- Sayantan Banerjee, Communication Associate

Today’s world is diverse, with people willing to open up about their sexuality, gender orientation, race, and other social identities breaking barriers of marginalisation. Social media conversations are abuzz with posts, tweets, and stories about people’s expression of their identity. This requires constant attention on the part of organisations to relook their communications strategies. 

June, widely celebrated as the pride month in memorial of the Stonewall riots, saw an encouraging number of organisations and influencers acknowledge the rights of LGBTQ communities. Companies worked on social media campaigns and posts, which gave visibility to individuals who do not conform to traditional imaginations of sexuality and have a history of feeling excluded. 

In recent years, communications professionals have increasingly pointed out the odds of not revamping messaging strategy or thoroughly vetting content.

Brands like H&M and Snapchat faced intense backlash for underplaying racism and sexism in their social media campaigns, forcing them to reinvent their communications strategies significantly. Last year H&M came up with a campaign for their new pride collection to celebrate pride month that was widely appreciated for portraying a diversity of LGBTQ+ experiences. 

It stood out for its insistence on highlighting the perspectives of the LGBTQ+ community members. 

Brands like Reebok, Glossier, and Levi’s showed how storytelling improves with inclusion and makes only people feel heard. And people in the 21st century are more likely to go along with businesses which commit to diversity. Cone Communications states, “Millennials represent $2.45 trillion in spending power and are 60% more likely to engage with brands that discuss social causes.”

Small gestures like using inclusive language in day-to-day communication or external communications can go a long way in making individuals feel included. Getting rid of words, phrases or tones in favour of diversity-aligned vocabulary is now oft highlighted practice. 

For example, referring to a group of people as ‘team’ instead of ‘guys’ is a step toward gender neutrality. We can refer to resources like this to constantly bring employees up to speed.

Diversity is multifacetedly panned across gender, sexuality, colour and disability. Communicators face their share of challenges in addressing the intersectional concerns, but kickstarting an effort would automate other broad changes. 

Along with the content of the messaging, priority should also be given to the accessibility of the communication. Providing descriptive images or call to action captions, using adequate font sizes, and limiting the use of emoticons or emojis can make a range of campaigns, emailers, and content accessible to individuals from disabled communities. In one instance, Kent C Dodds has shown how using stylised versions of texts is an exclusionary practice regarding when messaging.  

In our ever-evolving world, we now have an incredible opportunity to work toward empathetic communication models and leave a lasting impact on people’s perceptions of our world. We can not afford to let go of that. 

Sayantan Banerjee, Associate, Gnothi Seauton