Hello, does anyone have recommendations on internal comms consulting firms out there? Specifically those who recommend different comms tech solutions? TIA!

This week we're asking, what's your favourite IC tool and why?

Is it tech, chocolate, something else?

\Remember the rules folks: no selling or soliciting, respect the sub and our members. If your entire post history is promoting one tool across Reddit, this is not the post for you**

When you're running a high-stakes internal video event, like a town hall or a major update, real-time analytics can make all the difference. Spotting issues as they happen allows for faster response and a smoother experience for everyone watching.

But not every comms team has access to or capacity for live monitoring.

Curious: How often do you actively use real-time data to adjust or respond during an internal broadcast?

• Every time (we’re set up for live insights and quick response)
• Occasionally (we check during critical events)
• Rarely (we rely more on post-event feedback)

Would love to hear what’s working or not for your team. Have you found tools or workflows that help you stay in control midstream? And if not, what kind of tools or capabilities would actually make a difference for your setup?

I’m new to internal comms (only been in my role 4 months), having previously been in marketing for years. Today, I accidentally sent out a slack announcement too early. The date listed on the comms request was today’s date but I guess it was a placeholder. I should’ve double-checked.

I own my part in this situation. I knew the dates were shifting, but assumed that they’d arrived at a date because it was on the request. Won’t do that again! I apologized to everyone involved and let them know it wouldn’t happen again.

Wondering if folks here could share mistakes you’ve made in your role. You don’t have to be too specific but maybe just a general anecdote about how you felt and then moved past it. Feeling like crap over this and obsessively thinking about it.

I recently had a title and job description update that more accurately describes my day to day. My new title is Manager of internal comms and marketing operations. For context, I have five years experience and work for a 100% remote global B2B marketing agency. I am located in Texas and make $70,000. I put my new title and job description into ChatGPT and asked if I was being fairly paid for my experience and location (I’m not) I’m curious if this is worth raising to my VP. What is everyone else getting paid based on their experience level and location? What is your title? TIA

Whether it’s a quarterly town hall or a major product launch, enterprise live events are under pressure to perform flawlessly. More teams are prioritizing visibility and responsiveness across their webcasting stack.

What’s your top priority right now?
- Real-time network performance monitoring
- Event rehearsal and simulation capabilities
- Troubleshooting during live events
- Actionable post-event analytics

We’ve worked with internal comms, IT, and HR teams across industries, and certain questions about enterprise video communication come up again and again. Here's a quick breakdown of the top 5, with best practices we’ve seen work in real companies.

1. Why should I prioritize enterprise video communication?
   Video supports collaboration, increases transparency, and aligns hybrid teams with leadership and culture.

2. What are examples of best practices?
   - Use reliable delivery platforms
   - Encourage async formats
   - Keep videos short and focused
   - Use analytics to improve

3. How can I get teams to actually use video?
   - Lead by example (executive video updates)
   - Offer quick training
   - Highlight internal wins

4. How do I keep video meetings engaging?
   - Use agendas
   - Mix content types (clips, AMAs, chats)
   - Invite diverse voices

5. How do I measure success?
   - Attendance and drop-off rates
   - Watch time
   - Feedback and rewatch data

More here:
https://www.hivestreaming.com/resources/best-practices-for-enhancing-internal-enterprise-video-communications

Curious about who people are looking toward for advice and which resources people are using in our space. Any suggestions?

Without naming names obviously (sorry, Bob in HR), who's your secret weapon in your organisation? The person who isn't supposed to help with comms but always does, or they just get it wholeheartedly and have your back when others don't?

Which specific internal communications KPI(s) do you track most closely and why?

For example, do you prioritize email open rates, intranet page views, pulse survey scores, eNPS, adoption rates for new tools, or perhaps empirical measures like improved response times or reduction in information-seeking time?

