Building a digital communications strategy is (of course) linked to much bigger organisational issues like mission and vision. Digital is merely one part in an overall communications strategy. Building strategy in this area will draw on the resources, knowledge and energy of a whole organisation not one isolated team.

In our work with Scotland’s arts and cultural organisations we have observed a clear need for practical support around planning for online communication including clear aims and outcomes; not just good ideas but pragmatic tactical implementation planning.

If you want to get started right away on building an effective digital strategy here are three top online tools to start with. All of these resources are devised to allow you to use the associated materials independently as internal working tools. And, best of all, all of the them are free.

1. The first, from Culture Republic’s AmbITion Scotland programme is an organisational digital development Toolkit . Devised as an overall organisational development tool, it helps you to use digital disruptions in communication, commerce and administration as lever that can open up strategic opportunities. It’s a good place to start because digital change cuts across a range of departments that will influence what your strategy should be, not the least in marketing and programming.
2. Beautifully designed (it is modelled after the popular Business Model Canvas)  Digital Engagement Framework from Jasper Visser and Jim Richardson aims to put all of the pieces of your digital strategy onto a single page: audience, assets, reach, metrics, channels, guidelines, engagement, objective, vision and trends. This task takes a certain amount of hard work on each section to boil each down its essence but as an initial mapping tool or as a summary document the Framework is a good one to know about.
3. Much more detailed is Redant’s how-to whitepaper Planning and Managing a Digital Strategy.  Organised around four stages of a digital strategy, Planning, Creation, Actualisation and Evaluation, the paper offers a great deal of detail on each of these. This resource would be particularly relevant for those who want to build a multi-channel campaign and could use some prompts of what to do and think about in each stage.

If you feel that a bit of one-to-one support would help you, Culture Republic has a Digital Communications Workshop that is on currently on tour around Scotland. Free to attend, participants work intensively to identify key audience groups, communications opportunities and leave with a working strategy document, which they can implement immediately and continue to improve upon over time. See the events page for the next workshop.