Vertical Network Project and Newsletter

Vertical Network Project and Newsletter
Name
Institutional Affiliation

Vertical Network Project and Newsletter
EHBJ Vertical Network Project
Communication is very paramount in any organization and directly influences results. Vertical communication in an organization is the conversations that flow up and down through the hierarchical organizational structure right from the highest management to the middle management then down to the task force level. Miscommunication or even under communication in vertical communication is commonplace. Mostly, those in the position of power underestimate the power of proper internal communication and consider it a waste of resources and time. Usually, the leader just speaks without taking into account if the leaders are listening or not. Ultimately, there is almost no communication happening thus no exchange of ideas or the motivation to take necessary action.
For instance, in the case of the Dean Evelyne Wilson of the College of Education, Human Sciences, Behavioral Sciences, and Justice (EHBJ), who believed that her performance was excellent, but the appraisal proved otherwise. She introduced the self-assessment system because she thought that she had worked hard enough to score an ‘A.” Apparently, the employees were not so impressed by the way she had run the department over the five office she was the dean. The low employee perception of Dean Wilson’s potential was probably in her inadequacies in performance. Moreover, the employees perceived her leadership style as confusing, irrelevant and at odds with the realities that faced the department.

The dean’s reaction after the evaluation clearly indicates that she was out of touch with the employees’ expectations and their priorities were not synchronized. Dean Evelyne raised concerns about being assessed by employees who do not have an idea about her job description. Upon deliberation, she felt that maybe it is not entirely the workers’ fault because she might have failed at providing adequate communication about her day-to-day activities and particularly her external strategy. Thus, Dean Everlyne got an awakening about the importance of involving the employees and proper communication to ensure that the leaders is not just self-absorbed but rather understand that they have a team behind them.
Dean Evelyne’s situation can be salvaged by designing a vertical network communication strategy within the department. A vertical network communication strategy assists in controlling the flow of information and the decision-making process. Vertical communication includes mandates, orders, directions, policy decisions and instructions from the leaders. On the other hand, employees level their suggestions, complaints, request for clarifications, reports, as well as news on the current trends. Dean Evelyne needs a strategic plan to enhance the vertical network communication. The strategic plan helps in organization and articulation of the leader’s direction so that the employees can understand what is expected of them. The vertical network strategy orchestrates proper communication in the organization.
This paper demonstrates a strategic communication plan in support of the Outreach Strategy at EHBJ. The focus audience in this regard is the internal audience, and the communication platform is the digital media, particularly social media. The popularity of social media is undoubtedly palpable and organizations have become more open to social communication, particularly among employees. For the same reason and more, the vertical network is going to incorporate social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram to be used by the dean in communication with the employees. The strategy is not limited to posting content on the social channels and assuming that individuals will automatically share it and the traffic will start building up automatically. It entails making things happen by leveraging your relationship with primary publishers, social media influencers, and others. The purpose of the vertical network on Outreach Strategy is to define communication priorities of the involved parties, audiences, objectives, key messages, as well as the essential outreach vehicles. Ultimately, the vertical network is to ensure that there are adequate communication links within the institution and ensuring that the internal audiences are included in the decision-making process.
Situational Analysis
Currently, vertical communication at EHBJ is inadequate. For instance, Dean Evelyne’s involvement in different activities of the department varied and mostly it was by intention. For instance, the roles she played in faculty evaluations, grievances and promotions were very minimal. She was also less involved in the recruitment process and only supported a particular candidate. The Dean is more places more emphasis on issues with the budget and outreach programs. She has done so much regarding bringing in funds for the department but fails at communicating, especially with her team. The Dean is extensively involved with the outreach program and has performed excellently in the communities. However, there is no mention of how the Dean communicates the successes with her team members. Apparently, there are no periodic updates on all the activities the departments delves into thus the employees would feel ignored.
Benefits
It will improve communication links within the institution and ensure that delivery is inclusive. A proper vertical network strategy will ensure that stakeholders are maximizing their efforts towards a common objective and reducing the duplication of work.
It also fosters leadership from the internal stakeholders to sustain and support the outreach strategy.
Challenges
Cultural concerns are a major problem to the improving the vertical network. Ideally, people are cultured in a particular way, and they can be resistant to change, especially when it interferes with their culture.
Organization’s perspective about the proposed changes is also a huge determinant of a project’s success. If the organization is not on board with introducing social media into the system, then the proposal would face opposition.
Organizational issues are also a concern. For instance, is the organization ready to take the risk and try out the new strategy?
Internal Audience Profile
The internal audience in the institution include the Departments, the employees, the students, the policy-making organs, the relevant and the committees.
Communication Objectives
For organizations to thrive, communication is very paramount, and it entails talking, listening, supporting and embracing the information. The rationale for developing the vertical network strategy is to ensure that the Dean listens to the employees and other stakeholders to gain significant insights into their complaints, dissatisfactions, suggestions and general views about the progress of the department. Marketers pay a lot of money for surveys to be done on the market for insights into what the consumers want and it is the same thing that the Dean would need to run the EHBJ effectively (Li & Bernoff, 2011).There is also the aspect of talking to customers. Conventionally, most businesses spoke to the customers via advertisement, which is sometimes considered as shouting. The Dean should speaker to the employees and pitch her ideas to them. The conversations can be through social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
