EPISODE 144 | Guest: Ellyce Kelly, professional services consultant for Visix
Community can mean different things to different people. It can be a local neighborhood, a corporate culture, a campus student group or a network of peers. And the definition of community is changing as participation grows in more online platforms, channels and causes that may overlap or even conflict with traditional IRL connections.
No matter whether you’re trying to keep at-home and in-office employees feeling united, grow ties between your organization and the local community, or promote social awareness and activism, digital signage can help.
- Explore all the different types of communities (some you may not have thought of)
- Understand the importance and ways of keeping hybrid employees in sync
- Hear five ways digital signs can promote ties to your external community
- Get some best practices for how to keep community messaging engaging
- Learn about creating audience dialogues through feedback and calls to action
Subscribe to this podcast: Podbean | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | RSS
Get more content ideas in our free Digital Signage Content Guide.
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: Ever since mankind first started gathering together in areas to create what we call civilization, community building has been an important thing. Traditionally, this is around, you know, physical spaces like town squares or marketplaces or community centers – anywhere where people gather to share goods and ideas, interact and forge connections. However, with the rise of digital technology, the concept of community kind of transcends geographical boundaries and expands out into the virtual realms, helped oftentimes by social media and online forums and digital platforms of all types. So, to talk about how to use digital signage to grow community inside and outside your organization, today I’m gonna talk to Ellyce Kelly, professional services consultant for Visix. Hi Ellyce.
Ellyce Kelly: Hi Derek. How are you today?
Derek DeWitt: I’m very good. Maybe we can come together to talk about community.
Ellyce Kelly: I love it.
Derek DeWitt: Of course, I’d like to thank Ellyce for talking to me today, and everybody out there for listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. Don’t forget you can subscribe to the podcast, and you can follow along with a transcript on the Visix website, which will also have helpful links. So, like I said at the top, the concept of community has expanded into more abstract realms in the digital age. So, for our purposes, what do we mean when we’re talking about growing a community?
Ellyce Kelly: So, community can be internal or inside your organization, or it can mean the external community. And either of those can be local or global or any size in between. And beyond that, there’s also the physical community and the digital communities that we belong to.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, okay. So basically, connecting everybody who in any way, shape or form has contact with your organization of some kind. So, let’s focus on the workplace community to start with, right? We’ve seen a significant transformation in global workforce tendencies and structurings, because of, you know, the rise of hybrid work models where people are splitting their time between in-person work and remote. Just ’cause they’re only physically there sometimes, they’re still part of that community. This is offering this flexibility and autonomy. It does kind of present some challenges for keeping that feeling of connection among dispersed team members.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. And community building lies at the heart of a thriving organizational culture to foster trust, collaboration and shared purpose among employees. So, in a hybrid workforce, physical interactions might be limited, people might feel disconnected. So, nurturing a sense of community is critical to supporting employee morale, productivity and satisfaction. And what’s great is digital signage can help bridge geographical distances and foster a sense of belonging and community.
Derek DeWitt: You know, it’s interesting, I hear this a lot that, you know, you go into an office that used to have say, 40, 50 people buzzing around, and now you walk in and it’s like 10 or five. And people have this feeling of being disconnected and so on. I wonder how much of that is inherent because we are social creatures. You know, we evolved from animals that spend a lot of time in gatherings physically touching each other and interacting with each other. Or how much of that is just because it’s new, because it’s different. You know what I mean? I wonder, I mean, and I ask you, because I know that you’re literally in this situation. You go into the office there in Atlanta pretty much every day. That’s always been the case. And it used to be, you know, a whole bunch of people. And now, I mean, if you have eight people, it’s like, you know, Grand Central Station in New York City, you know. So, have you been able to make that mental adjustment and still feel like you’re connected into the Visix communities, or is it still a challenge?
Ellyce Kelly: No, I think I absolutely still feel very connected personally. And I think a lot of that has to do with being in the office, and that’s just a choice that I make. But I think that Visix also does a great job of involving every employee as much as possible.
