It seems like most talk surrounding social media relates to its external use (B to C). What about the value and benefit that comes from the connections enabled by social media internally? Conversation between “corporate tribes?” Like-minded individuals connected by a common corporation?
We know that there is value in every business (regardless of industry or size) to listening, understanding and dissecting coworker collaboration and capturing intellectual property. Unless we figure out ways in which we can formulate and define how these social tools translate into an effective and powerful corporate communications strategy, its value and return on investment will remain unknown; companies will fail to succeed as their competitors leave them behind. Social media tools have elevated the standard, depth and expectation of corporate communications. Companies are quickly being forced to transition from simply using the intranet as a file-sharing portal to using it as a valuable resource that also leverages and supports conversation capitol.
Standard corporate intranets were once owned by executives, but now we have the opportunity to create more democratic and personalized platforms where employees exchange, share and own the dialogue. This dialogue ignites a sharing of ideas, opinions and personal conversation. We love the idea that social media tools enable a conversation of many, rather than one. It’s not just you and I anymore, but an increasingly robust conversation where diversity of opinion is encouraged. Employees now have the opportunity to be engaged, enthusiastic and actually excited about what they do. We strongly doubt that a corporation’s biggest challenge is a lack of creative ideas, but rather, figuring out ways to bring them out into the light, to be shared, to be built upon and developed into a real competitive advantage.
There has never been a more opportune time to start engaging our most valuable asset: our employees. We would love to chat about the strategies and tools you use that enable conversation capitol and your thoughts on the importance of leveraging employee engagement and participation. Lastly, if you are one of those companies who has thought about taking the leap but can’t quite make it to the edge, what’s holding you back?