Ketchum Perspectives

Overview by Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher

Ketchum's Chief Innovation Officer, Karen Strauss, and co-founder of Chicago-based InnovateNow, Lance Pressl, discuss the innovation laboratory that is the Internet and the innovation challenge in a knowledge economy

Viewpoints

How organizations can better manage their innovation processes, and how new crowdsourcing tools can tap innovative insights from the masses

Innovation Stories

Ketchum’s animated comic strip on innovation, The Innovation Chronicles of Kaptain Clairvoyant, and thoughts from recognized innovators in healthcare, design, and education

Roundtable

Approaches to creativity and innovation from China, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Top 10 Communications Innovations of the Last Decade

The top 10 communications technologies since 1999, with a poll for readers to rank their top three

Street Smarts

New numbers on innovation's value

VIEWPOINTS

Digital Workforce: Social Media and the Two Sides of Employee Engagement
By Rebecca Orbach
Consultant, Stromberg Consulting,
View bio

and

Helen Paczkowski,
Consultant, Stromberg Consulting
View bio

Let's face it, whether you personally have been blogging for years or are hesitant even to set up a LinkedIn account, social media is becoming more important to all of our lives. Tools like Twitter and Facebook enable any individual to engage broad audiences in dialogue. This makes social media an important resource for helping organizations interact with employees, connecting individuals across organizational and geographic boundaries, and enabling employees to communicate on a company's behalf. But take caution. Social media tools are exactly that: tools. To get the most from them, organizations must understand how to use them – in both the workplace and the marketplace.

Workplace
Research shows that engaged employees tend to display higher levels of performance, serve as proud brand advocates, and feel truly invested in the success of their company. And one recent survey reported that corporate communicators believe social media will lead to increased employee engagement. However, just because you use social media, doesn't mean your employees automatically will be engaged. As with any tool, misuse can lead to negative outcomes, such as opening up additional venues for disengaged and disgruntled employees to air negative opinions.

If you're looking to use social media to impact key drivers of engagement, start by considering these basic do's and don'ts:

Engagement Driver	Do	Don't
Collaboration and Relationship Building	Create an internal Facebook-like application that enables employees to connect regardless of location, function, or level	Underestimate the cost of a fully functional Facebook-like application Forget to create guidelines
Innovation	Create a forum using "crowdsourcing technology," which enables employees to submit and share ideas online to collectively troubleshoot business challenges; this process is facilitated by the online community, which decides through ratings or votes which ideas are most viable	Overlook the necessary communications and training needed to make this successful Neglect following up on ideas
Transparency and Leadership Visibility	Create a leadership blog where senior managers can connect directly with employees around the world	Choose a leader who is uninterested in blogging Let the blog go unmoderated Forget to set expectations on timing for posting responses

Marketplace
External social media programs often are missing one element: an organizational activation plan. Without guidance, employees may not be sufficiently motivated or prepared to act as representatives of the company's brand. Or worse, they may unwittingly damage the brand or use the tools for personal reasons.

Ideally, companies should have a strategy and an activation plan in place before delving into external social media, but it's never too late to begin. To get started, ask yourself each of the six questions below. While these questions also apply to internal programs, they are critical for external ones.

Why do you want to use social media? Identify key business objectives, align leadership, and establish metrics for measuring progress and ROI.
Is your organization ready? Measure base-line engagement levels and administer a small culture assessment to gauge the appetite for social media tools within the organization.
Do you have a strategy? Engage experts and design a social media strategy to address the needs of your employees and the business as a whole.
Is the organization aligned? Align strategy to your overall engagement program and communications plan. Remember, internal social media tools are not a replacement, but rather an enhancement to traditional employee interactions like face-to-face communication.
Is the organization ready for prime time? Ensure you have the right people and infrastructure in place to support implementation and behavior change. If appropriate, equip employees with the tools to act as external representatives of your brand.
Do you have "rules of the road"? Although it is impossible to prescribe for every scenario, develop and communicate corporate guidelines.
- Involve a team of social media experts and your company's legal counsel.
- Determine whether current policies adequately cover use of the new tools.
- Advise employees on how to set boundaries between work and personal life.
- Establish appropriate consequences for tools being misused.

Finally, whether you're looking to implement a program in the workplace or the marketplace, the most important investment you can make is taking the time to ensure you are using social media for the right reasons and that your organization is ready for both the opportunities and responsibilities it brings.

Perspectives Staff