Derek DeWitt: So there you go. So perfect person to talk to on this topic because you’re actually a recipient, a beneficiary of some of these strategies, these key strategies. So, let’s talk about those ways that digital signage can grow and support a feeling of community in a hybrid workplace. Obviously one thing I know that Visix does a lot is there’s a regular virtual town hall. I think it’s once a month, and every once in a while, there might be all-hands meetings. So, you know, it takes place there in the office. A few people are present, possibly. The rest of it’s sort of broadcast out over the web. Same with companywide announcements. Those are broadcast out over digital signage and on the intranet. And all of this helps remote employees feel like they’re informed and connected. And when you live stream things like a team update or a virtual address from an executive, or even employee recognition ceremonies – they don’t even have to physically be there to get their recognition or these town halls – I feel like there’s more transparency, there’s more alignment between the goals and sort of mission statement of the company and the people who help make that happen, and camaraderie across teams that are even distributed all over the place. I know there’s been some debate since COVID and since everything went hybrid at Visix of, hey, do we really need to do these town halls? But every time we poll the employees, people say, oh, yeah, we want it.
Ellyce Kelly: Mm-Hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. We always preach recognition and motivation on screens. I think the town halls are a great example of bringing everyone together and giving folks a chance to speak up, and just to see each other, even if it’s on, you know, over video. And it’s, of course, I’m in the office, but it’s great to see the folks that are here, but I can also see people on screen. So that’s fantastic.
Derek DeWitt: And there’s always been a portion of the employee pool at Visix that’s been remote. Obviously, the salespeople are remote. Deb and I are remote, we don’t even live in the United States. So, I mean, there’s always been that element even way before the pandemic.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. You just have to make sure that the messaging is shared across all platforms, so both in-office and at-home workers can feel included. That’s very important. I’ll just say that our digital signage software lets you publish message playlists to websites and to mobile devices. So Visix has hybrid covered.
Derek DeWitt: Something I came across recently is, you know, I know one use of digital signage is employee spotlights or success stories or milestones reached, recognizing contributions from everybody. And this is, this has always been something that we’ve talked about with in-person digital signage. When we extend that out to the remote workforce as well, I think we’re still accomplishing the same thing. We’re letting everybody know, hey, our shared goals are the same and we’re meeting them, or we’re not meeting them. This person did an amazing job. Teams have a chance to collaborate more. And it, I think it sort of reinforces this sense of appreciation and belonging among the team members, even when they’re remote.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. I mean, you can just put up birthday and anniversary messages. But you know, as more people are remote, it’s important to highlight what each person and what each team contributes to the organization. Birthday and anniversaries are great, but you also wanna highlight accomplishments, right? And you don’t want to encourage corporate silos where some people have no idea what other people are doing.
Derek DeWitt: That’s very interesting you say that, because I just recently spoke for this podcast to Maliha Aqeel, who is the global chair for IABC. She actually said that’s one of the things that she suggests communications departments do, is part of their messaging should be, hey, everybody in the company, everybody in the organization, we’re the communications team. Do you know what it is we do? Here’s what we do. Like, you know, sometimes that’s true. I’ve worked at companies where five years in I’m like, I have no idea what Jason does. He’s here, but I don’t know what his job is.
Ellyce Kelly: Right? Who is he? Does he really work here?
Derek DeWitt: Right. Is he collecting a paycheck or is he just lonely? So like, obviously all this stuff works for people who are physically there looking at the physical screens that are on the physical wall in the physical office. But for people remotely, you’ve got all these sort of scheduled events and meetings and stuff, very often using cameras and video. But what’s the real secret? Like what is Visix’s main way to get that digital signage content to the remote people?
Ellyce Kelly: The intranet. So, I mentioned just a minute ago that we can publish message playlist to websites and to mobile devices. For example, at Visix, we have a playlist that is showing all of the messages in the top right corner of our intranet, the same messages that are playing in person on our displays in the office.
