Is this the era of strategic communication?

Why most communicators don’t plan and how to overcome common roadblocks

In May, Patrick Williams, corporate communications expert, spoke to an unexpectedly large audience at Ragan’s Corporate Communications Conference in Chicago at the Drake Hotel. His subject: The critical importance of strategic planning in corporate communication.

The size of his 2008 audience stunned Williams, and provided him with more proof that strategic communications was beginning to assume the leading position in the field he had predicted for it a quarter of a century earlier.

Because of the rush to capitalize on social media, strategy may be needed now more than ever. “The social media alone, without a clear, defined strategy, won’t save you or your company,” Williams says. “But a well-thought-out strategy can make your blog or wiki a hundred times more powerful. Strategy first, then social media.”

The beating heart of strategic communication

Well, then, why don’t more of us in communications think and plan strategically? Williams argues there are three reasons: