COMMUNICATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Manuela Toteva, Ph.D., is a practitioner, university lecturer, and author with more than 15 years of experience in communication. She started her career at the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and then moved to the corporate sector to manage projects and teams for large-scale companies such as METRO Cash and Carry, Aurubis, SAP. As a board member and a chairperson of the Bulgarian Public Relations Association (2006 – 2017), she has contributed significantly to the development of the professional PR community in Bulgaria. Since 2017 she has been lecturing on Content and Digital Media Management and consulting marketing projects in Germany.

Our environment has become increasingly digital in the last two years, and communication has shifted to the virtual scene. As an expert in the field, how would you define the advantages and disadvantages of this trend?

For many businesses and even countries, the pandemic proved to be a turning point in regard to the work environment and the teams’ communication and effectiveness. Certain sectors, such as the software one, were doing well in the virtual environment long before 2020. I think that work from home eliminates geographic borders and opens up countless opportunities for businesses. Speaking of time and financial resources, it is also practical and effective. On the other hand, communicating through the screen makes all participants equal, regardless of their gender, race, physical state – anyone has the chance to express opinion under equal conditions. One of the basic problems, which the pandemic brought to the communication sector, is with live events, which were heavily affected in a negative way. In response to this, however, experts are developing various hybrid formats and interactive solutions, aimed at keeping visitors’ interest.

What are the successful communication strategies in such a dynamic environment and with rules continually changing?

I believe that success begins with the attitude towards employees and with internal communication, which should provide a sense of stability in the work environment. As for external communication, I can definitely say that nowadays society and communicators deal with a great amount of data, which reaches customers through countless channels and this makes our work even more important and challenging. It is hard to measure the speed at which technologies are implemented in various activities, and one of the directions for productivity is the understanding of technological processes. Communication and marketing specialists should lead the change, keeping their unique qualities and building digital skills, which will provide them with the "necessary pack" of knowledge. The successful strategy of tomorrow will be a mix of work in hybrid teams, thinking and acting a step ahead of the competition, creative and emotionally intelligent ideas.

Your first book Effective Tools in B2B Digital Marketing is just about to be published. What kind of audience is it aimed at and what can we look forward to?

The book is a well-timed match of academic and practical experience. It is focused on the "business-to-business" type of communication and covers a range of cases and examples from Bulgaria and Germany from the last five years. I wanted to create a useful guide for my students in both countries, as well as for B2B managers and communication experts. The central topic is the role of the modern communicator, who has to manage the vast information flows and the countless news channels, remaining loyal to audiences in a transparent environment. A basic hypothesis is that in the digital economy, the information, received by customers, makes them increasingly empowered to evaluate and even analyse each promise of a company, connected to the brand’s positioning. At this point, it becomes crucial for communication leaders to adopt the new technologies, designed to change our relations with business, government, customers, and citizens. Marketing team members should also constantly build and upgrade their skills. In Bulgaria, this process is still going on at a slow pace. Germany, on the contrary, is one of the leading countries in digitalisation within the EU. That is why I have included examples and experiences from both countries in my book.

What inspires you to share your experience with students?

I take education as a personal mission and seize every opportunity to meet people from the new generation. Unfortunately, the sector was heavily hit by the pandemic, because of the shift of the education process in a virtual environment. It is much harder to grab students‘ attention online and this sets the bar quite high for university lecturers. In my work with students, I am trying to offer interesting and modern solutions, which make teaching exciting – presentation platforms, events, tasks, interactive content, and homework, so that we achieve a dynamic process.

What is your advice to students, who are willing to start a career in the field of communication?

First-year students start at the university quite prepared in terms of digital skills and competencies. Young people of this generation have built attitudes towards sustainable development and environmental care. I inspire them to develop more team skills, the courage to share openly their ideas, and hard discipline, which is a thing I request from them, maybe as a result of my work with German companies in the last decade. As future communicators, it is especially important for them to be literate and to learn how to keep the ethics of the profession, to oppose fake news with high-quality and valuable customer-oriented information.