Derek DeWitt: At the same time. So like, if you are sitting there in Atlanta looking at the screens, and this particular message comes up and I’m on the intranet here in Prague, and I’m looking at that little playlist, we’re seeing the same thing.
Ellyce Kelly: We’re seeing the same thing.
Derek DeWitt: There’s a lot of talk, especially in the corporate world, but in all organizational cultures, about like, you know, well, we really do need to connect and inform this kind of community. And it’s interesting to me that not a ton of people take advantage of what I think is a powerful tool, which is surveys and polls. You know, interactive surveys, little feedback mechanisms, five questions max questionnaire. You know, stick a QR code up there. Again, if it’s being fed through, you know, a web-based intranet, people can still use their phones to access the QR code there. And you really, that way you really encourage people to take part in either real-time discussions or to give a body of data that can then be sort of parsed through. They can share their perspectives. They can give their opinions. You know, like, I used to work at a language school here and we had a suggestion box, anonymous suggestion box. A physical box, and you could write anything on a piece of paper and slip it in there. Having a sort of digital online version of that, I think, is also a good idea.
Ellyce Kelly: It’s a great idea. And this is something we’ve been preaching for a long time, and I am seeing an increase in clients using interactive polls and surveys. And I would love to see a really more increase, you know, a lot of folks doing that. I really, I love taking polls and surveys. That’s, maybe that’s why I’m so into it. But you get so much information. You know, surveys are an easy way to get everyone’s feedback, right? It’s just simple. Especially like you said, keep it short, keep it sweet, right? Don’t, you know, take a lot of their time. But then everyone can be involved and, you know, share their thoughts and they’re all participating, right? And if you have touchscreens, you could have a poll on there for in-office workers, right? But like you just said, QR code, certainly that works too. But you also need to be sure that anything that you’re publishing kind of in the online version is just as fun and engaging for those that are taking it at home. So that’s something you have to keep in mind. You have to build those polls and surveys around everyone, whether they’re remote or not.
Derek DeWitt: Now, obviously, social events, we know this. I know that periodically you guys will play bingo or, you know, every Halloween there’s a Halloween costume contest. But I know again, a lot of the employees at Visix really like these as well. You know, game nights, even coffee chats and things like this.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. We even, for the advanced configuration team, we meet every now and then and have a little, uh, a coffee or a cocktail. The cocktail event is usually on a Friday and after 5:00 PM which is, which is fun though. It’s a great way to catch up, you know, with your team. And coffee is, is just as good, right? And bingo, yes. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna brag, but I may have won bingo last time we played so. But you know, yeah, I mean, community is easier to build in a social setting than through a work activity, right? At work, you can still have community building activities. And another really kind of a big topic is employee wellness, right? So that’s a, that’s a big topic in internal communications right now. And, you know, your digital signs can support that with wellness messaging. That’s just, you know, great tips and tricks. Just things like desk stretches, right?
Derek DeWitt: Well, seriously, yeah. Because I do that. I have a tendency to sit with one leg folded under me, and I sit like that for an hour and a half, and then I stand up and I kinda list to the side, like the Titanic while the blood goes back into my leg. And I’m like, oh, yeah, I should be doing little stretches throughout the day. So, if I had a little reminder popping up, ’cause I have the intranet open, I would probably do it.
Ellyce Kelly: We have a lot of things on our website that are great, but there are some free digital signage messages that folks can go out and download. And, we do even have some of those simple desk stretches.
Derek DeWitt: I’ve even heard about things going even further, like online, you know, little, short yoga sessions, things like this even.
Ellyce Kelly: Yes. Absolutely.
Derek DeWitt: I like this idea of like, you know, having a coffee or a cocktail or something on Friday after the workday’s done. Because even though, yes, I’m still sitting at my desk and I’m still, you know, communicating with, you know, you or whoever, it is different. And so, it creates a clear break. It creates like a delineation between work time is over and now my life begins again, which I think is very nice.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. Socialization and gamification. Do it when you can.
