Home › Forums › Working together on-line › Sharing ideas

Can and How would Social media effect internal company communication strategies.

Gloria G3's picture
Thu, 09/03/2009 - 12:37 — Gloria G3

I am spending more and more time instigating social media strategies for internal company communications. E.g. HR solutions, employee loyalty programmes, mentoring programmes and more. I would love to hear your comments on the above question, or indeed questions if you have any.

‹ SEO shortcuts
Fri, 09/04/2009 - 09:37 — Andre
Andre's picture

Web 2.0 and Social Media

It may be worth while to make a clear distinction between the possibilities Web 2.0 as a platform offers businesses as well as public application developers and the Social Media phenomenon which (I think) is a specific kind of application built on top of Web 2.0 as a platform.

Web 2.0 is Application Capable Web. It is mostly distinguished as a browser based networked application delivery platform. Web 2.0 is not FaceBook or Twitter or Ning. These are applications built on the Web 2.0 platform which enables a wide range of networked applications to be offered as solutions.

"Social Networking" is a behavior of some kind enabled by applications built on Web 2.0 platform possibilities. I think the "Social" actually refers to sharing in many cases. Take Digg as an example. I don't know anyone who tries to make friends on Digg, but I know a lot of folks who are sharing their bookmarks with each other on the basis of their tagging and classification schemes. The benefit of Digg is that it can tell you which are the most popular links for certain search criteria based on tagging and classification schemes entered by others.

Facebook on the other hand is built to support social practices that exist in real life. We want to stay in touch, we show each other our photos, we do leave messages for our friends and we do like to follow the grapevine... In that sense Facebook is mediating some of our existing social practices. It automates and re-presents our social actions in an easily accessible medium - the web. It is made possible by the characteristics and potential of the application capable web, which we have come to call Web 2.0.

On the basis of this analysis we have at least three phenomena to talk about with our clients:

1) Web 2.0 as an application development platform - relevant for both in-house and client facing web applications.
2) Sharing Applications which make life at work easier. Includes document sharing and collaboration all the way to knowledge sharing and resource sharing. There are a wide range of business process optimization possibilities in this area.
3) Social Applications encouraging people to build social networks and keep in touch.

The link below may help to explain how we can benefit from talking about and sharing real experiences of what we are talking about, while we are talking about it.
http://softwareindustrialization.com/default,date,2005-07-03.aspx

DESIGN

Thu, 09/03/2009 - 13:35 — Andre
Andre's picture

"media strategy"

I learned something from Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist.

His theory is that a society - a "social" bunch of folk - are dependent on their means of communication to become a society - or "social". He hypothesized that the very structure of the society with all it's allowances and taboos depended to a great extent on the media employed in communicative actions.

I don't know if he is right, but my observation is that media (that which mediates) never exists without the need to communicate in a useful way, mostly in order to achieve something else.

If the something else could be cooperation in doing, and the kind of "medium" you would like to see employed in companies could help folks cooperate, I guess the question would be: "how are they cooperating now?

Here is one company - a recent IPO in the USA - who makes a case for what you are working on with your clients.
http://www.cornerstoneondemand.com

Thu, 09/03/2009 - 13:03 — Andre
Andre's picture

Why?

If you can answer why you are "instigating" - very good choice for the action - then we can make some progress in the discussion.

Thu, 09/03/2009 - 13:22 — Gloria G3
Gloria G3's picture

I am instigating because many

I am instigating because many HR and company directors have not explored how a social media strategy can support and streamline and empower their employees. There are still many non-believers. However, more and more when I do explain that social media strategies can deliver better ways than the old employee assessment programmes and traditional internal communication efforts in increasing employee satisfaction, they are curious...

—

Gloria Ruhrmund
G3 Mobile Media Agency
G3 Mobile Consulting
www.g3mobile.co.za