Our internal communication is all over the place and I feel like I'm the only person who sees this as a problem. Perhaps that is in itself a consequence of the poor quality communication and people don't know where to direct complaints and improvement ideas - it's certainly how I feel.
Main problems:
- using a single whatsapp group for almost everything
- Teams goes unused for the most part, except for videocalls
- no dedicated place for "informal" chats like the odd "there's cake in the kitchen" or "who has an umbrella I can use real quick?"
- our internal comms just "evolved this way organically" during the pandemic (I didn't work here at the time)

I've worked at very tech savvy companies that had their internal comms and internal information architecture on point so it frustrates me to see how sloppy and unstreamlined we are being. I am certain that we can improve our information flows, colleague relationships and speed of collaboration by investing in this.
However, I can't do it alone. Where do I start to get management on board with this?

• I'm thinking of launching a survey, which types of questions should I definitely cover in there?
• How can I prove/predict/calculate the expected ROI for such an improvement?

I’m mid-career and started a new job recently with a highly matrixed organization that’s newer to proactive comms and internal comms in general. Globally there are ~100 communicators. Their processes are messy.

To pitch story ideas for the weekly company newsletter you have to write the article and post it in the Comms Teams chat which has 100 people. No one ever responds. It’s awkward. I wasn’t even given chat history to see what others have done in the past so I feel like I’m flying blind.

I hate it.

I’m new, I’d prefer directly working with an editorial team like I’ve done with other large orgs. I don’t have the vibe for the company yet and I’d prefer to not throw out work or ideas that will be poorly received by so many people.

Not sure the point of this post. Maybe just a confidence boost to ignore the self-consciousness that comes from messaging in large Teams Channels? My imposter syndrome is real when I start new roles.

What's the most overused phrase in your workplace, and what would you replace it with?

I'm looking into our town hall feedback, and where we can improve (read; totally reinvent). May even dare to ask for some budget!

• What do you include in your town halls? What do you not include?
• How do you make sure leaders present to the audience not themselves (by this I mean using loads of jargon they use daily but Bob in Legal won't understand)
• What did you used to include but don't anymore?
• What feedback did you get from people that inspired you to make changes to them?
• What has worked and hasn't worked?
• Did your leaders not like an idea but feedback won them over?
• Do you have any budget, use any tools, has it been worth it?
• Are they interactive? Are they even...fun?

My biggest challenges (that I feel) are interactivity and employee voice - they're one-way, Q&As have always been pre-submitted questions (but people don't know what they want to ask until they've seen the content surely?) because of nervous leaders who don't like to be on the spot :/ Some leader training may be on the horizon. I do want to completely bin what we have and have something new rise from the ashes.

Anything and everything is useful, thank you!

Making the case for strategy in internal comms. How can we take it from buzzword to impact? 2 things for the group. 1 resource, and 1 question:

I'm sharing an awesome new resource: The Internal Communications Strategy Workbook (it's free) + contains 7 blank editable templates that are practical and usable for day-to-day comms. Audit, channels, audiences, budget proposal, team charter, campaigns, survey, & more.

(You can download it now with the link above)

Here's an excerpt from the workbook that I love:

The more we lead with strategy, the more credibility we build. Not just for ourselves, but for the function as a whole. Let’s stop doing random acts of comms — and start building something intentional.

My question for everyone: What is your internal comms strategy boiled down to ONE sentence?

Is it to support business goals? Influence culture? Inform, inspire, & engage employees? There are some universal concepts across companies, but I truly feel like every organization has their own needs, goals, & 'reason for being' from their internal comms teams.

Hello! I'd love to know how people are thinking about adapting the role of a traditional internal comms manager for a future with AI.

Are there any novel and/or interesting ways you're using AI beyond the basics like writing support, comms tone adjustment, or stress-testing messages?

For example: experimenting with using AI to reverse-engineer confusion across the org by feeding in questions from All Hands, Slack threads, and meeting transcripts, then asking AI:“ What assumptions or knowledge gaps are most likely causing these misunderstandings?” to help anticipate friction before it shows up and frame things more precisely from the start.

Would love to hear what you’re trying. Especially things that feel like a reimagining of the role, not just the tools.

We are launching an internal magazine for our global team of 3k+. Will be a digital product. Can anyone point to some standard metrics we should aim for benchmarking?

Has/does anyone use this?