Derek DeWitt: And, and it’s not a waste, I don’t think it’s a waste of time to have non-work events for employees to help forge and strengthen those connections. Here’s the thing, if some people find it to be a waste of time, they won’t participate.
Ellyce Kelly: Exactly. Yep. I completely agree.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. You know, that way if you, if you have them available, at least people who want that will do it. And people that don’t, won’t. And that’s just how that goes.
Ellyce Kelly: I think if folks make time though for things like that, they will feel more connected, they’ll have better relationships with their coworkers. And I really do think you should prioritize it, but it’s, you know, if you’re not super social, then maybe that’s not your thing.
Derek DeWitt: Now, obviously, when it comes to work stuff, you can still make things collaborative. I know one of the complaints about remote work is that, you know, it used to be, hey, we’re all gonna get together in a room, or it might even be spontaneous, and we’re gonna hash out this little detail of this project we’re working on. Or, you know, where are we on the roadmap, and things like this. A lot of digital signs are being used for updates, project dashboards and things like this. And there are online platforms that can do the same thing as well to make sure everybody’s informed and everybody’s kind of aligned whether it’s, you know, whatever – highlighting key metrics, giving visibility into progress towards goals or ongoing initiatives, tracking milestones, sharing updates, whatever.
Ellyce Kelly: You nailed it. So KPIs, data visualizations are super popular for digital signage. Plus, they look great, right? It’s interesting information. You can set up data feeds to feed your screens, and use text and images that can automatically change based on that real-time data. So real-time updates are a great way to build community. Because again, it lets everyone know what’s being accomplished. Everyone sees them at the same time, otherwise they’re gonna feel cheated, so…
Derek DeWitt: Right. Hey, how come you knew that we were behind on, you know, phase four and I didn’t? Uh, well, I was just, I happened to be talking to such and such. No, no, no. We stick it out there and everybody gets the information at the same time. I think that’s right.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. You wanna feed it to your intranet or whatever platform you’re using for your remote employees in addition to your in-person.
Derek DeWitt: Gotcha. I think that’s a good overview of how to use digital signage to grow community inside your organization. And, and we’re extending the concept of digital signage to these online portals as well. Now let’s talk about doing the same thing, but for, say, external communities right? Now, obviously in the world at large, the social conversation has become much more about accessibility and inclusivity. Because it turns out, hey, guess what? You know, out of every 100 individuals, you’re gonna have 105 opinions, and you’re gonna have, you know, 530 interests and hobbies and things like this. Plus, people are feeling more and more comfortable about identifying a particular way or another way, or announcing their affiliations, and things like this. And I feel like that things have become, in many ways, much more informal, especially the way that people interact with organizations and with brands. They’re much more themselves, they’re much more authentic. So, I’ve got five ways that digital signage can be used to help build and strengthen external community ties. Now, the first one is advertising local events. So, you’re already using your digital signs to show internal information – announcements, scheduling, events and things like this. But you can also use it to advertise stuff that’s going on in the community to tie the company into its physical location. And when you’re spreading that online as well, you know, hey, did you know that this kind of cool stuff is going on in Atlanta? But also, hey, did you know that this kind of cool stuff is going on in the town that you live in as well?
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. So that could be something like a local festival, a seminar, or a charity drive, right? So, you can promote those events to employees. That makes them feel like they’re more part of their local community. We even have a community calendar feed that you can use to show local events on your screens, and it’s automated, so you just pick your location, and it creates the content for you.
Derek DeWitt: Really. How does it do that?
Ellyce Kelly: It pulls from a data source that’s for, again, the location that you’ve chosen. You can purchase as many of those as you want and do lots of different locations. Think about the time that is saved from someone going in and doing that manually for every location where you’ve got employees.
Derek DeWitt: Well, believe you me, I know. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I actually have a Facebook page for Prague of events that I find particularly interesting, things that I probably won’t go to, but I might. And it, it takes up a chunk of time each day, you know?
