Stop planning communications like it's 2015

In my role as Head of Client Strategy at The Orchard, one of the most common challenges I see organisations face is not a lack of communications activity, but a lack of connection between them. Teams invest in content, media relations, social media and paid campaigns, yet often plan and measure each in isolation. The result is fragmented communications for audiences who consume information in anything but a linear way.

Why audiences don't think in channels

While organisations still separate PR, social, paid and community management into distinct disciplines, audiences experience them as one connected journey. The brands creating the greatest impact understand the difference.

People do not move through brand messages in tidy channel journeys. They discover something in one place, validate it somewhere else, discuss it with others, follow a related thread, search for more context and often form an opinion long before they ever directly engage with the organisation behind the message. The audience experience is not channel-led. It is behaviour-led.

That distinction matters because it changes how effective communications strategies need to be built.

Recently, I found myself spending far longer than expected consuming content from an account I do not usually engage with, about a topic I had not actively searched for. The starting point was a BBC Sport clip featuring a young athlete discussing clinical trials. The original story was compelling, but what held my attention was not one single piece of content. It was the way the story travelled. It moved from traditional media into social media, from social content into public discussion, from discussion into direct engagement, and from there into a wider ecosystem of related content and commentary.

That journey was a useful reminder of how modern communications works. The original media moment created awareness. Social made the story accessible. Discussion encouraged participation. Responses added context and visibility. Other voices brought credibility and perspective. None of these moments worked in isolation, their impact came from the way they built upon one another.

This is where many organisations still underestimate the value of communications planning. Businesses often ask whether they need PR, social media, paid promotion, community management, influencer engagement or content marketing, as though these are competing options. In reality, the strongest communications programmes are rarely built around a single tactic. They are built around how different disciplines work together to move audiences from awareness to understanding, participation and trust.

The problem with channel-first planning

The traditional channel-first approach is easy to understand, but increasingly limited. It encourages organisations to judge each activity in isolation: how many pieces of coverage did PR generate vs. how many clicks did paid activity drive? Those metrics can be useful, but they rarely tell the full story.

Those metrics can be useful, but they rarely tell the full story.

A piece of earned media may not generate an immediate enquiry, but it can create credibility that makes every future interaction more effective. A social post may not convert on its own, but it can make a complex issue easier to understand. A customer, employee or stakeholder sharing their own experience can often carry more influence than a polished brand message because it feels authentic and relatable.

When these activities are evaluated separately, their individual value can appear modest. When viewed as part of a broader audience journey, their contribution becomes much clearer.

The opportunity for organisations is not simply to create more communications activity, it’s to create stronger connections between the activity they already produce.

Education creates understanding, activation creates momentum

One of the most important roles of communications is education. Before people can support, buy from, advocate for or trust an organisation, they need to understand what it does, why it matters and how it relates to them.

That understanding is rarely built through a single piece of content. It develops through repeated exposure to consistent messages across multiple touchpoints. Someone might first become aware of an issue through media coverage, encounter a related social post, read a longer-form article, hear a stakeholder perspective or see a paid message reinforcing the same narrative.

Different channels perform different functions. Earned media can establish credibility, owned content can provide depth, social media can encourage engagement and paid activity can extend reach. The challenge is not choosing between them but understanding how they work together to reinforce the same story.

This is where many activation plans fall short, communications tactics are often delivered as standalone outputs rather than connected experiences. Yet audiences do not engage with communications in isolation, they connect information from multiple sources before forming an opinion or acting.

The strongest strategies recognise this. They connect education and activation deliberately, ensuring every touchpoint contributes towards a shared objective.

Community management is no longer just response handling

This shift also changes how organisations should think about community management. For a long time, community management has been viewed primarily as an operational function: monitoring comments, answering questions, escalating complaints and maintaining social channels. Those responsibilities still matter, but they no longer capture the full strategic value of the discipline.

Today, public interaction is part of reputation management. Audiences can see whether an organisation listens, how it responds, whether it takes concerns seriously and whether its actions align with its values. Increasingly, these interactions influence perception as much as the original content itself.

In many cases, the response to a story can become as influential as the story itself. A thoughtful reply can demonstrate credibility. A visible acknowledgement can build trust. Equally, silence can leave space for others to shape the narrative.

Silence can leave space for others to shape the narrative.

For organisations, that means community management should be planned as part of the communications strategy rather than treated as a maintenance task. It requires clear messaging, defined roles, strong governance and a clear understanding of the role participation plays in achieving wider communications objectives.

From broadcasting messages to building ecosystems

The broader shift is that communications is moving from a broadcast model to an ecosystem model. Broadcasting focuses on what an organisation publishes. Ecosystem thinking focuses on what happens next. Where will audiences encounter the information? What will help them understand it? Who will they trust? Where will they discuss it? How will the conversation evolve once the message enters the public domain? These questions matter because influence is rarely created through a single interaction. It is built through a series of connected experiences.

As audiences become more selective about what they believe, they look beyond the message itself. They look at where it appears, who shares it, how others respond to it and whether the organisation actively participates in the conversation. They seek signals of credibility before committing their attention, trust or support.

This is why isolated activation can only take organisations so far. A campaign may perform well in one channel, but without supporting narrative, reinforcement and engagement, its longer-term impact can be limited. The message may be seen, but not understood. It may be noticed, but not trusted.

The organisations that succeed in this environment will not necessarily be the ones producing the most content or investing in the most channels. They will be the ones creating the clearest connections between them.

As audience journeys become increasingly fragmented, influence will depend less on what organisations publish and more on the experiences they create around it. The future of communications is not channel-first thinking. It is understanding how different disciplines work together to educate, engage and influence audiences over time.