Treatment for Social Media in Business/

Social Media Thought Leadership: Defining a Roadmap Course

UW Social Media Technologies & Implementation Certificate Program

May 17, 2011

Diana McSweeney

Enterprise social media or social networking focuses on the use of online social networks or social relations among people who share business interests and/or activities.

  Enterprise social networking is often a facility of

enterprise social software, which is essentially social software used in "enterprise" (business/commercial) contexts.  

It encompasses modifications to corporate intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication, collaboration and other aspects of their intranets.  

 

The success of social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, has shown companies that enterprise-wide collaboration can be a pivotal growth driver. Many are now adopting similar technologies – designed specifically for business – to reduce communication barriers and improve workforce productivity.

Enterprise social networking has taken off globally as businesses of all sizes see how it promotes employee collaboration and communication across departments, geographies and areas of expertise.

Instead of using email, employees have discovered that profiles, status updates, real-time feeds, filters and groups offer a better way to consume, share and manage information.

Many companies are starting to implement social networks to promote collaboration amongst their employees.

Companies are teaching their employees about tools like

cloud computing as new technologies are added to the enterprise social networks.

These networks are being implemented to get employees collaborating and sharing tips and ideas about how to improve the workplace.

By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts.

Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.

Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications.

Gartner, Inc.

By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration.

Twitter’s (consumer-microblogging) huge popularity has led many organizations to look for an "enterprise Twitter," that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features to support internal use between employees.

Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do – to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing or get quick answers to questions.

“It will be very difficult, however, for microblogging as a stand-alone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise,” says Jeffrey Mann, research vice president for Gartner. “Twitter's scale is one of the reasons for its popularity. When limited to a single enterprise, that same scale is unachievable, reducing the number of users who will find it valuable.”

Gartner, Inc.

Lack of familiarity with social networking◦ Employees may have had little or no experience using social networking

tools, such as working with wikis or blogs. In addition, they may have never been exposed to networking conventions such as tagging information or including links in data.

Lack of adoption◦ Unless training in how to use enterprise social networking tools is

provided to employees who don’t have experience using them, they are unlikely to be widely adopted.

Transparency◦ The sharing of information across the enterprise through via social networking

creates a transparency that may or may not be welcomed by all sectors of the organization.

Perception◦ There is often an assumption that social networking will not work well in a

particular industry or that its use may be perceived as unprofessional. In addition, the ability to justify use of enterprise social networking based on ROI is not always readily apparent.

Privacy and security◦ Because social tools make many things that were normally private much more

public, including all types of corporate data, privacy can become a huge issue at the enterprise level, when customer and employee data are at stake.

Ensure executive buy-in and enlist champions◦ Enterprise social networking means real change for email-centric cultures. Whether the decision

to deploy this technology comes from the top or is driven by employee demand, it takes commitment from leadership to get everyone participating.

Set goals from the start◦ The benefit of workforce collaboration is to improve productivity, so determine how to map this

value to business objectives. For example, determine how to measure productivity gains from fewer meetings, access to information, reduction in email usage or through improved collaboration on sales leads, customer projects or marketing campaigns.

Test the waters ◦ Companies may find it useful to try out social networking with a low-cost pilot. Open source tools

are widely available to experiment with. Another option is hosted applications, which are easy to get up and run, and usually offer a small number of corporate licenses at a very low price.

Set modest expectations◦ To get a project off the ground, avoid hyperbole about the transformative power

of social networks. Pitch the project as a pilot. Describe one or two general business improvements that are achievable. Set reasonable goals for user adoption, and keep an eye out for ways to measure business value.

Make it available to every employee, everywhere◦ The more people in a company that participate, the more valuable and useful

enterprise social networking becomes. Accessibility and choice are key to adoption, whether via a browser, desktop, or mobile app. Conversations and productivity will increase when everyone has access from any device, anywhere.

Don’t let fear strangle growth◦ Employees need time to grow comfortable with speaking up, sharing ideas, and

participating in company-wide conversations. Companies should avoid over-monitoring posts; it will have a chilling effect on participation.

Spell out etiquette◦ Remind employees that they’re in a corporate environment. Develop guidelines

for employees, such as keeping profile pictures professional and updates focused on work.

Be selective◦ People may accept every friend request on Facebook and reTweet at every

opportunity, but workplace productivity is not a popularity contest. Employees should be selective with who and what they follow at work. That means keeping their ‘feed’ meaningful – follow documents that are crucial, colleagues who provide valuable perspectives, and company leaders for insight on corporate objectives. ‘Focus on the information that will help you do your job better.’

“Enterprise social media/networking allows organizations to adapt the innovations of Web 2.0 to meet business objectives. It facilitates cooperation among a workforce, provides a secure and managed collaborative environment for content creators and producers and helps orchestrate a company’s people, processes and content in order to achieve strategic success.”

