Social Media Within Your Walls

Networks are the backbone of social media. Disparate groups of people connect to one another through links, posts and messages. They participate to connect and to express their opinions. By this account, employee groups present companies with networks that are poised to share, discuss and socialize content. Employees have a vested interest in joining communities, participating in forums and following blogs as these tools help them gain insights about their field and their competitors and perform better at their jobs.

While social media seems to be a natural fit for connecting employees across departments and geographies, many companies face challenges in using such open forums of communication for business. The first barrier to action is the possibility that employees may create liabilities for the company by participating in social media. Next, the company may not have enough resources to stimulate and sustain conversations with internal stakeholders. These efforts may seem to be too much work for little gain.

The key to creating noticeable change and attaining business goals through social media in a company is to educate employees about the best practices and pitfalls of participating in online conversations. Coaching employees in best practices for sharing opinions online can help companies find the right balance of creative thinking and responsible communication. In fact, guidelines and processes can help companies be more efficient and agile in fostering online employee communications.

Today internal blogs, forums, wikis, instant messengers and employee social networks are popular tools among companies who wish to connect their workforce. There will be more seamless ways to share knowledge across organizations in the future. Yet, regardless of the platform a company chooses to employ, there are a number of basic steps organizations can follow to get the most out of their internal communications based in social media.

Start with a social media policy and training: Establish formal rules of communication on company-branded social media platforms. Tap into the expertise of communication, legal and human resource departments, as well as your IT expert. Assign roles to a team of people who should review and approve content. Note any types of information that employees should not exchange through internal social media channels. Explain the company’s position about external, informal social media communications in which employees may engage. Do they have to put disclaimers on their personal blogs? How should they identify themselves if they are speaking about company matters in public forums? Guide employees on how to use social media forums in a safe way that will not generate liability or messy legal issues for them or for the company.

Listen first, then lead: Before launching a social media platform for internal communications, take employees’ pulse. Conduct brief surveys or qualitative discussions to uncover the most pressing communication needs. Ask employees which social media channels they currently use and which tools they find effective for the communication goals you have in mind. Scan online conversations in public forums for traces of any issues. Then consider the right platform, topic areas and employees who should lead the conversations internally.   

Choose the right platform for the job:  Think of the communication goal that needs to be accomplished before deciding on the social media channel to use. Consider your team’s time, resources and talents. The latest, most advanced tool in the marketplace may not necessarily be the right choice to get the job done. For instance, a high-level executive who has deep experience to share and limited time to dedicate to  social media may best be served through a blog that gets updated once a week. Meanwhile, a team of people who need quick feedback, several times a day may prefer a forum or an internal community set up as a marketplace of ideas.

Know your culture: Social media tools are for engagement, but will your employees participate? To ensure high levels of adoption and compliance, consider how your company’s culture may affect internal, online conversations. Will your employees respond to an invitation from management? Will they need to build consensus at the department level before joining an online activity? Will you need to find internal influencers who can be early adopters and lead the pack?

Bring online meetings offline: Supplement online meetings with offline, fireside chats. Technology can speed up information exchange, but more traditional face-to-face meetings can enhance employees' satisfaction and increase their dedication to their online groups and shared projects. 

Plan for sunset: When planning the launch of an internal social media channel, consider its lifetime in light of your mission. Does the project rest upon the expertise of a single employee or department? Can the company sustain it for the foreseeable future? Is the channel built around a specific event (e.g., Olympic sponsorship) or a broader theme (e.g., new business wins)? Have a communication plan ready, in case the conversation leaders leave the company or the project runs its course and comes to an end.    

Measure success: Contrary to common belief, social media is not amorphous and there are a number of ways companies can analyze employees’ usage patterns to gauge the success of their online initiatives. Volume, content and tone of online conversations, adoption and participation rates, as well as employee satisfaction are among the many metrics companies can use to evaluate the success of their social media communications. If the channels are set around a particular project or business goal, there may be additional outcome metrics (e.g., closed sales, number of reservations, submissions for a contest) to consider.

Whether internal or external, all branded social media communications are employee communications. Your workforce represents the company and carries titles whether commenting on products in online review sites, posting comments on blog networks or participating in discussion forums on the Intranet. Establishing the ground rules of communication and teaching best practices in social media communications will give employees the opportunity to share their creativity and enhance their professional knowledge as they experiment with new technologies. Social media tools that facilitate idea generation and sharing will help companies bring new projects to life faster than before. In addition to contributing to employee satisfaction, internal social media platforms can increase productivity and unearth new opportunities for collaboration.

 

For additional insights on employee communications, please visit our Insidedge colleague's blog InTake and follow their newsletter In The Know.

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Art Industry Gives Crowdsourcing A Shot with Blue Label

The art industry is one to bloom late online. Major deals are usually cut offline at auctions, at reputable galleries or behind the scenes between collectors and dealers. It's certainly driven by word of mouth. When collectors invest in an artist's work, they do everything to showcase it and talk about it and recommend it to others, so that the demand for the artist increases and their investment gains value.

The high-end art world is truly an imperfect market. Information is in the hands of select collectors and few reliable communication channels. Sure you can walk into a gallery or go to an online site and pick a few paintings, but do you really know what you are getting? Probably not. Is there a public reference system like the stock market to see which blue chip name is going up or down? Not really. 

The newly launched site Blue Label offers a fresh and simple approach to seeing works of art and getting accurate information on them. Artists can post images of their works and label them (title, medium) securely. Each painting is assigned a Blue Lable code. While the site doesn't have sales data, collectors can follow artists, look up art works and catalogue items that are in their own collections. Through shared knowledge, the database grows and becomes an accurate referral guide for art enthusiasts. 

