Ten Tips for Using Social Media to Engage Employees?

[Michael Netzley]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for creating this space. The issue of social media and employee engagement recently came up at an IDC conference hosted here in Singapore. I must admit I don't have a great answer to all the questions. If you needed to create a "Top 10" sort of list to help us think about the really important issues, what would you put on the list? Specifically I am thinking how social media (enterprise solutions) can help us engage employees and communicate?

[Training Time]

Not only can social media and networks be useful tools for employee engagement, they can also help promote your business in a positive light. If you tap into all the employees who might be blogging or interacting via social networks, there is a great opportunity to get your business' name out there as well. Odds are, employees are already discussing your company out there on the web. Hopefully its positive.. Engaging with social media is a good way to make sure that the message remains positive

[Alex Christou]

I'm pleased to see the balance in the discussion here.

It seems that no one is suggesting just throwing yourself (or your organisation) into developing social networking applications. As nice as it would be to have an intranet-based social network that is as popular as something like Facebook, the reality of take-up within an organisation is based upon many factors, as have been described in detail in previous posts.

In practice you not only have to create the appropriate space for employee needs and for business ends, but you also have to give people a reason to spend less time on their social network of choice and to start using a corporate one. The resistance and lack of knowledge/experience touched on above is also a hugely important factor. Not only might you need to 'sell' the idea but you may have to train people to use these applications too. In many companies everyone is "too busy" to take the time to do such things.

I guess my advice would be not to rush. Experiment with existing platforms. How many of your employees are on Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn? Can you build groups to engage with them in these spaces. If they are not engaging in these groups, is it because the office is invading their 'personal' shared online space or is it because they have no appetite or need for work-orientated social networking. There are many considerations and time should be taken to experiment as possible to ensure that time and resources are not being wasted.

[Phil Gerbyshak]

I agree with the ideas of starting small and making it safe, but I'm wondering how you do this. Is a public forum really the best place for it? I mean, sure Ning can give you an administrator and all, but what happens when an employee leaves the firm, or worse, what happens when the administrator leaves the company?

I read Lois Kelly's post on employee recession communications strategies and learned something great in a comment Lois shared: You need a purpose and a facilitator.

So who goes first/facilitates to make it safe?

• HR?
• One department?
• Whomever wants to?
• Bottom up?
• Top Down? Sorry I have more questions than answers. I'd REALLY like to understand what you all think so I can talk a little more about it at my company and with my team. Thanks in advance.