Data analytics has transformed the ability of communicators to tailor communications directly toward the stakeholders they wish to reach. A company can collect information about its own customers, or it can use existing datasets to inform how they communicate with the types of people that makes up their customer or stakeholder base. Rachel Winer (2023) at Forbes states that this data can come from tracking how users interact with your website or communications, or from giving them surveys and asking questions directly. Training that is necessary to do this properly begins with teaching communicators how to handle the data they collect to protect it. Part of this includes training that helps them understand what data is necessary so they do not need to protect more data than they need. The training also needs to help communicators understand the legal responsibilities they have in protecting data and what the consequences are for them and the user if they do not adhere to best practices. This can be done by having communicators take courses about data protection or by bringing in a security consultant to help employees understand how to collect and protect data. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s guide to protecting personal information for businesses, companies first need to know what data they have. The FTC then suggests that you limit the data you collect to what you actually need, put the data on lockdown to keep it private, get rid of what you don’t need anymore, and finally, have a plan in place to minimize the damage if the data does get breached.

Once you have the proper protections in place, communications professionals would benefit from training on how to use data analytics tools to sort the data to ferret out insights about it that helps them streamline their communications. It’s also important that they know how to use tools like R and Tableau to clean data and figure out what data is important. Another vital skill for them to learn is data visualization: how to make the data tell a visual story so you can communicate its importance to someone else. This will help leadership and their team understand why the data insights they have identified should be used to enhance communications with stakeholders.

References

Protecting Personal Information: A Guide for Business. (n.d.). FTC. Retrieved August 26, 2024, from https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/protecting-personal-information-guide-business

Winer, R. (2023). How To Use Data And Insights To Fuel Communications. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2023/04/04/how-to-use-data-and-insights-to-fuel-communications/