Ellyce Kelly: So, imagine if it just does it for you.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, I love the automated aspect of this. I think we’re gonna see more and more of this kind of stuff too in the future. It’s all about saving time. Now, okay, so we’re talking about local events. Obviously, we can also talk about local businesses, promotions, discounts, specials. I know a lot of universities have deals with businesses around their campuses. You know, hey, students who show a student ID get, you know, 10% off or they get a free muffin or whatever, whatever the deal is. Shops, restaurants, all sorts of service providers, you know? Not only does that make people go, oh yeah, that’s right. I could go do that. I don’t just have to go home. I could go to that, you know, that restaurant. You’re actually helping contribute to the economic vitality of the community. While also, like, you know, when I see a bunch of cool stuff from where I live, I get kind of pride, you know? I get like, yeah man, we got it going on. We’re not sleepy. We got all sorts of fun stuff happening.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea to partner with local vendors. You can even ask them to set up a unique discount code, you know, for your employees, and then you can advertise that on your screens. And so, you can show like that QR code to go get today’s lunch menu or, you know, to sign up for a loyalty program, rewards program. And, you know, there’s also the possibility that you could charge for ad space. So, some colleges do that. Quite a few colleges that do that, in fact.
Derek DeWitt: Mm-Hmm, yeah. And they don’t charge a lot. This is all long tail income, and yet, hey, it’s income that you didn’t have before, so hey, every bit helps, right?
Ellyce Kelly: Yep, absolutely.
Derek DeWitt: Now, like I said, diversity has become quite the catchphrase these days. And again, I think there are just lots of ways to celebrate multiculturalism or inclusivity, or even, if you want to, if your organization is comfortable with it going further, social justice initiatives and so on and so forth. Obviously, sort of at the low end of that, you know, you can say like, hey, there’s a cultural festival going on. There’s a dim sum festival, there’s an Indonesian puppetry festival, or whatever it is that you’re gonna promote. I think digital displays amplify voices in addition to raising awareness and promoting understanding.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep. They really do. And DEI is important both within an organization and in the wider community. So, you know, a lot of prejudice is caused by ignorance, just not being exposed to other viewpoints or cultures. And, you know, you have a blank canvas. This is a blank canvas for content creators. You just have to be inclusive and sensitive when designing these types of messages. And I know I’ve already done this once during this podcast, but I’m going to do it again. We have some great DEI content in our free digital signage messages on our website. So I highly, highly recommend downloading those and using those.
Derek DeWitt: Right. You can use those as is, or you can adapt them to your specific interests and circumstances, obviously. Now, you know, there’s a lot of talk about the young generations, and debate about this and that about them, and how to reach them and how. What are they interested in and are they engaged? But I think engaging young people is key to building any kind of vibrant and sustainable community. If nothing else, because they’re the ones who have the energy to go out there and go to the all-day standing in the park food and music festival, you know. The 69 year olds, not so much, but the 29 year olds, absolutely. They don’t have a problem with this, you know. So, I think you can, you can kind of find out, you know, what are some of the young people that interact with your organization, what are they interested in? And again, you can do this through polls or surveys, you know, finding out what other places on the web these people visit. You know, I’m thinking like student projects, obviously, but also art installations, community service initiatives, film openings. Especially, again, if you’re near a, I don’t know, a university or you are a university with a decent film school, there’s gotta be some art cinemas around there somewhere. Like what are they showing? Are they having a Bergman weekend, what have you? And I think just kind of providing a platform for young voices to be heard and valued. Because that’s the one thing I remember as a young man, I have all these ideas and I have all these interests, and yet how do I get people to, to hear me? Well, here’s a way.
Ellyce Kelly: I had a, a higher education client that had a couple of folks that would sit outside of the theater on campus and did a little show, like a livestream show previewing the movies that were playing. I thought that was really a fun idea.
Derek DeWitt: That’s a great idea.