In business energizing comes about when one customer spreads the news about your product or service to other companies. Also referred to as word-of-mouth, energizing helps boost businesses in a big way. Today, people prefer products their friends refer compared to the ones advertised. Since the Dean is significantly involved in the outreach programs, pitching the idea to a few individuals would help spread the good work far and wide since people easily share ideas and experiences. Messages easily spread through word of mouth and social media offers the most efficient platform for energizing (Li & Bernoff, 2011). With the advent of technology, support for consumers or the audience has been minimized. Today, they can post their grievances, complaints, and dissatisfactions on the social media platforms of the organizations and directly receive feedback. The dean can as well use social media to offer support to the employees without them necessarily feeling victimized. In business, consumers are the most creative since they directly interact with the product and can identify any inadequacies. There is no harm in embracing and incorporating them into the innovative stages. If the dean develops an inclusive relationship with the employees, then they would be fully committed to her cause and would even appreciate all that she does even more.
Messaging
Thought Process
Ideally, leaders should employ a vertical communication network that takes on three stages. The first one includes ensuring the message communicated about the outreach strategy is relevant, motivation and comprehensible. The dean will provide direct and precise information to the employees to make sure that they are following the outreach plan (Matha & Boehm, 2008). The second step includes preparing for the actual communication whereas the third phase orchestrates how the leaders do the actual communication. In this case, after the Dean gets the message to be communicated to the employees, it will be well prepared to ensure that it provokes action from them and finally release it to them maybe as an e-newsletter.
In this case, the dean will determine the exact goal that should be accomplished by the EHBJ and what role the employees are playing in this regard. With vertical network communication strategy, the dean will communicate about big goals and the essential activities required to drive these aims (Matha & Boehm, 2008). Ideally, the dean’s communication should answer the two major questions that employees are asking including what are we attempting to achieve and what do you want me to do? The leader should reduce all the objectives into clearly defined deliverables that the employees can efficiently work on.
Action Equation
The Action Equation states ‘Know + feel =Do,’ which is the principle that means what individuals know and feel is what inspires their actions in this case regarding the strategy. Before going through with the strategy, the Dean would need to discern what the employees know or feel and if they have the right energy to act properly. Usually, the Action Equation arranges all that the leaders need to say (Matha & Boehm, 2008). It commences by focusing on a leader’s thinking regarding all that the employees need to do to support the company’s position on an issue or execute the strategy. It the moves into addressing what the employees need to feel and know to perform the right actions. There is also filtering where the critical issues to be communicated are separated from those that are a complete waste of time. The Action Equation dictates that leaders do their homework before communicating. It will entail proper research and analysis that is very paramount if the leader is looking for efficiently drive execution and score the best results.
Social Media Links
Social media is one of the most effective ways to extend the reach of your content to a wider audience. Attaining greater range is quite critical, particularly if you are marketing your content, and the more eyes you content gets, the better for your campaign. Usually, it is done through an outreach strategy where one leverages his or her relationships with the principal publishers, social media influencers and other with the intention of having them share the content on their channels or networks (Lebert, 2016). Social media has the most effective interaction among the consumers in this digital era. It is inevitable of organizations to incorporate social media in their outreach strategy because that is where the audience lies.
Social media allows individuals to freely review services and products, make a suggestion and even air out their grievances. The various social media platforms that can be used include Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest, The most important thing to consider before working on any social media outreach strategy is to set clear defined goals and objectives (Lebert, 2016).The audience should then be identified and consider the people that your message is targeting. Set the message the select the most appropriate social media platform for your message. Ideally, different social media platforms target different demographics for instance Twitter has more young and urban users while Pinterest mainly has female subscribers. Then finally, the content can be shared on the social media platform. The steps should be followed to the latter if one seeks to derive better results.
Facebook
Facebook is debatably the largest social media platform of all time. Most people make new friends, interact, learn new things and purchase products on Facebook. It provides a suitable platform for the Dean to communicate with her employees because, in this digital age, it is almost impossible to find someone without a Facebook account (Lebert, 2016). Communication via Facebook should be short, captivating and sweet since most of the users tend to skin through their newsfeeds and if the content id brief and precise, they can easily get engaged, The content should also be visual including photos, videos, and images. As much as possible, the Dean should avoid text-only content because it is not captivating enough to call for traffic. To keep the audience engaged then the posts should be made on a regular basis. Additionally, Facebook is a great way for one to create traffic on their website where people can learn more about the work. For instance, the communication department in dean’s office must provide a link on their facebook account directing the reader to the website.
Twitter
After completely exploring Facebook’s capability, Twitter would be the next and to maximize your presence on Twitter, then one should be strategic enough. On Twitter, the most paramount thing is to use proper hashtags. Enough research should be done regarding the institution’s goals and work before coming up with the appropriate hashtags. Ideally, hashtags define Twitter and ultimately determine how much traffic the post gets. For instance, the dean can consider the information being shared and use an appropriate hashtag for the same such as #EducationforAll or #EBHJstrategies (Lebert, 2016). The tweets should also be on a regular basis, make the content very visual and always perform a direct outreach to key influencer groups. In this regard, follow as many people as possible include the local community groups, elected officials, and the media. Ensure that the information about your work reaches the audience by creating links pulling people on your website.
Instagram
Instagram has been well received among the millennial, and it is an image-sharing platform where individuals share their experiences. Instagram entails capturing the most perfect and genuine photos that will invoke emotions in people and provoke conversations (Lebert, 2016). With so much emphasis on the social media content being visual, the use of videos and images can be a more exciting and fun way to interact with the audience. Dean can create videos calling the employees to action, informing them about the plan and what is expected of them and posting pictures on any activity that has taken within the department. Still, Instagram can be used to direct people to the institution’s website where they can learn more about the activities.

References
Lebert, K. (2016, Mar 9). How to Build an Outreach Strategy to Earn More Social Shares. Bufferapp. Retrieved from https://blog.bufferapp.com/outreach-strategies-for-more-social-sharesLi, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Matha, B., & Boehm, M. (2008). Beyond the babble: Leadership communication that drives results. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.