Brian Clark at Copyblogger sums up why your organization should be creating its own “channel” of text, audio and video, to inform, entertain and engage the people who care most about it:

Mass media is a historical aberration. For a short 70-odd years of human history, a relatively small group of people told us what to think and what to buy, and we were expected to passively accept it.

That’s not how things worked for thousands of years before, and that’s not how it’s going to work in the future. Clinging to the precepts of a brief period of weirdness may not be the best model to guide us, you think?

Before mass media, people marketed their wares directly to one another in a social context. Some people were considered honest and trustworthy, and some people were considered shills and charlatans. Others were revealed to be criminals and con men.

Take a look at your organization’s website. Is it full of the slick talk of a shill and a charlatan? Or is it the kind of real-life communication you’d get from someone who’s honest and trustworthy? 

If you’re spending a lot of time and money making your professional communications look and sound polished, you’re putting money in the wrong place. Give more attention to what you’re saying, and less attention to how you’re saying it.

I write this blog mainly for non-journalists who have to communicate professionally in some capacity.  Maybe you’re a PR person, or a director of a small nonprofit.  I think it’s important that you adopt some of the tools of journalism in your communication, because they will make you more engaging to the people you’re talking to.

But journalists are in the same boat as you — trying to figure out how their communication is affected by the way the Web is disseminating information and bringing people together around niche interests.  One of those journalists has teamed up with a non-journalist to start a site called NewsTechZilla.  It’s focused on changes in journalism, and how journalists can respond.  It’s off to a great start so far, and I’d recommend you check it out.

AdAge says customer retention and loyalty are more important than ever for marketers. And what better way to retain customers and increase their loyalty than to talk to them — about the stuff they want to talk about?

1. Use the Internet to listen to what people are saying to your organization.
2. Respond conversationally, not with a 1-way message.
3. Use the feedback from your conversation to make real changes to the way you operate.

Listen: Use Google Blogsearch or Technorati to track what people are saying about the work you do. But don’t just look for your organization’s name. Look for anyone who’s talking about interesting stuff going on in your field. This isn’t about finding naysayers and correcting them. It’s about taking a place at the table with others who are talking about stuff that’s important to you, and to them.

Respond: You don’t use a bullhorn when you’re conversing at a cocktail party. So why would you do it online? Your listening is only effective when it helps you craft a reasoned response that invites further response from others. The Internet is home to important, nuanced conversations about millions of subjects. If you haven’t found one that pertains to your work, it could be that you haven’t looked hard enough. And if you’ve looked, and still can’t find one, start one of your own. People will find it, if it’s a conversation worth having.

Change: Having a conversation is great. But if you’re all talk and no action, people will notice. Use the feedback you get from your customers/constituents to make real changes in the way you operate. You don’t have to implement every single suggestion. But if you’re engaging in conversation with smart people online, some of them are bound to have good ideas. You should try them.