After three decades of living the process of globalization, all the time, anywhere on the planet, we are aware that it has had a high social and cultural cost for people and societies.
Without realizing it, sometimes there is a rejection or antipathy to the global and longing for what is genuine and our own, to feel identified with something of ours, that we know well, I mean what gives you pride and belonging, the local, well.
So, when we design communication strategies, it is essential to have a “glocal” vision, an acronym formed by merging two opposite concepts: global and local, which brings together characteristics of both realities.
In many moments, globalization clouded our local gaze, its importance, its high significance to generate belonging and closeness based on knowledge and identification with values, customs, traditions and culture. We did not give value to collective knowledge, even when we communicate for other human beings with the aim of generating closeness and even empathy.
The challenge is to work to preserve the essence and at the same time identify ourselves with a global audience. Although it seems like mixing water and oil, the following practices can be useful to achieve it:
1.- Keep a global look. Globalization has brought benefits to humanity such as the extension of human rights, the widespread use of information technologies, a vibrant cultural exchange and the disappearance of economic borders. In other words, from the analysis of global trends, to know the world in which we live and where it seems to be heading. In addition, many companies, organizations and governments must respond to global guidelines that seek to strengthen their presence and global reputation. Your communication strategies must maintain these guidelines for their execution.
2.- The people in the center. The person is the priority, we communicate with them. That is why it is necessary to delve into the needs of current generations, to know the purposes that motivate them, to understand the context of the audiences we are targeting and to maintain a permanent search to generate closeness and empathy.
It is important to delve into the needs and desires of individuals, understand their contexts and thus humanize the communication that we propose for them.
3.- Appreciation for cultures. It is essential to learn about the culture of the audiences to whom we are going to communicate, even if it is to understand what cannot be changed until we discover what the relevant factors of proximity are.
In communication strategies, giving priority weight to culture is a point in favor of effective communication.
4.- Local empowerment. Building a communication strategy is vibrant from start to finish. It requires ideas and hands. Local teams offer a lot of information regarding target audiences.
The local teams are empowered in two ways, contributing ideas and reflections on the actions to be undertaken. And encouraging them to have a better understanding of global trends through training. The results are surprising.
5.- Technology, the tool. Humanism the essence. Communication is directed at people and that must be the essence. It is important to use technology as a dissemination tool, but not to govern communication.
It is the people who will or will not receive the messages, if we focus on them, the results will be favorable.
6.- Flexible content. Because the challenge we have is to adopt the best of the local and the global, we must design content from the beginning that is capable of adapting to both requirements. It often happens that corporate bodies have to communicate various circumstances in a general way, but they adapt their communication to local environments to be more successful.
7.- Closeness and empathy. If people are the center of our communication, it has to inspire feelings and generate emotions. One of the ways to achieve this is closeness, connecting with what matters to them and motivates them, what drives them to action, what makes them feel part of a group or moves them towards certain actions.
Communication strategies will be effective to the extent that we manage to connect with the audiences and the way to do it is from the feelings and emotions that we can inspire or generate. It can be achieved by preserving and promoting stories of proximity, empathy and solidarity, which generate positive emotions and feelings in people.
8.- Shared dreams, identified purposes. The people to whom we direct our communication have dreams and they almost always go in the direction of improving their lives, their families, their environment. These dreams become life purposes that people have and that way they can join others who are looking for something similar. If we manage to identify its purpose, our communication will be genuine and in many cases it will be adopted organically, which will allow us to achieve the stated objectives.
The challenge is to strengthen creative, resilient communication that empowers and commits. If we manage to establish the essential pillars to communicate with the different audiences made up of people with dreams and purposes, without forgetting global trends and the use of technology, we will have effective communication.
In other words, success in communication strategies can be achieved by having a large neighborhood and a global vision.