Cheryl McKinnonDirector, Enterprise 2.0Open Text Corporation (Aug. 2009)

Accelerates employee engagement and productivity◦ Employees that use technology to strengthen their internal social and expert networks can respond quickly to

demands and opportunities.

Protects and values corporate memory◦ Allowing people to share, reuse and learn from collected knowledge contributes to productivity and accurate

information disclosure.

Helps the development of trusted relationships◦ ‘Trust occurs when we become aware of the expertise, experience and track-record that surround people as

nodes in a network.’ Trust in the sources of information and knowledge greatly influences the decision to subscribe to, use and communicate information.

Educates and enables channels◦ ‘The most critical battles are won by those organizations that can deliver knowledge and insight to partners

at precisely the right moment.’

Blueshirtnation.com is Best Buy’s social networking site for employees.

According to Steve Bendt, senior manager for social technology, it’s attracted 20,000 users. Employees can participate in activities such as using audio files or blogging.

The impact has been "pretty huge," enabling the company to listen to and better understand employees, Bendt says. Barriers are being broken down.

"It was about giving up control right away," Bendt said. “Employees have the means to connect with people they've never met before," such as a store in Las Vegas talking to a store in North Carolina.

An employee can put an idea on the site and get funding for their idea anywhere in the company. The site does not challenge the hierarchy but complements it, Bendt said.

Turnover appears to have been impacted as well as employee morale. The overall turnover rate at the company is 60 percent while turnover of people using the site is just 8 to 12 percent.

Oracle built a social networking site that features rich profile support, integration with the company's LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an Internet protocol that email and other programs use to look up information from a server) directory system and the ability to make contacts with people, said Paul Pedrazzi, vice president for strategy and innovation at Oracle.

According to Paul Pedrazzi, vice president for strategy and innovation, an hour after launching the site, there were 270 people using it. “When I came in the next morning, we had about 8,000 people on the site.”

Participants are from around the globe. “Russia is a heavy user,” says Pedrazzi.

Now, about 10,000+ people a week use the site. The social network is about the social fabric of the company and applying it to information. Users can share information such as news articles, PowerPoint presentations, and budgets.

Pfizer hosts an enterprise wiki, called PfizerPedia, which was started as a side project by a handful of scientists in the company’s global R&D unit. The wiki grew so popular that it’s become a formally supported IT platform. It has more than 2,300 users across multiple business groups, including sales, IT, and manufacturing, who use it to create knowledge bases and share documents.

Pfizer also has an enterprise blog. Pfizer executives use the blog, which gets 10,000 visits a month, to communicate with employees about Pfizer’s business activities.

Pfizer’s internal site for social bookmarks lets employees share links to content and Websites they

find relevant to their work. The company also is taking advantage of the social networking features built into SharePoint, which let employees create personal profiles. Departments and project teams also can create blogs and wikis associated with specific business domains inside SharePoint, such as a sales team or a specific department.

Despite Pfizer’s investment in social networking tools, associate director Dave Biersach says, “It’s all but impossible to calculate ROI.” Instead, he measures value by gauging how much the company’s social networking applications “entwine themselves into employees’ daily work lives until they can’t imagine living without them.”

“Enterprise social networking can revolutionize the way we work. It offers the same benefits that come from large-scale collaboration on sites like Facebook and Twitter, but with the advantage of adding business context and enterprise security.

By eliminating productivity barriers erected by yesterday’s technologies, it’s possible to create a collaborative environment that can inspire employees to engage, innovate and strengthen the workplace.”

Kraig SwensrudSenior Vice President, Product Marketing SalesForce.com. (April 2011)

“HOW TO: Use Social Media for Enterprise Business,” Ben Parr (Mashable), June 30, 2009, http://mashable.com/2009/06/30/social-media-enterprise/

“The Benefits of Enterprise Social Media - How Social Media is Being Used to Capture Knowledge Inside Companies.” Dan Woods (Forbes), August 24, 2010, http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/23/enterprise-social-media-technology-cio-network-ibm.html

“Do Enterprises ‘Get’ Social Media?,” David Needle (eCRMGuide.com), January 19, 2011, http://www.ecrmguide.com/article.php/3921416/do-enterprises-get-social-media.htm

  “Can Enterprise Social Neworking Pay Off?” Andrew Conry-Murray (Internet Evolution.com), March 21, 2009, http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=173854

“Social Media in the Enterprise,” White Paper (Vingnette Social Media Solutions), April 2009, http://www.vignette.com/dafiles/docs/Downloads/Social-Media-in-the-Enterprise.pdf

“Best Practices in Enterprise Social Networking and Collaboration,” White Paper (Information Today, Inc., Supplement to KM World), July/August 2009, http://www.tristar.com/whitepapers/social-networking.asp

“Enterprise Social Networking, ” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_social_networking

“Web 2.0 Scores Successes in the Enterprise,” Paul Krill (InfoWorld), June 18, 2008, http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/web-20-scores-successes-in-enterprise-515