Ellyce Kelly: Yeah. That was really a lot of fun. And I’m just gonna say this, if you’re a school, this is a no-brainer. Students should always be the focus, right? But building community means taking, you know, that out of your school and including external clubs and opportunities. So, it doesn’t just have to be what’s happening on campus. And even if you’re a tech company, you can focus on youth issues like nutrition and the environment. And even, even take it further than that. You could spotlight employees’ kids and their achievements.
Derek DeWitt: Oh, there you go. Right, yeah. Sort of the, the digital equivalent of, of the refrigerator with all the drawings on it.
Ellyce Kelly: That’s a great analogy. I love that.
Derek DeWitt: I mean, we’re talking about a lot of push, push, push information here, but I think facilitating public participation is another way. I think digital signage is more than just an information source. I think it can be a catalyst for civic engagement. You know, ask for feedback on local issues. You know, they’re tearing up that old, ugly parking lot next to the shopping mall because they built a brand new parking structure, and they don’t know what to do with this land. And the city is asking, hey, what should we do with this? You know, stick that up on your digital signs. People will appreciate the fact that, hey, this company is paying attention. They care what’s happening in the neighborhood. Surveys, um, volunteer opportunities, I think are huge. You can empower community members to either, to actively participate in shaping the futures of their own neighborhoods, or even do sort of a matching. If somebody wants to donate money, you can match what their donation is, and they choose the charity.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep. Absolutely. We do that at Visix, in fact. And the amount of money that has been matched has been beyond I think what anybody thought it would be. It really encouraged, encourages people to contribute, and then you have that sense of feeling good and you’ve done something good, and then, hey, your employer goes out and matches your donation. That’s amazing.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. Which is funny because, you know, you could donate anytime, but it’s like, it’s like, it’s a reminder. And there is this, I know what you speak of, and, uh, there is this kind of like, hey, all of us at Visix are doing this together for this three week period. So, it is kind of a community thing.
Ellyce Kelly: Maybe it will encourage you to contribute monthly after that event because you want to continue doing it. And I think that that’s a great benefit to the charity that’s receiving it, right? But then you also, the person that does it continues to feel good about it and that they’ve been part of something. Right?
Derek DeWitt: Right. I mean, one of the things I think of, probably because this is an election year for the presidency, but this is always true. Every year’s an election year. We say this, but like every year’s an election year. Like, get out the vote, right?
Ellyce Kelly: Yes. So, remind people to register. Give them a QR code to find out more information about upcoming elections. That’s one thing you can do. And then you could even let them know if they can volunteer at a local animal shelter. So, in contrast to promoting local events, this is just about, you know, showing ways to actively take part, but also to give back to the community.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, yeah. That’s true. And I know it may seem a bit cynical of like, oh, this company says that they’re, you know, they’re supporting whatever, this initiative to, hey, let’s clean up the local public park. A bunch of people are going out there and they’re gonna pick up all the litter. And yet, hey, they’re doing it. So you may be cynical about it, person out there in the world, and yet it’s still happening, and these people are saying it. Whether they’re doing it just to score brownie points or not is kind of irrelevant. The litter’s getting picked up.
Ellyce Kelly: Exactly. Yes.
Derek DeWitt: Now to really harness the full potential of growing your community with digital signage, I think it’s important to adhere to some basic best practices and guidelines overall when it comes to designing the content. The main thing has to be that it’s audience-centric. You’ve got to tailor your content to the preferences, the interests, the needs of remote and in-office employees when you’re doing internal stuff, and the people out there in the greater community who interact with your organization when you’re doing external stuff. You have to do that.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep. You have to use targeting and localization to make sure your content makes sense for the audience that you’re putting it in front of. And make sure you’re using engaging visuals, video, interactive features to capture attention and just foster that engagement. And you’ve got to make sure, again, the content works on different platforms that you’re using for in-office and remote employees.
