Extending Brand to Employees
The power of social media: empowering employees to put it to work
Conference Board
11.17.08

AGENDA
• INTRODUCTIONS
• CONTEXT: WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
• WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT
• DESIGNING A PROFESSIONAL “SOCIAL” NETWORK
• ANCHORS & OBSTACLES
• RECESSION ISSUES
• TOOLS & RESOURCES

COMMUNITY YOU LOVED….WHAT MADE IT GREAT?

What Employees Want|What Companies Want

What’s the same
IdenYfy with ‐‐ and believe in ‐‐ company.
My work ma]ers.
Help and get help.
Be heard, have a say.

What’s different
Trust.
Access to informaYon.
Empowerment (with or without company)
Influence.

People are changing faster than companies.

Profiles:
Not just among digital naYves
61% are 30 years+;
40% earn $90k+
Blogads study: 17,169 blog site visitors; May 2008

According to a Forrester Research poll, U.S. consumers are flocking
to parYcipatory venues to the extent that it is now mainstream.
• A majority of Internet users (75%) parYcipate in some sort of social
media, up from 56% in 2007.
• “Spectator\" rates jumped from 48% to 69%.
• Those wriYng reviews increased from 25% to 37%.

“Social networks will be be common in workplace,
like it or not.”
Economist Intelligence Unit: The digital company 2013: Freedom to collaborate
“Social networks will transform the nature
of work: social networks
provide context to to content.”
Forrester Research, November 2008
“From an enterprise perspecYve, it is becoming
increasingly important for companies to provide
internal social sooware tools.”
Motivations for Social Networking at Work, IBM Research, November 2008

Employee 2.0
PlaOorms of parQcipaQon
New culture of sharing, one in which content is
freely shared and where it is easy for people to
collaborate, solve problems, and connect with
people and social intelligence.
Common Employee 2.0 concepts include web‐based
wikis, communiYes, social‐networking sites, video
sharing sites, wikis, blogs, forums

75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are
eager to get involved in social-networking
initiatives for marketing or customer
relations purposes, but 50 percent will fail.
Gartner Group

Business drivers
 Faster response to customer facing issues
Improved ef;iciency  Reduced training costs
And effectiveness  Faster, less costly access to critical information, experts
 Faster time to market
 Problems surface faster
Faster problem  Diverse perspectives = faster innovation
solving  Flat vs.. hierarchal cuts time to solution
 Collaboration speeds problem solving
 Unexpected innovation
 Stronger connection with others, organization
More engaged  Able to campaign for projects
employees
 Career boosting: expertise more visible
 Ability to attract top talent
Greater ability to • Early warning: emerging issues
manage reputation • Faster response to potential issues, problems
• Reduced bias, costs via direct communications
• Greater trust through networked relationships
• Greater in;luence, trust via word‐of‐mouth

IBM social software benefits acknowledged by
% of survey respondents
Improved customer satisfaction 42%
Increased sales 60%
Increased sense of belonging 65%
Improved personal reputation 65%
Increased productivity 74%
Reused assets 77%
Shared know ledge w ith others 84%
Accessed experts quicker 84%
Increased skills 87%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
*Source: IBM Global Technical Services Knowledge Community of Practice Business Impact Survey 2007
completed by approximately 2,300 respondents.

Value of engaged employees
•Most statistically valid measures: higher productivity,
lower turnover
•Improved customer service
•Outperform competitors 8:1: revenue, pro;itability*
• Grow earnings 2.6X faster**
*Firms of Endearment: How World­Class Companies Pro9it from Passion and Purpose
** Gallup Research

Framework for getting started: VOICE
V = vision, why business matters
O = openness of communications
I = insight from what’s being talked about
C = connecting,campaigning, career advancing
E = empowering ambassadors

Vision
81% of engaged employees strongly agreed
That they knew what their company stands for
And what makes them different.
Just 11% of actively disengaged
Employees felt the same way.
Source: Gallup

“Leadership comes when your hope and your
optimism are matched with a concrete vision of
the future and a way to get there.”
“People eagerly engage when they want
something to improve.”
Seth Godin, Tribes

Openness of communications
• Feedback from the 160K employees
in the ;ield who are \"breathing the
same air as the customers”
• Social culture of company: 25,000
employees in community
• 401k plan enrollment up 30%
• Micro‐lending: new business ideas
• Improved communication: stores =
HQ
Blue Shirt Nation: Business Innovation Factory
http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/innovationstorystudio/bif4_koellingbendt.php

Openness:
Addressing how issues
Affecting company

Insights: what’s being talked about
By bringing the social tool inside the enterprise, the
associated data relating to the connections, interests,
and activities are suddenly available and archivable by
the company, providing new information sources and
new possibilities for understanding the workforce.
“Motivations for Social Networking at Work,” IBM Research, November 2008

Deloitte Film Festival
Deloitte Film Festival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfx6-5aDaUE
Deloitte Iron Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PId0rzQPvFQ

“What if HP knew what HP knows?”
The Social Life of Information

Connecting, Campaigning, Climbing
IBM’s Beehive

Connecting, Campaigning, Climbing
Caring Climbing Campaigning
Lists Hobbies, outside Skills, background Professional advice,
interests quesYons
Photos Personal Work related Related to project or
campaign
About Hobbies, outside ProjecYng experience, Project descripYon,
You’s interests resume goals, links
Status AcYviYes, state of Emphasis on current work Goals and opinion
mind oriented

Connecting, Campaigning, Climbing

EXERCISE:
Designing an employee community

CreaQng a highly effecQve culture:
1. Respect for individuals: whole person, parYcipate in decisions
2. Transparency: access to same info, exposure to execs
3. Empowerment: sense of purpose authority to please customers,
4. Teambuilding: sense of idenYty, culture and values, feeling of equality
Firms of Endearment
Wharton School Publishing

