Consumers and stakeholders have become increasingly conscious of corporate ethics and morals. For companies, this means it's now essential to effectively communicate and demonstrate their values to the public.
To help, Forbes Communications Council members recommend some strategies for ensuring your corporate values resonate with your external audiences. With these tips in mind, companies can build trust, foster brand loyalty and differentiate themselves in the market.
OUR TAKE:
8. Use Thought-Leadership-Driven Content With Real Examples
The C-suite, the chief reputation officers, has a significant role to play in effectively communicating the company’s core values to an external audience. The more a company practices what it preaches, the more it exemplifies its values. Thought-leadership-driven content that reinforces values through demonstrable examples and C-suite commitment tends to resonate best. - Rachel Kule, Pursuit PR
FULL ARTICLE:
1. Use Video
Video is by far the most engaging and appealing format, so have mission and vision videos prepared and showcase them at the right places for external audiences. Engaging webinars and podcasts or interactive content can make your communication more interesting. Placement in relevant industry forums so external audiences can learn more about your company can also help. - Namita Tiwari, Namita Tiwari
2. Practice Clear Messaging Across All Channels
Communicating core values requires the utilization of clear messaging across all internal and external channels. The most effective way to communicate is to engage in authentic storytelling, showcasing real-world examples that embody the company's values directly and thematically. Message consistency and transparency foster trust and stir emotions to strengthen partnerships and community. - Ovi Vitas, AmeriLife
3. Amplify Diverse Content On Social Media Platforms
When a company lives its core values through its business practices in everyday decision-making—be it hiring talent, building an employer brand or securing a customer or partner—it inspires each of these stakeholder groups to communicate its values externally via diverse content amplified on a social media platform of their choice. Such an influencer strategy brings authenticity and credibility. - Seema Kalra, The Right Thing Marketing Communications
4. Ask Employees To Weigh In
Most importantly, start with your employees. I cannot stress this enough. Don’t just present the values—ask for feedback. See if they line up with the team’s lived experience at the organization, and if they don’t, work to understand why that is. Your employees can be your most credible ambassadors or your most damaging detractors. Make sure they’re on board upfront or risk total failure. - Bradley Akubuiro, Bully Pulpit Interactive
5. Operate Within Your Corporate Values Every Day
The best way of communicating corporate values is by living and breathing them every day. If you only say that you're committed to customers but your customers are not getting that experience, then what's the point? Marketing can't cover up for lack of corporate conviction in your own operating principles and values. Ensure that every last employee is living up to them every single day. - Udi Ledergor, Gong
6. Allow Employees To Demonstrate Your Values
In an ideal world, employees are demonstrating those values in every interaction with the external audience. You can't authentically communicate those values externally until they're embedded in the culture internally. - Elizabeth Baskin, Tribe, Inc.
7. Make Your Values Your North Star
A company's purpose and values should be at the core of everything it does. Before you can effectively communicate externally, your purpose and values must be your internal North Star. Is your company walking the talk? Do employees see and feel how they contribute? The answer must be “yes” to authentically expressing those values externally, whether via marketing campaigns, social, sales presentations and so on. - John Jorgenson, Cambium Learning Group
8. Use Thought-Leadership-Driven Content With Real Examples
The C-suite, the chief reputation officers, has a significant role to play in effectively communicating the company’s core values to an external audience. The more a company practices what it preaches, the more it exemplifies its values. Thought-leadership-driven content that reinforces values through demonstrable examples and C-suite commitment tends to resonate best. - Rachel Kule, Pursuit PR
9. Share Real-World Examples And Experiences Of Core Values At Play
First, live your values. Second, illustrate your values in action. Move beyond simply listing values like a set of commandments and instead demonstrate them through real-world examples and experiences. Your values shine through when you take your audience on a journey. Let them see and feel your principles in action. They'll understand your values without you having to spell them out. - Sara Wesche, RED66 Marketing
10. Utilize Storytelling On Social Media Platforms
Leverage storytelling on social media to showcase your corporate values. Share impactful stories and real-life examples that reflect your principles. Engage actively with your audience, demonstrating your values in action. This authentic approach resonates with customers and builds trust. Remember, consistency is key to reinforcing your message. - Brittany Garlin, Vista Social
11. Bake Them Into Your Internal And External Brand
My favorite way for a company to communicate its core values is to bake them into its external and internal brand; for example, one of our core values is "We look on the bright side." As a result, our voice and tone are optimistic, and our visual design components strive to be uplifting and warm as well. - Jamie Bell, Workshop | Internal Communications Email Platform
12. Partner With Your Human Resources Team
Work with your human resources team. Corporate values should be embedded in the recruitment process and be a central part of your employer brand. Ensure they're reflected in any communications that go out through those channels and that the recruitment process (including feedback loops) is built around your values. - Carla Gutierrez, Global Message Services
13. Give Your Employees Purpose
Having a purpose gives your employees greater meaning in connecting their work to what they make possible for the world. As a result, they'll be your best brand ambassadors. When employees understand and embody the company's purpose, infused through corporate values, they become advocates who share their experiences to external audiences in the most authentic of ways. - Kim Salem-Jackson, Akamai
14. Be Authentic About Your Values
The best way to communicate core corporate values to an external audience is to behave that way, not just tell everyone that you intend to behave that way. Be authentic in this and it will be clear what your core values are. Your content should tell the story of what you are doing to embrace these values and not simply tell your audience that you aspire to have these values. - Jonathan Sasse, Metova
15. Share Your Values Loud And Proud
Don't underestimate the value of your social networks in communicating corporate values. Prospects and customers like to align their businesses with companies that share similar values. Shout—and, most importantly, show—how your company lives out its corporate values on your social channels. - Tiffany Staples, Celebrus
16. Let Your People Do The Talking
Let the people in the organization communicate the values through their voices and their actions. Values are the way we live and the way we work. Without people demonstrating these values, they are meaningless. - Laurie Wang, Legal Aid Alberta
17. Have Consistent Messaging Employee To Employee
It's not real to an external audience until they are able to talk to several employees and the message is consistent. It's part of their talk track, and their body language assures you it's real. - Alice Ferreira, Webster Bank
18. Communicate Values Often And In A Concise Manner
Concise and repetitive messaging is so critical when communicating core values. These key terms should be woven into all captions, memos, quotes and published copy so they are hard to miss and easy to remember. The more succinct and clear, the better. - Victoria Zelefsky, The Menkiti Group
19. Create A Campaign Just For Your Values
Create a campaign around showcasing your core values across multiple platforms and make sure it's based on storytelling rather than simply stating your values. The human brain retains information in the arc of a story, so if you can craft messaging around core values that fit into that narrative shape, an external audience is more likely to truly understand what your values mean. - Melissa Kandel, little word studio