The way we work is changing. The amount of digital native employees is rapidly increasing. Employees no longer work a 9-5 day and network connectivity matters. Social media and accessible cloud-based software present an opportunity for more efficient work. Because of these changes, corporate operations are quickly evolving.
The term for businesses working in an interconnected, collaborative social manner is called “Social Business.” There are many advantages to operating as a Social Business, but it takes foresight and sign-off from the executive team (many of whom are digital immigrants), a strategic implementation plan, and the right technologies to implement. Corporations need to overcome the old-fashioned way of working and transition into a Social Business before they’ve missed the boat.
All companies executing Social Business have one thing in common - a place where they can collaborate both internally and externally. Visualize this as your corporate Intranet, just on social steroids. This is a place where you can collaborate in forums, share streamed updates like Twitter, make comments on media like Facebook, and work on documents as a team like Google Drive. This shared space is home to the following dynamic documents, at a minimum:
- Social guidelines and goals for employees
- Corporate social account links, including strategy and goals
- Employee contact information (phone, Twitter handle, LinkedIn profile)
- Content calendar with hot dates and corporate announcements
- Campaign one pagers that encourage employees to share related social messaging with their networks
This space is used to encourage sharing, capture knowledge, enable action, and empower employees. Having this creates corporate transparency, allows the corporation and employees to crowdsource ideas, enables opt-in on projects, and ensures collaboration that’s natural. Companies who use social communications encourage employee ownership and pride of their product and their company. This also results in non-siloed social media execution. All departments and personnel can and should partake in social communications, from Customer Service to Human Resources to Sales.
There are many Social Business software to consider, but here are a few:
Enjoy these additional resources about Social Business that really resonated with me:
- The Social Era is More Than Social Media by Nilofer Merchant
- Social Business Design Infographic by Mark Smiciklas (see above image)
- Report: Making The Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks by Charlene Li
How are you and your team using Social Business to not only connect with the outside world, but with your own employees as well?
Photo credit: Mark Smiciklas