Derek DeWitt: Right, that’s true. ‘Cause some people are gonna be like, I don’t like Teams, I want to use this, or whatever. So yeah, you have to make sure that everybody has access and that just because somebody prefers a particular way of being communicated with doesn’t mean that they’re left out. Always have the audience in mind. And again, if you don’t know that much about them, go find out. You gotta update regularly. You gotta have the content fresh, especially when we’re talking about, you know, things that happen in the world on specific dates. It’s gotta be up to date. Even stuff that’s sort of evergreen and is always true – you know, stretch at your desk or, you know, whatever – you gotta change it up to keep people engaged, because otherwise it just gets stagnant, and people just no longer notice. We have a lot of things to distract us, and you need to be one of those things, you know?
Ellyce Kelly: Yes. If you’re not keeping content up to date, what are you doing, you know? It’s really critical that you add new content regularly. It just is. We’ve been saying this for years.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, for sure, for sure. You can schedule things in your playlist rotation. You can have dayparting. You can do a lot of little tricks to make sure that the stuff is constantly fresh and dynamic and still informative, and it doesn’t have to be an amazing amount of work on your end.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. And you know, again, you know, you have news feeds, inspirational quote feeds, health feeds. There’s so, so many different things that you can show that will auto-update for you. You can mix that in with your content. Why wouldn’t you be doing that? I mean, you’ve made the investment. I would invest just a little more, and that’s gonna save you a lot of time and it’s gonna keep everybody interested. So, I’ll tell you another thing that really helps too, is more and more people really wanna hear from leadership. And I think that, you know, more frequent messaging from leadership offers transparency, right?
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. I think that’s absolutely the case that, you know, when leadership gets involved, you’re like, oh, okay, this isn’t just some functionary and someone’s just ticking an item off their list. Like, here’s the person, you know, who’s in charge of the company or rather high up in the company and they’re saying, hey, blah, blah, blah. Hey, they took a moment to do that. I gotta, I gotta give ’em props. Now, the next thing is, in any way you can make things interactive you make them engaging. That’s just a fact. Obviously for in-person stuff, touchscreens are the way nowadays. But, you know, QR codes that take you out to an informative webpage, allowing commenting on web-based things and so on. Obviously, you have to monitor it just to make sure you know that everything’s on the up and up. But all of these things encourage participation and feedback. And the whole ability to comment and, and like, and upvote and downvote things. I mean, it’s transformed the way that all businesses work that use the worldwide web, you know. It becomes a two-way communication channel, which is just inherently empowering. People can contribute their ideas, share stories, connect with one another, comment, comment on the comment, see how many people like it, see how many people don’t. I think it’s just, it’s kind of like there’s a constant conversation going on via these online portals.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep. We say this a lot, but interactivity doesn’t have to be a touchscreen. So just as you said, QR codes have become very popular. They’re a great way to let people interact with your content. And if you’re feeding your content playlist to a website or like an intranet, make sure that people can comment on the messages. They, you know, everybody needs a voice. And again, something we do a great job of at Visix is just that folks can comment on the intranet, on posts. And sometimes it’s a question, right? So, every Wednesday we have a question of the, of the week. That’s such a fun way to get to know people based on their comments, right? So again, that’s interactive and there’s no interactive display. We’re basically talking via typing.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And sometimes you’re like, hey, I didn’t realize that that person, you know, who keeps making the, you know, these comments, that person’s actually quite funny.
Ellyce Kelly: Oh, oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes. You learn a lot about folks and it’s, and it’s really a lot of fun.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. Obviously, accessibility and inclusivity is top of mind for everybody. You gotta prioritize this stuff in the design and the deployment of your digital signage content. It has to be accessible to any employees with diverse abilities or preferences even, and different working environments. Which means you gotta do alternative formats. You gotta have maybe different language options or even captioning for multimedia content to make sure that there’s equitable access and everybody can participate. Now, when you’re dealing with employees, obviously you don’t need to have everything translated into Tagalog if you don’t have any Tagalog speakers on staff. That would be just pointless. But if you’re trying to access the outside community around your company or who interact with your company, and it turns out many of them do speak Tagalog, well then maybe you should have that.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep, absolutely. And I’ll tell you, colleges and universities, they do a great job with this. And, you know, ADA guidelines can help you a lot with the physical placement of screens and also design standards. And the web content accessibility guidelines, so that’s WCAG, that outlines the requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility. So that’s definitely something to check out.
