By Josephine Mickwitz, Executive Vice President, Communications and Sustainability, Fazer

As a corporate communications professional with a background in investor relations, financial communications and sustainability, I used to navigate a highly regulated communications landscape where facts and figures ruled and where space for engaging personal storytelling was limited. Having moved out of the IR profession, now heading communications and sustainability in a large Nordic FMCG company, a lot has changed in my daily work. But the media landscape has changed even more.
Today I face the (positive) challenge of making our corporate story resonate – not just in the boardroom or quarterly reports, but also across the diverse and rapidly evolving, and often blurring, landscape of traditional media, social media influencers and individual audiences.

Is the influence of conventional media still valid?
Traditional financial and mainstream media are seen as pillars of credibility. Reading high-quality articles written by good journalists trained to scrutinise data, validate sources and provide balanced analysis, remains one of my favourite weekend morning pleasures. But looking at the general media landscape today, it is increasingly invaded by fast-produced clickbait articles, often based on social media posts, with limited fact checking, influenced by editorial priorities and advertising. So, the question arises: are these newer media outlets becoming more trustworthy? Is it even possible to draw clear lines between these channels anymore?

Social media and influencers have transformed corporate communications
Social media and influencers have transformed the corporate communications landscape. Influencers can extend the reach of corporate messages far beyond conventional channels, especially among younger audiences who increasingly turn to platforms like TikTok and Instagram for news and education. Hashtags such as #FinTok show how financial influencers are shaping public understanding – often through raw, personal storytelling that feels more authentic than polished press releases. The upside? When the influencer shares the story from a personal perspective, you relate, and you lean in.

That said, these platforms operate under different rules – less formal oversight, faster feedback cycles, and a hunger for engagement over detail. The catch is that influencers are rarely held to the same standards as journalists and there is often very little editorial evaluation. This can lead to fake news spreading really fast, intentionally or unintentionally, which could be disastrous for communicators.

Can we control the story in a blurring media landscape?
As influencers are becoming news sources, and journalists are stepping into the role of influencers, media boundaries are blurring. In this rapidly evolving environment, the need for strategic engagement across all platforms becomes ever more apparent, but controlling the true corporate story is increasingly difficult. Long gone are the days when communications professionals could tailor their messaging, target them to relevant stakeholders and produce stories accordingly. Who truly controls the narrative, and in what ways?

The fact is that we can’t really control or choose who tells our story, and I am not sure we want to. We need them all: the journalists, the social media influencers, the brand ambassadors and even the haters. They each play vital and complementary roles in shaping and amplifying our corporate story, reaching the diverse audiences where they are most engaged.

Making the narrative authentic, personal, and credible
But what we can choose is to always make our story as interesting, genuine and relatable as possible. Communicating a story from a purely corporate perspective often drowns the message in a sea of noise. But when I humanise the story and highlight the people behind our achievements or ask our CEO to share the story from his personal perspective, we make our narrative relatable and authentic. Needless to say, this is also extremely powerful in employee communications. Sharing stories that go beyond the numbers: the challenges overcome, the commitment to sustainability, the impact on communities. Shifting from corporate one-way communication to human-centred storytelling makes the narrative authentic,
personal and credible.

At the end of the day, communication at its core is a human skill. In a world with a clutter of competing voices and noise, my professional mission is simple (but demanding!): communicate with integrity, relate with empathy, and listen with intent.
When the corporate story is shared with both heart and truth, it resonates.