What have been the hot topics this year for internal communicators?
As 2013 draws to a close, I thought I’d share information from an end of year analysis I’ve been sent from WordPress highlighting what you have been reading on my blog. The stats module in Jetpack, for self-hosted WordPress sites reveals:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
I like the way that’s written. In 2013, there were 195 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 439 posts since I started writing it in 2009.
The busiest day of the year was 28 October, with 1,100 views. The most popular post that day was Crisis communication checklist. That was the day people in the UK were preparing themselves for the storm that was about to hit, so given the context, it’s good to know that was a useful resource for comms professionals to read and share on.
Hot topics in 2013
The most popular articles this year, ranked in order, were:
- Who’s using what for internal social media? – My list of 400+ case studies from 26 different providers
- How to create an internal communication strategy from scratch
- 300 social media policies – also includes my YouTube playlist of policies
- It’s Yammer Time – everything I have published about Yammer, including 68 case studies
- A guide to Twitter for communication professionals
I’m not surprised to see the strategy article ranking at number two. It’s an article I originally wrote for Melcrum in 2009 and I’d realised from stats, searches and conversations, that communicators are on the hunt for strategies and plans.
With that in mind, you’ll know if you watched my end of year Internal Comms TV episode that I am currently collating a library of resources for internal communicators along these lines for 2014.
If you missed the episode, you can watch it here:
Library of internal comms resources
The library will be published via this blog so IC pros can rummage through and see what’s out there, who’s doing what and what works for other organisations.
Thank you to everyone who has got in touch so far offering to share copies of their comms plans, strategies, policies, PDFs of their employee magazines and examples of comms collateral. If you have something you would be happy to contribute I’d love to hear from you.
Do please get in touch, comment below or tweet me @AllthingsIC to let me know if you’d like to get involved.
This builds on my Rachel’s resources page which I’ve published for years, which features recruitment agencies, IC courses, books and much more, plus my glossary of internal communication that was a new addition this year. I frequently update both and welcome your suggestions for improvement.
Where are you from?
Where are you reading this article from? The 2013 report shows that people from 169 countries read my blog, with the top counties being United Kingdom, America and Australia.
How did you get here?
Do you subscribe to my blog? If so you’re among the 155 people who do so and choose to receive notification of new articles via email. If you’re not and would like to, you can find the sign up button on the right hand side of this page.
According to WordPress, people get to my blog by searching: Rachel Miller, internal communications, internal communications strategy and all things IC.
The top referring sites were:
I find it interesting that Facebook is in there as I only use it personally, not professionally, so the links are being generated by others sharing my content.
Google+ (pictured) is becoming an increasingly busy place for communicators and I really enjoy using it.
I signed up in 2011 and this year have found the Communities and hangouts increasingly useful such as the FIR community which my new podcast is part of, and the new The IC Crowd community.
I’ve used Google+ for many things this year, not least writing Share This Too book alongside my fellow CIPR Social Media panel members via Google Docs and our own private community, having hangouts (face-to-face conversations via webcam) and planning The Big Yak unconference with my fellow The IC Crowd co-founders Dana Leeson and Jenni Wheller.
I’ll be writing more about Google in 2014 as last month I had the pleasure of being invited to their offices in London (it was as innovative as I’d imagined – I didn’t want to leave!). I heard all about the possibilities they offer internal communicators and will be sharing more information soon.
Why blog?
During 2013 the people who commented the most on my blog posts were: Sarah Hodges, Bob Hammond, Tony Stewart and Yasmin Ocansey. Thank you to you all and to everyone who has got in touch with their thoughts.
The coming year marks five years since I started blogging and I’m going to leave you with an extract from a thought-provoking article that Euan Semple @euan (pictured) published yesterday. Euan wrote about his popular book Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do, on my blog this year.
His recent article on his own blog struck a lot of chords with me and is entitled ‘Why blogging still matters in business – and always will’:
“It’s not about marketing, or SEO, or “going viral”. It is not about internal “enterprise social” or external “social media” It is not even about the platforms or tools on which you choose to write. It is much simpler and much more powerful. It is about developing our awareness, our communication skills, and our collective intelligence. It is about thinking harder and writing better. Blogging is a means by which to rediscover your voice, to learn to share your thoughts with others, and by doing so to help us all get smarter faster.
But most people find this ridiculously hard.
….But with a blog, a business blog whether internal or external, we have a place to play. We can make the blog our own and we can write with our own voice. We can learn to notice more and value our insights. We can learn to use plain language and say what we mean. We can write in a way intended to be read by others like us and in doing so encourage them to follow our lead. We can together raise the prospect of reinventing business writing – and not a moment too soon!”
If you’re looking for other comms blogs to read, see my blogroll. I’ve already spotted a number of comms pros pledging to write their own blogs next year. If that’s you, do get in touch and I’ll add yours to my list. I’m planning lots more guest articles for the coming 12 months too.
All that remains is for me to wish you all a very Happy New Year, thank you for stopping by in 2013 and I look forward to discovering what 2014 brings.
Rachel
Post author: Rachel Miller