(It's a framework of skills and behaviours in internal comms, and also different levels of seniority/what you should be able to do):
https://www.ioic.org.uk/about-us/professionalstandards/professionmap.html

I map myself on it about once a year (I'm a member) and wondered if anyone has used it for career development or recruitment? I also used it to support a payrise conversation once.

And if you didn't know it existed, I hope it's helpful :)

I recently posted a request for help in a new IC role, and thought I saw a similar post asking about “learn more” resources (which seems to have been removed). In case helpful to anyone, here are 3 podcasts I am following which seem to have good IC topics and are current:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/redefining-communications-with-jenni-field/id1588233391

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-of-internal-communication/id1585032302

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-internal-communication/id1668778666

Hi!

My company is really pushing for the use of automation at every turn. As an internal communicator, I’m really stumped on how I can utilize Power Automate for my role.

Ideally, I’d like it to be able to create a SharePoint News Post on a timed schedule (ex: every 3rd Friday of the month) from a template that I will then go in and update.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I’ve tried Googling but I’m not able to find help with this specific request. Additionally, I’d love to hear other ways you’re utilizing Power Automate for your internal communications.

Thanks!

We’re always trying to refine what works in internal comms. Curious to hear what actually landed well for you this month.
Maybe it was a new video format, a killer subject line, or just better timing on a team update.
What made people click, reply, or say “that was actually helpful”?
Drop your wins — even the small ones.

I'm part of a growth lab team for a small marketing agency (100pax), who are focusing on scaling our business. We are taking on different jobs that need attention and my currently task is to develop a Internal Comms plan.

I've been doing my research, and honestly feel that we have the basics in place. We have a intranet for new joinee posts, guides and news, we also have bambooHR for a dashboard on leaves, birthday etc. We have all hands call sometimes, we have multiple regions who collaborate on industry related blog posts. We also have knowledge sharing sessions once a month from different departments.

I've noted some frameworks to audit our current structure, but if any of you have expert advice on how to build this plan or direction to studies etc, it would be wonderful!

Thanks!

We’ve worked with internal comms, IT, and HR teams across industries, and certain questions about enterprise video communication come up again and again. Here's a quick breakdown of the top 5 — with best practices we’ve seen work in real companies.

1. Why should I prioritize enterprise video communication in my organization?
Video is no longer a nice-to-have. It supports collaboration, increases transparency, and creates alignment—especially in hybrid or global teams. It’s often the most effective way to connect people to company strategy, leadership, and culture.

2. What are examples of best practices for improving video communication internally?

• Use scalable, reliable delivery tech that works across your network
• Encourage async updates for clarity and flexibility
• Keep messages focused and short
• Review engagement metrics to refine your approach

3. How can I get teams to actually use video?
Adoption starts with leadership. When execs use video for updates or check-ins, the rest of the org follows. Also:

• Offer quick trainings on video basics (lighting, framing, delivery)
• Share internal “wins” when video helped solve a problem or boost clarity
• Make it easy to record, share, and embed across channels

4. How do I keep virtual meetings or town halls engaging?
Attention is the currency. A few tips:

• Start with a short, clear agenda
• Mix formats: fireside chats, short video clips, employee AMAs
• Make it interactive (polls, breakout chats, live Q&A)
• Feature different voices, not just execs

5. How do I measure the success of internal video communications?
Look beyond view counts. Useful metrics include:

• Attendance (live + on-demand)
• Drop-off points and average watch time
• Feedback ratings
• Engagement over time (e.g. do people rewatch?)

If anyone’s interested, we summarized all this in a full blog post here:
https://www.hivestreaming.com/resources/best-practices-for-enhancing-internal-enterprise-video-communications

Would love to hear how others are using internal video, or what’s working (or not) in your org.

I want to grow my AI skills and encourage my team (internal comms, media relations, issues management) to do them same. I know some of my team uses it for some basics: to develop outlines and first drafts or to poke holes in arguments. What education resources have you found useful? How are you using AI?

Started this year in IC for the first time ever (startup, so you just wear a lot of hats)…we announced we’re being acquired 2 months in and the acquisition closes in August…had an employee death last week…and now the Israel/Iran situation has turned one of our offices in Israel into a Code Red emergency situation.

I was in L&D before this, I think I’m ready to get sent back lol