Key Messages

Key messages are messages that an organization wishes to convey about itself as well as about what it would like its publics to know, understand, accept, and/or do. When successfully and fully transferred from the organizational agenda to the news media agenda or from the organizational agenda to the public agenda, key messages can help build an organization’s reputation. There are five unique functions of key messages: (1) information dissemination, (2) purpose, (3) category, (4) resource management, and (5) social relevance. These functions, when successfully implemented, can help an organization shape its desired reputation.

Key messages are made of up of a series of words or phrases that are easily identifiable, rather than containing content that requires the receiver to interpret the message’s meaning. The series ...