Have you ever wondered how people use media throughout their day? Tom Kennedy, former multimedia director for WashingtonPost.com, gave a talk to the Atlanta ASMP group, and one of his slides during the presentation intrigued me. He shared a list of ways people interact with media throughout the day:

• Commuting: Podcasts, iPhones, Radio
• Work Hours: Email Alerts, SMS, Tweets
• Lunch Hours/Office Breaks: Websites
• Daily Living Tasks: SMS, Tweets, IMs, Drive-By Media
• Home Leisure Time: Web, TV, Radio, iPods, iPhone

Kennedy pointed out that people often use media based on their available time. For example, when riding a train, sitting at an airport, or taking a bus, they are likelier to get messages through their phone. Therefore, it’s crucial to know how your audience receives your message. They may use a phone that allows web surfing, like the iPhone or Blackberry.

People cannot always surf the web during work hours, so they will allow for short messaging through email, tweets, and SMS (Social Media Sites). As communicators, we need to understand how our audience receives information. It’s easier to find the audience than to have the audience find us.

This past February was a milestone for SMS. Now, more people are communicating through Social Media than with email. We need to adapt to this change for those of us who are communicators.

If you want to engage with your audience effectively, you must ask yourself where your audience is and, more specifically, where they are throughout the workday. Are you waiting for them to find you, or are you looking for them? It’s essential to understand how your audience receives information and adapt your communication strategy accordingly.

I’m excited to help Chick-fil-A visually engage its base. I’m seeing how operators (franchise owners) use texting, email, Twitter, FaceBook, Websites, Billboards, Events, and more to engage with their audience. What’s exciting is they’re unsatisfied and feel they could do more and be even more effective. So let’s take a page from their book and look for more ways to engage with our audience effectively.