crucial. At first glance, most organizations appear to understand that the investment in organizational image must include eye-catching graphics and images, insightful and persuasive storytelling, catchy copywriting and smart messaging. However, technical savvy and awareness of content performance often go overlooked. At the time of this writing, only 2% of websites meet web accessibility standards. If you say you’re an organization that cares for people with disabilities, are you ensuring your website is built with the appropriate tech in place to ensure those experiencing your website with a screen reader or are color blind will enjoy your content equally?
Reputations are built and destroyed because of such oversights. With social media, users report their experiences in real-time to the entire world. Whether internal or external, organizational image can be quickly turned on its head due to poor user experience. Businesses must rely on their communication of values through their organizational image and how a company responds to crisis, reputation management, and user experience ultimately determines its growth and success. A content strategist not only helps manage messaging, imagery, and storytelling, but tests and optimizes for web accessibility, performance, and user enjoyment.
Conclusion
As content is consumed and expanded for use by internal and external audiences, the need for content strategy is clear. Aligning internal goals to real-time user data and feedback further develops a highly integrated process of content curation so as to deliver the intended experience. That experience is intrinsically tied to organizational image. A content strategist is an integral part of supporting organizational image and its perceived value in the marketplace.
If you need a Content Strategist to ensure your organizational image is clear, robust, and strategic, book a call with me today!
References:
- Majken Schultz (2008). Organizational Image. International Encyclopedia of Organizational Studies. (p. 1082-1084)
- Content Strategy Basics. https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/content-strategy.html
- Work, Sean. How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line. Kissmetric: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/
- The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics. Hubspot: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
- Kristina Halvorson (2012). Content Strategy for the Web. Forward by Sarah Cancilla.
- Only 2% of Websites Meet Accessbility Standards. Let’s Change That. https://www.adweek.com/media/only-2-of-sites-meet-accessibility-standards-lets-change-that/