Social media has become such an exciting tool for enhancing corporate engagement in recent years. It lowers the barriers of communications immensely by promoting brainstorming, trust and networking opportunities throughout the organization. It gives employees that essential feeling of belonging to a community. But as any shop teacher will tell you, tools are great. Just make sure you how to use them — otherwise you could get hurt.
Here’s how to get started:
- Know exactly what kind of culture you want to create inside your company. This way, you’ll be able to identify the social media experience that will promote that culture. Do you want an egalitarian, collaborative environment? Then set up an online community in which everyone can contribute information, ideas and opinions.
- Draw up a terms-of-use policy. Assuming you want that collaborative community, you will want to open the social media tools up to everyone throughout the company. They should feel free to speak their minds. But that doesn’t mean they can be rude, abusive, give away proprietary information, be libelous, etc. Set the ground rules in advance, so people will know what the boundaries are.
- Don’t punish your people for speaking their minds. You may not always like what they have to say, but you can love the fact that they’re saying it. Trust is alive in your organization and people care enough about what’s happening to go out on a limb. This is a good sign.
- Limit the layers between the CEO and the “publish” button. It’s becoming fashionable for leaders to hire ghostwriters for their blogs, even Twitter posts. Big mistake. Of course, great corporate leaders may not be great writers. But to make social media really work as a culture builder, the messaging must be authentic, with a feel of immediacy. You’ll lose the advantages of social media technology if it’s ghosted and vetted into a bland mush that only your legal counsel would appreciate.
- Keep your promises. If your leadership has committed to posting updates and blogs according to a schedule, keep those posts coming. A stale site will dry up your culture. Operate your site according to the principles and rules that you established at the beginning. Remove abusive comments but publish all the others. (If trust is an essential component to your culture, if a comment comes to your site that feels especially hot-headed, do the contributor a favor and double-check with him or her to make sure it’s still okay to post.)
- Don’t spy. Other social media outlets (like Facebook) are rife with opportunities for people to show their most unprofessional selves. Their resumes may be posted on various job search engines. Leave that stuff alone if you want a trust-based culture.
When it comes to using your social media tools to support and enhance your culture, there is no universally correct way. Know what’s right for your culture. And then be specific about the choices you make.
Image credit: skynesher, via iStock
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Some very good thoughts, Martha. I'm curious about the "don't spy" advice. Why is it seen as spying when you look at something someone voluntarily posts on the internet, which is very public? It is too much for a company to educate its workforce on the professional as well as responsible use of social media? I know you DO NOT want to become the picture police, but it seems to me that a company should have some fair and reasonable expectations.
Why does the responsibility for trust only have to flow one way? Why can't the employee be expected to behave in ways that are trustworthy and not feel as if they are simply entitled to a trusting relationship with an employer?
Thanks!
Bret
Hi Bret: Good questions. I suppose that it's all in the employer's intent. I know specifically of one employer who prowls job search sites looking for his staff's resumes (now that's what I would call spying, in addition to "don't you have anything better to do, like, say, reading up on being a decent boss so people don't actually have to put their resumes out there?").
If there is someone within the organization who gets perverse ya-ya's looking online for employees behaving inappropriately, you've got a culture issue that needs to be addressed. (Whoever thought we'd be talking about schools spying on their pupils?)
As for individuals, it goes without saying to keep your clothes on and lampshades off your heads. But in this particular blog posting, I was speaking directly to those in charge of culture cultivation, not individuals whose stupidity knows no bounds!
[...] http://smartblogs.com/workforce/2010/03/16/how-to-use-social-media-to-enhance-engagement/ [...]
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I really like this post, two things that really stand out:
1. Don’t punish your people for speaking their minds. This is a major issue in corporations, punishing people for speaking their minds is a fast way to thwart innovation and productivity. Encourage your employees to communicate openly, this will help solve problems more efficiently. Employees will not hold on to frustrations if they are allowed to communicate their concerns.
2. Don’t spy. If you act like big brother, you will only exacerbate the problem. Monitor your brand online, but beware of punishing people for any little comment they make about their workday. You will probably make things worse if you take on the spying role. Employees are simply moving after hours conversations to the web, this is actually going to happen more and more. The key is to engage with them and have a two-way dialogue.
Thanks again for the post.
-Steve
Interesting post Martha. It is far more optimistic than the one you will find on the Harvard Business Review titled: Should honesty be the policy in your office? http://bit.ly/bTmspU . It suggests numerous downsides to the social media-induced "obliteration" of the line between personal and professional lives. I would love to know your thoughts.
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevan…
It's all about transparency and allowing good and bad things to be written about one's company. Yes, i agree with the spying aspect, as far as employers trolling sites for their employee's resumes. That's ridiculous. I teach social media and Internet marketing in several colleges and through my won training organization predominatly to small business owners. Transparency, is one of the biggest hurdles for a business owner new to social media/networking to jump over. It is only human to want to put the kabash on anything bad being said, even from an employee. But, this also lends a great opportunity for the business to turn the tides.
I will now step down frommy soapbox.
Dave Hale
At the risk of appearing out of sync with prevalent opinion, and as mentioned in The Economist, the Social Notworking Site issue is an issue.
Engagement, in my opinion is very dangerous as a "goal". It should be regarded as a "means" to achieve more concrete and measurable goals.
I enjoyed the article thiugh
[...] The questions from the audience worried me more — especially the one about setting up fake profiles to monitor union organizing activity. Is that really the best use of this technology HR people can think of? If so, check out Martha Finney’s recent post on social media and employee engagement. [...]
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