9 steps to humanise your communications

In our socially distanced and increasingly technological world, the risks of miscommunication runs high. Our lack of face-to-face interaction means messages can often be interpreted in a variety of ways across platforms and it’s harder to see if your comms are landing effectively.

But whatever your means of communication, you need people to understand you and your brand from the get-go, allowing you to connect and build relationships with your audience.

The key to this comes from providing real, human messages that add value to your audiences. Authenticity is the hero for for comms now and in the future, so here are nine steps to get this right:

1. Consider your channels

The channels you use to relay your comms will alter the ways in which your messages are understood. To humanise written content, for example, you’ll need to really emphasise your personality in your style and tone as plain text can be interpreted in a myriad of ways without the inflections of a voice or accompanying facial expressions. Meanwhile, images, videos and sound bites can more easily convey emotion.

Because of this, it’s important that you have someone on board your team who understands how to inject your chosen comms channels with the personality and culture of your brand.

2. Find the balance for your ‘voice’

The language you use can really affect the way your messages are heard. Too formal can be cold and less engaging but overtly casual language may assume a closer relationship than you have with the reader. Finding the balance is essential.

It will take work to find your exact brand voice, but as a tip, we like to write like you’re speaking to a close colleague: friendly and warm but still professional and helpful.

3. Use relatable content

The key to human comms is the ability to form a real connection with your audience in order to build trust between both parties. To do this well, it’s useful to find relatable talking points to establish a relationship. Demonstrate understanding of your listener’s pain points or share similar lived-experiences - show that you’re human in the content you choose to talk about.

4. Engage with your audience

Real human conversations are two-way - so don’t talk at people. Talk with them and look for a response. This is important for an audience as they want to feel valued and understood - not like they’re being lectured to. 

For your own business it’s great too - when people interact with your company it can be a sign that they’re interested in what you have to say.

5. Listen

This is a simple but oh so often overlooked step. If you want to add real value to a two-way conversation you need to hear your audience so that you can respond in the most helpful way possible.

6. Be accessible

For a two-way conversation to take place, be ready to respond. If people have questions, quickly and consistently reply - be approachable, open and prepared for a range of responses. 

Being accessible like this helps people connect - you don’t want to appear aloof or superior as this can be disengaging for a productive conversation.

7. Recognise audience expertise and knowledge gaps

This step is especially important in niche markets or for businesses using plenty of technical terms on a day to day basis. It’s important to understand that niche jargon may be clear to you but not all of your audiences. Simultaneously, some people may have a stronger understanding of niche industry terms and won’t need everything overtly elaborated on.

Provide helpful and informative insights on niche concepts and always avoid jargon. Fail to do this and you won’t be as accessible to your audiences, at which point they may switch off.

8. Understand the culture - comms don’t happen in void

When communicating with an audience, you’ve got to recognise the culture you’re speaking within as this ultimately affects how your messages are perceived. Part of being human is the ability to understand things within a certain cultural context - for instance, how you understand a message from a leader in your workplace will differ to how you understand a tweet from a company online. 

The people, place, setting and technology will change your need for a different style of communication because the different social norms and values in these circumstances will change how people perceive you. Recognising the cultural context is vital to ensuring your comms strategy is designed in a way that allows your messages to land as you want them to.

9. Make sure your whole team is on board

Your comms won’t be engaging or relatable if they’re confused or scattered. Make sure your whole team is singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to reiterating external company messages with the same content, style, tone and approach in order to avoid disconnected communications. 

Get in touch for further support for your brand’s communications strategy. We’ve been helping HR and workplace related brands for over 25 years and we’d love to share our expertise with you too.