Posts Tagged ‘engagement’

Socializing with your employees: Part II

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Continuing from where we left of, we shall now see how social media platform can be used to improve the structure and efficiency of an organization.

Collaborating for Success

With help of any given platform, an organization can help teams work

      ● More effectively and efficiently

      ● Ensure teams have access to most accurate and up to date information

      ● Enable remote working

                IBM

Collaborative blog from IBM

This not only leads to better work output but also builds connection. When employees feel connected to their organization, a unified purpose and each other they will be more engagement and more efficiency. Also, this reduces the scope of internal crisis as most matters are resolved via two way communication over an informal discussion.

Social Brainstorming

Social Media is also budding ground for good ideas to be sowed and germinated. Once someone proposes an idea, others can contribute to it and over a healthy discussion, the idea can take shape. Since it’s available over a platform at any given time, the constrain of a brain storming session in a closed environment and in fixed time span is eliminated, thus, giving it a feel of an open session.

A spontaneous idea that leads to a thread of comments on a Facebook group may prove to be far more productive than spending hours inside a meeting room trying to solve a problem.

Peer Recognition

Another important aspect of using social media is recognizing and highlighting achievers and the ease with which they can be rewarded. Any individual when recognized in front of his/her peers feels special. Social Media is just the right place for an individual to be recognized by his organization in front of his friends and colleagues. This builds a sense of pride and also inculcates a healthy rivalry amongst the workers.

               People

Sharing profile of employees in internal communities can boost
confidence amongst employees

Getting Personal

Social media also gives big organizations the opportunity to show their human face. Wishing people on special occasion via a personal message can go a long way in building a lasting relationship which would prove very productive. This will hold well during a crisis. When you want that extra mile from employees, then as an organization, you also need to walk that extra mile.

Giving Voice

A social media strategy to handle employee grievances is an effective tool for online reputation management. While it may be difficult how an employee conveying their grievances in front of other employees can help, but it is better than them going public in front of external clients. Being heard is the first and almost entirely the most critical step in complaint resolution. A heard employee may equal to a satisfied employee.

Chain of communication

Social media tools such as blogs can be a great way of educating people about new products and giving detailed reviews. Bring in YouTube with video demonstrations of new products and you have an attentive employee set readily willing to understand and discuss new products. Make it innovative and your employees themselves will make it go viral thus not only giving the brand an internal viewership but also the possibility of garnering millions of eyeballs from external audience.

Blog

Sharing on internal community gives a chance for employees to interact freely irrespective to their position in the ladder

Payoffs

While it may look that bringing internal communication and HR issues on social media is a risk, with organizations having to give up on lot of control, but no policing is in fact a very good method of inculcating self control and restrain.

When people know there is someone out there to listen to them, they are less disgruntle and more constructive. They may even take the effort of using their bad experience to come up with innovative solutions to tricky problems.

This is where true employee empowerment can be achieved. This will not only help you strengthen your organization but also give you the best word of mouth publicity of them all. Employee Advocacy.

Six keep-in-minds while devising a social media strategy

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Having been in business development for a specialist social media agency for a fair amount of time, there are certain caveats we keep reminding clients of. This is probably because social media is unlike any other marketing medium including the sir-please-try-our-website-since-the-model-is-very-different, which is at the end of the day, just a different form of display advertising.

So six caveats I’d like to give clients, agencies and social media enthusiasts or planners are…

1. What’s so great about you anyway?

While a statement like that is suicide as far as an agency is concerned, reflect on what it means. What IS so great about your brand that would make people want to put off watching pirated IPL videos on YouTube, stop chatting on GTalk with an old friend, stop scouring social networking sites for random profiles to make ‘franship’ with… And come talk about your brand? Now that I’ve put this question in perspective, it doesn’t seem as offensive, does it?

Let me put it this way: Look around you and search for a brand you have no professional affiliation to. Why would you become a fan voluntarily of that brand? Your answer to this will help you answer what your own brand should be doing on social media.

2. Great, you’ve got your fans. Now what?

In the craze to have a ‘presence’ on Facebook, companies often resort to buying fans, using FB ads. That in itself is not an evil thing, but what a brand needs to be clear on is what to do with these fans. We’ve seen many fan pages which the marketing team of companies opened frenetically, paid a sufficient amount to get 500 fans, post a few current-campaign-related updates, and then, once the campaign and budgets are over, lies inactive. What happens of the fans? Think of it this way: fans have, on their own volition, chosen to become fans of a brand. Which is as good as a footfall. And just like a footfall, you can never ignore a fan of a fan page.

3. Not everything’s for everyone

Telling a brand manager that a blog is not right for his brand is like finally telling your girlfriend that you’re not the right person for her. OK, almost. But you know what I mean. The ease with which social media platforms can be activated leads many to believe that their brand should be everywhere. Wrong. A presence on Twitter, a blog or even a FB fan page is a long-term effort. If your brand is in it for the ‘wham bam, thank you ma’am’ equivalent on social media, a quick application and some FB ads is what you should be looking at.

4. Time lagega, boss!

It is unrealistic to expect something like 1000 followers, fans or subscribers to get to your page in one or two months. Social media growth should be organic and growth will be exponential in nature. Which means, the first few months may have very few people coming in. But after that it’s like compounding. Think of it this way. A personal blog starts off with five loyal readers coerced to reading it (the industry equivalent being co-workers and your agency!) before merit alone decides whether more people start coming in on their own. It’s pretty much the same thing for your fan page, corporate blog or Twitter page.

5. Can you pass the cricket score test?

I’ve mentioned this before. But it needs to emphasised again. People are online to surf porn, plant virtual strawberries, chat with friends, check the latest gossip, read their friends’ blogs and most importantly in India, check cricket scores. The Cricket Score Test is what I call the process of someone actually deviating from this schedule, distracted by something else. Why do I say this? Because this is the same guy you’re trying to convince to play your application. Or read your corporate blog on your latest AGM. Or follow your Twitter handle of 3 updates. You get my drift, I hope. Remember, buying out fans is the only shortcut you can take. Then what?

6. Never attempt policing

It’s a free, democratic medium. It’s open. People can say anything they want, there is no point trying to suppress them, you’re only going to get lots of backlash. Anyone who followed the Nestle episode will know what I’m talking about. For a quick guide on what NOT to do on a Facebook page, click here.
And so there you have it. A few keep-in-minds for social media. All points are fairly debatable (That was the intention, honestly) and I look forward to your feedback on the comments.

Oh, and I blog here.