Communications Coordinator

Counselors and Therapists will tell you: The key to successful relationships is good communication. Good communication with your spouse. Good communication with your friends. And good communication with your family.

Of course, what’s true in life is also true in business: Good communication is equally essential between employers and employees, and between companies and consumers.

A Communications Coordinator is the steward of that “good communication.” A marketing and public relations professional, a Communications Coordinator is employed in the communications department of a government agency, nonprofit organization, or private enterprise. There, the Communications Coordinator reports to the Communications Director, who’s hired him or her to handle — or “coordinate” — both internal and external communications.

In this position, you’re in charge of communicating with employees, who need to know information about new product launches, marketing campaigns, and human resources issues, such as new hires, upcoming holidays, updates to benefits, and changes to policies and procedures. Typically, that means sharing information via memos, employee newsletters, and company intranets.

Externally, you’re in charge of communicating company news to the public and the media. Your duties therefore include creating and maintaining a media list, which includes contacts at newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio stations, and blogs; building relationships with Reporters and Bloggers; writing, editing, and distributing content, including press releases, media alerts, editorials, pamphlets, brochures, and web pages; and planning events, including press conferences, meet-and-greets, etc.

Simply put: Your job is to control your employer’s information and reputation as part of a team that handles all things “media,” “messaging,” and “marketing.” If your company were a person, therefore, that would make you the voice!