An Internal Spin on External Social Media Trends

When I attend social media or technology conferences, I don’t usually expect to walk away with an exorbitant amount of relevant information since my professional niche is with internal communications, and not traditional PR. In other words, I know the presentations will primarily focus on external audiences, products and services emerging in the marketplace rather than providing insights or actionable steps to get C-suite executives to jump on the social business bandwagon. However, after a conference earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised by the seemingly obvious trends that emerged in the sessions that could be applied to internal communications.

Trend 1: Engagement
Whatever you want to call it, everyone is talking about engagement, empowerment, influence, etc. How do you measure it? How do you define it? What motivating factors create it? The bottom line is that you have to know your audience, then learn what makes them tick, and then find ways to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

Generally speaking, employees are your audience for internal communications. Are your employees engaged? Do they influence each other to become brand advocates and "sell" your company’s products or services to their personal networks? If not, your company should make better efforts to listen to what employees are saying. Create online communities or idea-generation spaces where employees can share their ideas on how to improve "X, Y or Z." Companies who invest in their employees and generate enthusiasm (e.g., any company on Fortune’s "100 Best Companies to Work For" list) tend to see a greater return on their bottom lines.

Trend 2: Scalability
Technology platforms are growing at a rapid pace these days. The number of new mobile devices and people streaming live videos and downloading data is escalating by the minute. That’s all good for our economy, I suppose, but what happens when the infrastructure or the staff is not there to support the increasing demand?

Scalability has similar implications internally, I think. With every new communication channel developed, recognition program launched or engagement initiative set, internal teams must account for the resources and staff needed to manage them properly. So be sure that you’re monitoring the actual time it takes to do those rudimentary, but incredibly valuable, tasks. Things like list management, communications support and Q&A development, for example. Having a sense of resource commitment will only help you down the road in staffing conversations and deciding on the projects you and your teams tackle next.

Trend 3: User-Generated Content
Websites are popping up left and right that look to us to populate the content. Review sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon and Yelp are, in essence, built by site visitors who post advice, recommendations and/or pictures. Without the personal anecdotes, these sites would have zero value, no? What about the tips people leave on Foursquare? Isn’t it that kind of information that, going forward, will continue to add more and more value?

But how does that equate inside companies. Well, I consider this to be employee-generated content, which includes anything posted to a company’s intranet such as comments on a news story, ideas provided through online brainstorming tools, professional blogs, workgroup communities, and the like. This stuff is so valuable to an organization. Most companies are lagging with their internal social business efforts compared to their external social media strategies, too. The lucky ones (like some of my clients!) already see the business value these social-based tools generate, especially when employees are trusted to share knowledge and information.

Trend 4: Gamification
(Is that a new word? I like it.) Rather than repeat what my colleague, Lisa Weser, has already addressed in her You Got Game post, I want to simply elaborate on a couple points.

1. "We’re human, and competition is baked into our DNA." Agreed. Whether it’s playing a harmless game of SORRY!, vying for the last cookie in the proverbial jar or attending an upcoming high school reunion … no one wants to be the loser, miss out or be seen as the least successful. Why? Because winning feels good. (No Charlie Sheen jokes, please.)
2. We’ve seen clients have success with employee video contests. The general premise is simply asking your employees to submit videos on specific business-related topics like showcasing your company’s values or sharing what they would do in a particular situation. The competition heats up when employees are then asked to vote for their favorites. Not only do these contests generate useful insights for internal teams, but they also garner the wonderful side effects Lisa mentioned in her post, "unlocking employee engagement and driving loyalty, productivity and retention in the workplace."

So now, you tell me. As an employee at your company, what do you see happening that falls into one of the trends mentioned above?