Get your employees involved with Social Media

Written by Ron Desi on August 5, 2009 – 7:32 am -

I was reading a Wall Street Journal online article titled, For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess. It is a great article about how organizations can avert or at least smooth over PR related issues using social media. In the article, I saw a quote I want to bring to your attention.

“Some companies are training staffers to broaden their social-media efforts. At Ford, Mr. Monty plans to soon begin teaching employees how to use sites like Twitter to represent the company and interact with consumers.

Coca-Cola Co. is preparing a similar effort, which initially will be limited to marketing, public affairs and legal staffers. Participants will be authorized to post to social media on Coke’s behalf without checking with the company’s PR staff, says Adam Brown, named Coke’s first head of social media in March.”
from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124925830240300343.html

 

In my last post, Social Media in the Organization: Embrace it. Don’t Block it!, I mention this specifically. Organization must embrace social media and show employees how to use it to do their jobs more effectively. Ford and Coke “get it”!

And take a look at this article. It appears that Employees using Facebook and Twitter at work are 9% more productive.


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Posted in Business Insights, Social Media | 4 Comments »

4 Comments to “Get your employees involved with Social Media”

  1. Mike L. Says:
    August 6th, 2009 at 8:18 am

    You can also piggyback this article on the one you wrote regarding how front-line employees can ruin a firm’s brand. I’m sure 99% of a company’s employees will positively represent their firm on social media forums, however 1% might post something inappropriate. Once digital information gets into the web, it usually takes on a life of its own. Companies cannot stop their employees from posting onto social media sites, however I would be very leery about giving employees ‘cart blanche’ to post on behalf of the entire company.

    As for social media forums making employees more productive, this BBC article says that due to the sheer amount of information on the internet, most people now have an average attention span of about 9 seconds, or the same attention span as a typical goldfish.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1834682.stm

  2. Ron Desi Says:
    August 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Mike – I remember seeing a review for a book (can’t recall the title) and the auther said the short attention span is a good thing…I’ll try to get the title.

  3. Brynn Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 10:15 am

    I think the interesting part of this post is that Coca Cola marketing staffers will be able to “…post to social media on Coke’s behalf without checking with the company’s PR staff…” it’s a lot to ask of a company to let staffers post without permission, but that is key to frequent and natural tweets and updates.

  4. Ron Desi Says:
    September 19th, 2009 at 4:13 am

    Brynn – that’s right…in social media transparency is key.

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