{"id":784,"date":"2012-02-21T08:27:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T13:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterprisestrategies.com\/?p=784"},"modified":"2015-07-26T22:52:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-26T22:52:17","slug":"how-enterprise-social-media-is-valuable-to-every-level-of-your-company-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterprisestrategies.com\/2012\/02\/21\/how-enterprise-social-media-is-valuable-to-every-level-of-your-company-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"How Enterprise Social Media is Valuable to Your Company Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an Enterprise Social Media advocate, you may find yourself singing the praises of internal social media strategies for a number of audiences who are tentative about this \u201cnew\u201d way of communicating, sharing information and working. Communicating with a mobile workforce is absolutely key for managing employees whilst out and about which is why the GSMtasks remote field service app<\/a> is a popular choice for businesses at the moment to stay connected with everyone’s location and current assignments.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to be heard if you aren\u2019t speaking to your listener\u2019s values. <\/strong><\/p>\n

What these different audiences might not understand \u2014 and what you can help them realize \u2014 is that what they have to gain from enterprise social media is directly related to what their coworkers, their managers and company executives have to gain. In the first of this two-part blog series, I\u2019m covering three of six fundamental ways enterprise social media is valuable to adopters at every level of your company.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>Knowledge silos come tumbling down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a recent interview, Andrew McAfee<\/a>, a principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Digital Business, recalls a memorable line from Lew Platt, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. As the story goes, Platt looked out across his well-run, highly respected company and said, \u201cIf only HP knew what HP knows, we\u2019d be three times more productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

When people representing different departments, locations, disciplines and ranks in your company aren\u2019t sharing what they know, opportunities are missed and inefficiencies result. Enterprise social media removes the knowledge silos that inhibit free-flowing communication and engages everyone to create their own knowledge collection.<\/p>\n

Instead of relying on a knowledge management team \u2014 which is often stuck within certain corporate silos, unable to fully integrate and then disseminate needed information \u2014 to create information to be shared, employees are the creators and sharers. Enterprise social media puts the responsibility not on a small group but on all of a company\u2019s employees to put their knowledge in a social, shareable, format that is accessible to all. Everyone is essentially part of the knowledge management team and has access to that shared information.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Employee engagement grows.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jennifer Sniderman<\/a>, Sprint\u2019s Manager of Employee Communications Channels and Editorial Strategies, says the company\u2019s intranet and social media platform are driving knowledge of the Sprint brand and its strategic decisions from the inside out. Employees who receive a more personal explanation of the \u201cwhy\u201d behind corporate\u2019s decisions tend to have more trust in those decisions, she says. Sprint\u2019s internal \u201cSprint Space\u201d includes 1,300 employee-produced blogs, where hot topics and perspectives are regularly shared. Enterprise social media empowers Sprint employees to participate in the company\u2019s internal conversations, directly supporting its employee engagement.<\/p>\n

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Employees who are producing their best work see a value and purpose in their jobs. They feel like they are contributing to the greater good. They are happier on the job because they don\u2019t feel powerless. They are a real part of the big picture. This is the heart of employee engagement. Deepening relationships between management and employees is key to growing this kind of collaboration, and enterprise social media helps facilitate it.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Top talent recruitment and retention are supported.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As an employer, you want to retain top talent. As an employee, you want to work for an employer that engages you and provides you with the best tools to succeed. To better understand the value of social media in the workplace, APCO Worldwide<\/a> and Gagen MacDonald<\/a> recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. employees<\/a>. Its findings regarding internal social media (ISM) include:<\/p>\n