The site has a membership fee of several hundred dollars, which might make some artists think twice about posting before Blue Label proves its worth and deters amateurs. Nonetheless, it is a refreshing initiative for an industry that largely kept to traditional ways of doing business. 

Posted via web from dotwom's posterous

Implementing Word of Mouth at UPENN

I had the opportunity to do a book reading and a presentation on word of mouth marketing at University of Pennsylvania. Having presented to business audiences at many conferences before, I am used to people checking blackberries, Tweeting, typing with purpose on their laptops. This time, audience focus was 100 percent on the screen. They listened. They took notes. It was very refreshing to present to such an engaged group.



The students, who were MBA or media studies students, asked really thoughtful questions. They wanted to understand how to measure buzz and how to predict what kind of start-up would be poised to take off. When I talked about networking agents who drive online word of mouth, one question kept coming up - how do you identify your own set of influencers? How do you know someone you're targeting is truly a powerful word of mouth agent online?

The dynamic Q&A session confirmed my initial belief when starting to write this book: We are no longer discussing the importance of social media, nor are we describing the changing communication landscape. The revolution happened. Now, the online word of mouth space is ripe for business. Developers around the world release hundreds of applications per day. The start up scene is replete with smart companies that are harnessing word of mouth data and helping consumers publish like professional creatives.

No matter what the next big thing is or whatever the social networking idea du jour may be, we still need to figure out the flow of information in influencer networks and find ways to bring brands into these conversations. Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing aims to do just that. The book helps readers - whether they are seasoned marketers or curious students seeking the next opportunity - how to formulate and carry out their own word of mouth marketing plans.

Opportunity is in Asia-Pacific

Trendstream, a research firm based in the UK, has published global trends on social media usage. The firm’s Global Web Index, based on 32,000 online interviews across 16 countries, shows that online marketers in the Asia Pacific region have tremendous opportunities as their audiences trust and engage with brands that communicate with them through social media.

As compared with the global average, consumers in the Asia Pacific region indicate that brand-driven communities, fan pages and blogs improve their opinions of that brand. They feel similarly if a brand takes note of their mentions and starts following them on a microblog (e.g., Twitter).



This trend may well be based in certain Asian populations’ positive attitudes towards technology and the Web, coupled with their preference for privacy. For instance, when asked about brand communication methods that improve their opinion of brands, Chinese and South Korean respondents are unlike anyone else. While in the US, Latin America, and in Europe, consumers are more likely to be impressed with face-to-face communications, Chinese and South Korean consumers prefer online recommendations from a contact or a friend.




The Global Web Index data have strong implications for programs that need to work across multiple countries. Marketers need to be attuned to the ways in which their audiences prefer to receive communications and make necessary adjustments in each local market. Brands that can decipher cultural attitudes towards information sources, knowledge and experience are bound to communicate more effectively and build global equity.

Tweet for The Hungry - Get Egged!

Full disclosure: I am working on a campaign to feed the hungry led by the United Egg Producers Certified. The widget you're seeing on the left hand bar is our initiative. Please send a quick, fun Tweet to a friend - whether they be a #goodegg or #deviledegg. United Egg Producers will donate a dozen eggs for each of your Tweets. If you'd like to send it your Facebook page, add it to your blog or bookmark it, check it out at getegged.com

Smart Sensors Save Lives (And Billions in Healthcare Costs)

When looking to the future of the Internet, do not just think about flat and small screens with keypads. Think about sensors with Internet Protocol people carry with them or attach to objects. Think how pill-shaped microcameras can create significant efficiencies by collecting hard-to-find data and alerting doctors and caregivers to changes in a patient’s health condition.

As the recent McKinsey Quarterly report, Internet of Things, highlights, such Internet-based technology can collect and send thousands of images from the human digestive tract and help physicians detect illnesses. There is also tremendous value in gathering real-time data from a patient’s daily routine. Spotting symptoms early on helps patients and hospitals save on cost of healthcare and most importantly, can help save lives.

In fact, a trial using sensors on patients with congestive heart failure collected data on basics such as weight, blood pressure, heart rate and rhythm on a daily basis. This was significantly more information than what physicians could gather on a routine check, during a patient visit. Using such systems, physicians can detect early warning signs and prevent unplanned hospitalizations.

To read about additional applications of smart sensors in healthcare, marketing and energy fields, among others, please click here.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted via web from dotwom's posterous

Now The Internet Can Save Lives

When looking to the future of the Internet, do not just think about flat and small screens with keypads. Think about sensors with Internet Protocol people carry with them or attach to objects. Think how pill-shaped microcameras can create significant efficiencies by collecting hard-to-find data and alerting doctors and caregivers to changes in a patient’s health condition.

As the recent McKinsey Quarterly report, Internet of Things, highlights, such Internet-based technology can collect and send thousands of images from the human digestive tract and help physicians detect illnesses. There is also tremendous value in gathering real-time data from a patient’s daily routine. Spotting symptoms early on helps patients and hospitals save on cost of healthcare and most importantly, can help save lives.

In fact, a trial using sensors on patients with congestive heart failure collected data on basics such as weight, blood pressure, heart rate and rhythm on a daily basis. This was significantly more information than what physicians could gather on a routine check, during a patient visit. Using such systems, physicians can detect early warning signs and prevent unplanned hospitalizations.

To read about additional applications of smart sensors in healthcare, marketing and energy fields, among others, please click here.

 

 

Posted via web from Speaking of Social Media