Image by cambodia4kidsorg via FlickrWhile it might consume bandwidth, the more your employees talk about your company on line, even if it is from work is word of mouth that you do not have the budget for, nor are you likely to ever have enough of a marketing budget to afford to do this.
This will not work if you have unhappy employees, but if you have happy people, who are engaged at work and on social networks, are talking about your company and in general, what they are doing. Prospective employees are going to see that, ask questions, and see what it is like to work there. You want people to come work for you, you will get the best candidates and the ability to select whom to hire when people want to work for you.
Corporate blogging is also something that you want to encourage. The reason for encouraging this is customers might find answers to the questions they are asking. It could also allow a personal relationship to build between customers and people who are using the product. Companies have used this to great positive effect across all industry lines. This has solved problems for customers long before they hit the help desk, and long before the customer blogged about the issue. If you monitor blogs, check and see how many people are linking to your company blog, and what they are saying about the company, the product, and the people.
Facebook and LinkedIn in are not all bad; allowing connections and friends in this manner also opens doors to finding new people, new fans, and new ways of improving the product based on peoples feedback. I know one of my friends went to work down in California and asked me what people were saying about the product after he took the job. After doing some quick research, he found out some issues with the product, and was able to work with the development team to address the issues. They now monitor the internet to see what people are saying, and use Facebook, LinkedIn and other friend collection social systems to get more feedback.
Corporate Twitter, yes you want them too. If you look at Comcast and Burger King, you can see how they use twitter to talk to folks, engage, and otherwise have fun with their customers, or address issues with their customers.
These are just some of the benefits of letting your people use social networking at work. It is unlikely that you will gain any additional efficiencies in operations or in employee efficiency statistics. Technology has flat lined, there is no new compelling technology to update in the company right now, and odds are likely the company is putting off purchasing new technology unless it has to. Growing your business is going to take new novel ways of getting attention for the company or the product. Your employees might as well be your best advocate for them.
Tags: employee, social, networking, encourage it, support
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Good post, certainly agree with these benefits. There are plenty more, especially in large enterprise.
One of the things you really do need are guidelines to help frame the social media world in terms that your employees understand. At IBM we have had some for quite a while now and many others are also adding theirs, such as Intel recently.
Not only should the guidelines say how you should represent yourself but also give an idea of etiquette, especially how to avoid getting into flame wars because someone criticized your company.
One point I’m not so sure on, corporate blog. Do you mean a CEO blog or an employees blog hosted on the company Internet site? In some instances a hosted blog in say a development community works well but general business blogs just appear to most to feel like pr machines of the worst sort.
Showing people the benefits to the company is, however, one thing. You also need to show the individual that they will benefit. The one thing that most people will say is, I don’t have the time. Everyone has heard it. Those basics still need to be overcome for a vast majority. Explained over and over.
Also I think to say that “Companies have used this to great positive effect across all industry lines,” could be a bit misleading. I don’t think the best examples of this are in anyway organised by the business, be it marketing, communications or customer service.. it usually comes from a keen bunch of individuals who instinctively know how and why it should be done. Most corporations organizational structures and processes can not change or accommodate such ideas within current models. Indeed the worst are trying to retro-fit social media into old marketing methods by forcing stuff out through these “new channels.”
Old marketing methods usually involve people in marketing that have little idea of the product or service, set off a campaign then retire to a safe distance, usually another campaign, will leads roll in (or don’t).
Social media is really employee enablement and giving brand permission. Once your employees are talking with each other, clients and influencers about the things they have been doing for years and passionate about, real stories, real ideas and real people bring a business to life.