Derek DeWitt: Oh, see, there you go. I did not know that there was a, there was a new web content guideline thing. That’s a, that’s great. I mean, it’s been a long time coming, you know?
Ellyce Kelly: Yep, I agree.
Derek DeWitt: Now, the next thing, you’ve mentioned it several times, is you gotta integrate seamlessly with existing communications platforms or collaboration tools or employee engagement initiatives and so on, so that you create this cohesive, streamlined experience for everybody. You just, you just have to. Like, at a bare minimum, if you’re dealing with stuff that’s maybe gonna be dealt with on a mobile phone, you gotta be Android and Apple both. You just do.
Ellyce Kelly: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Content management systems are able to pull information from a lot of different sources. So, you can show, you know, SharePoint dashboards, other webpages, social media feeds. Again, that can be an auto-updating subscription that you can add to the mix. And you can also push out, you know, to collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams.
Derek DeWitt: And the last thing finally is metrics and evaluation. I think this step gets missed a lot. How do you know that you’re doing the best job you can do if you’re not continuously monitoring and evaluating all your campaigns and your content with an eye to perfecting it? And you’re never gonna get there, it’s never gonna be a hundred percent perfect because things are changing all the time. But you gotta go out there, you gotta solicit feedback, and you gotta get metrics and performance indicators. Input, get input from your audience, whether they’re employees or not. Track engagement metrics and conduct regular assessments to find areas where you can improve in your efforts to build community.
Ellyce Kelly: If you are not including measurable calls to action in your content, then what are you doing?
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. You’re just shouting at your audience.
Ellyce Kelly: You really are. And you have no idea if it’s working, right? If what you are showing them, if they even care, if it’s working, if they’re even, they even see it, right? You have to have calls to action. And I’m seeing so many more people doing this. It makes me so happy when I hop on a call and I see, I’m like, oh, you’ve done it. This is amazing.
Derek DeWitt: Finally! We’ve only been talking about it since, I don’t know, 2005. But yeah, finally, finally.
Ellyce Kelly: Yeah, you’ve got no way to improve your engagement if you’re not getting feedback or any type of measurement. You have to do that. It’s important to measure and adjust your content so that you can continuously improve how you’re serving your communities both inside and out.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, and I’ll say, not getting feedback from your audience is not very community minded.
Ellyce Kelly: It’s not.
Derek DeWitt: As organizations navigate the complexities of the hybrid workforce, the online world, where people spend more and more time there and become more and more comfortable interacting online, but also expect the ability to be able to do so. Creating a strong sense of internal community is paramount to fostering employee engagement, collaboration and wellbeing. And it also allows creating connections between your remote and in-office employees. But also, it helps forge deeper connections, amplifies voices, and fosters a sense of belonging among diverse groups of people in the external community as well. So, we hope that this episode’s tips will help you start to grow community with digital signage in your organization. I’d like to thank my guest today. She is Ellyce Kelly. She is a professional services consultant for Visix. And I, I think you can hear she is certainly one of our champions. She’s a cheerleader for what we’re doing at Visix, which is very nice. Clearly you feel integrated into the community.
Ellyce Kelly: Absolutely. 1000%
Derek DeWitt: Which is technically impossible, but yes, yes. Thanks, Ellyce, for talking to me. Thank you, Ellyce.
Ellyce Kelly: Thank you, Derek.
Derek DeWitt: And thank you everybody out there for listening. I remind you again that there is a transcript of the conversation we just had on the Visix website, and there are lots of links there as well.