If someone asks you what benefit your channel offers, how do you answer in brief? This is what it might look like for different companies or organizations using Twitter as an example:
“This is the Twitter account of the consulting company XY with industry tips, interesting news and links to high-quality specialist articles.”
"Here, the YZ Museum provides information about current exhibitions and dates, presents works of art and gives insights into the work behind the scenes. The target group is potential exhibition visitors, people interested in culture, sponsors and decision-makers from culture and politics."
"We scan the Internet for current information on the topic [insert any topic] and collect links to articles that we consider interesting and relevant. In this way, we fulfill a filter function for all those who are also interested in this topic."
"Here, ABC offers its customers a direct line to the service team. They can give feedback, let off steam, but above all they can get quick help with acute problems and answers to questions about products and services."
“Professionals and managers from the IT industry learn exclusively about new job offers in Germany and Europe via this Twitter account.”
“Current sales knowledge summarized in short sentences and bank data as links to detailed articles.”
The channel promise often contains elements of the short description, but is rarely identical to it. There is more to it than that for the recipient to recognize its benefit.
Step 3: Implement channel promises
The recipient recognizes the channel promise based on various elements, which also appear differently in different media. Let's take Twitter as an example again. Here it manifests itself essentially in the following elements:
Short bio (= short description) and link to the website
cover and profile picture
Content, structure and tone of Twitter messages
The short description is therefore an essential element of the recognizable channel promise, so that the desired recipients can see at a glance what they can expect from this channel.
As we have already seen, a self-description alone is worth as much as a person's self-statement at a party. You cannot claim that you are likeable and entertaining in order to create this image in others. You have to prove yourself to be likeable and entertaining . Too much self-praise is more of a hindrance than a help. Objectivity in self-description, usefulness in implementation: this is the best way to keep a channel promise in most cases.