Emerging Best PracQces

EMERGING COMMUNITY BEST ‐‐ AND WORST PRACTICES
TECHNOLOGY

WHAT CONTRIBUTES MOST TO COMMUNITY SUCCESS
2008 TribalizaQon of Business Study: Beeline Labs, Deloi_e, SNCR

GREATEST OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS

8 EMERGING BEST PRACTICES
1. Start with the end in mind:
what is the purpose of the community?

What’s the purpose?
Collaborating Connecting Training
Sharing knowledge
Solving a problem
Brainstorming
Supporting
Organizing an event
Keeping people informed
CEO connection
Providing ideas Complaining
Introducing a program Recruiting

2. What is the promise of the community:
What value will people experience?
“It must offer some value higher than something else
She already does, or she won’t free up the Yme…you need to
convince individuals not just that they will find the group saYsfying
and effecYve but hat others will find it so as well.”
Clay Shirky, NYU, Here Comes Everybody

CommuniQes grow if enough people care about them,
and die if they don’t.
So start small and inexpensive.
Don’t overcomplicate.

3. Don’t start with the technology:
Purpose & promise define tech needs

Questions about tools, technology
• Are people already using a tool or technology plauorm that they like,
and we can leverage, e.g., Facebook? Intranet?
• Is it easy to join? (RegistraYon, simple profiles)
• Do the tools support how the group wants to interact?
• Do tools help people do what they actually want to do?
• Can people easily create sub‐groups?
• Are the tools familiar?
• Are the tools social ‐‐ or merely content management?
•Can you “Webify” exisYng, e.g., add blogs, comments to Intranet?

4. Have a plan for great content, ongoing
acQviQes ‐‐ especially at the start

THE MORE CONTENT YOU HAVE, THE MORE MEMBERS YOU WILL GET.
THE MORE MEMBERS YOU HAVE, THE MORE CONTENT YOU WILL GET.
THE BETTER YOU MATCH CONTENT AND MEMBERS TO MEMBER PROFILES
THE MORE MEMBERS AND CONTENT YOU WILL GET.

“The number of people willing to
start something is smaller, much
smaller than the number of people
who are willing to contribute once
someone starts something.”

5. Have dynamic community leaders:
Welcome, parQcipate, connect ‐‐ but not control

Community managers:
people that people in community idenQfy with

6. Get passionate core of parQcipants before launching:
Creates culture, “there there”

Goal: 250 members in 6 months
Reality: 250 within 48 hours; 5,000 w/n 18 months

7. Have governance and guidelines

What should guidelines cover?
• Spamming
• Styles of communicaYons
• Copyright
• Illegal acYviYes “Managing Online Forums
• Privacy & Communities”
• Name or anonymous By Patrick O’Keefe
• SensiYve issues
• Respect
• Signatures and email address
• Who has final say
• Consequences
• Help

Draw on other
companies’ policies,
lessons

Collaborate with the attorneys:
Bring in social media legal expertise

8. Learn from other industries, innovators

8. Learn from other industries, innovators:
Brand culture‐company culture: social media
Experience/advance culture

Employees and the Recession
8 communicaQons strategies

1. Create online alumni communities ASAP – a place
to help ;ind new jobs, provide encouragement and support,
get ;inancial advice on how to keep life together, etc.
You can be up and running with Ning community in less
than 30 minutes for less than $30 a month.

2. Don’t paint a rosy picture on a bleak landscape:
People know things are bad, don’t pretend they are not. Be
clear about your business situation and what you believe the
company needs to do to survive and come out stronger.
For every action, help people understand the why behind it.
You’ll earn more trust by being real vs. trying to put a “good
spin” on a dif;icult situation.

3. It’s not about transparency, it’s about fairness & caring:
Employees must feel that you care about their personal well‐
being. A recent Harvard study found that “even well‐meaning
organizations can destroy trust if they are perceived as being
fair but callous.”

4. Tie every decision to your corporate values:
Take out those values and use them as the guide for making
decisions and communicating. If you really believe the
values, they will guide executive decisions in a way that will
resonate with all your stakeholders, particularly employees.
In making announcements, explain to people how the
decision supports the organization’s values.

5. Start with managerial incompetence:
The largest driver of employee trust, according to the
Harvard study, is managerial competence.
In looking where to reduce staff, don’t simply cut by salary
range or management level. Make sure you keep the A
players, and excuse the mediocre. This will earn trust and
motivate employees.

6. Get Enterprise 2.0 tools to make it easier to work:
With fewer people needing to do more work, make it a priority
to provide company‐wide 2.0 tools (wikis, blogs, communities,
forums) that make it easier for people to ;ind help and
resources within the company, collaborate, solve problems
small and large, and connect as people with other people.
Most of these tools are inexpensive, easy to install and require
little training.

7. Sit in the chair:
Last year a communications manager of a large retailer put
two chairs in the company lobby and made herself
available to employees who wanted to sit and talk. The
response was overwhelming. Sometimes small gestures go
a long way, especially in such stressful times.

8. One point at a time:
My tennis partner, a ;inancial CEO, and I were recently
getting crushed in a match. He came over and gave me this
advice: “Take it one point at a time.” We did, and we came
back and won. In such stressful, uncertain periods this same
advice may be good for business as well.

Tools & resources

www.radian6.com

Ning.com

Social network/community software:
Jive
Lithium
Crowdvine
Sharepoint (with caution)
IBM (caveat)

Wordle.net

Let’s keep talking
Blog: www.foghound.com
Site: www.beelinelabs.com
Email: lkelly@beelinelabs.com