Social Networking: The New Water Cooler

By Walter Rogers
President and CEO
Baker Communication

There is no doubt that social media ecosystems such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have revolutionized the way that businesses are interacting with customers. Companies that have adapted their sales, marketing, and customer service processes to leverage social media tools are reaching more customers and closing more business, and the opportunities afforded by these tools are expanding every day.

What is less obvious, though no less revolutionary, is the way companies are also using social networking tools internally to connect their teams in fast, powerful ways that drive collaboration, coaching, and communication that result in new efficiencies and greater productivity. There was a time when businesses relied on memos posted on cork-backed bulletin boards and formal, face-to-face meetings – not to mention informal processes such as gossip traded around the water cooler – to push out information and drive collaboration within their teams. In many companies, social media processes are now rapidly replacing all other forms of internal interaction, resulting in greater efficiencies and driving faster, more focused production that ultimately has a direct impact on the bottom line.

Here are the top five options your company should be leveraging internally to drive communication and boost collaboration:

1. File Sharing. File-sharing is probably the most important and easiest to use tool in the social media ecosystem. File sharing technologies allow someone to upload documents to a site where they can be accessible to other members of the team. Sometimes the documents are posted so that other team members can review the content and download it for their own purposes, and in other cases the documents might be edited by another team member and then reposted for the rest of the team to review. No more meetings, no more trying to manage multiple conversations through email, and no more confusion over who has the current version of the document.
    
2. Blogs. Blogs exist to encourage the free expression of knowledge and expertise in a free-flowing, creative way. Blogs allow people to share their insight and opinions around a variety of topics that might be relevant to other team members, even though they not have any direct bearing on a current project. Blogs are great at stimulating in-depth interaction within the team that can often lead to new ideas for products and processes.
    
3. Wikis. Wiki comes from a Hawaiian word meaning "fast," and it refers to a very simple way to organize and share web pages so that the content can be quickly updated by multiple users. A wiki is a great way for team members to quickly collaborate on a project by adding new content, editing old content, and generally refine an existing idea or project in a way that truly reflects the collective wisdom and experience of the entire team.
    
4. Microblogging. You probably know this process by other names, namely "tweeting" on Twitter or "status updates" on Facebook. Microblogging allows team members to instantly send announcements or quick ideas to their entire workgroup. It is faster than email or instant messaging, because it often hits everyone‘s cell phone as well as their computer inbox. Just remember, microblog messages will go out to everyone on your list, and they are limited in size, so they are not appropriate for some types of complex or personal messages.
    
5. Discussion Groups. Discussion groups, originally known as "bulletin boards," have been around for a long time. Discussion groups are usually organized around specific topics or dedicated to particular user groups, and it is the closest thing to having a group of people sitting around a break room table or hanging out the water cooler just shooting the breeze. Someone posts a comment or question, and the rest of the group is expected to pile on, sharing (respectfully) their own opinions and insights and just generally generating energy and focus around the topic at hand. Discussion groups are great for inspiring collaboration, especially among team members working diverse schedules or from multiple sites.

Start by Defining the Goals

The biggest mistake that companies make when first exploring the world of social networking for use in their company is to focus on tools. Common statements heard from managers or executives include, "Hey, we need to have a Facebook page," or "Why don‘t we get everyone in the company to sign up for Twitter." This is the wrong place to start, unless you want most people to push back against the idea or just ignore it entirely. Instead of selecting tools, start by identifying goals: what improvements would you like to make in your ability to communicate and collaborate within the company, especially within specific teams? Once you know what your goals are, you can share those goals and benefits with team members and then – only then – introduce them to the tools. Remember, tools are simply ways to help you accomplish your goals. Good examples of goals might be:

• Enabling team members working remotely to review project documents as the project moves along. File sharing is great for this.
   
• Soliciting ideas to help solve a current problem. Discussion groups are the best way to build a collaboration solution.
   
• Quickly sharing status updates, posting links to new content, rapidly pushing out urgent information. This is a job for a Twitter or Facebook type of tool.

Identify the problem, define the goal, then select the tool that best helps you reach your goal and solve your problem.

What tool options are available?

You don‘t have to rely only on the mass consumable tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The market is overflowing with innovative new social media tools for business collaboration, and more and more of them are accessible and affordable for small and medium businesses. The best thing is that many of them run as hosted collaboration services, so there isn‘t a lot of expensive software to buy, usually just a nominal monthly fee. Tools to check out include Central Desktop, Wordpress, Google Apps, Atlassian, Confluence, Microsoft SharePoint "BPOS," and Yammer, just to name a few.

Customers of salesforce.com have a robust, full-function social networking tool available to them. Known as Chatter, this tool takes the notion of leveraging social networking ecosystems to a whole new level. Chatter allows sales organizations to leverage the data that is already resident within salesforce.com to create profiles and groups, give and receive status updates across multiple activities, customize information feeds to help monitor current projects and issues that affect your high priority targets, and share and work on documents with team members from a secure, centralized platform. Using Chatter, sales teams can quickly collaborate on opportunities, accounts, contacts and projects. Managers can "follow" those items most important to them proactively and gain insight into opportunities and obstacles and coach appropriately.

The trend this year is definitely for businesses to ignite their growth by leveraging social networking solutions for internal use. There will be a learning curve for some users, especially during set up and adoption of some tools. Be patient during this phase, but keep everyone focused on the goal and continually emphasize the benefits. Once these tools begin to permeate the culture of your company, everyone will be collaborating more efficiently and getting more done in less time.

Action Items:

• What are your top three goals for leveraging social media more effectively this year?
• What tools are you already deploying effectively, and what tools would you like to start using in the next 30 days?
• Explain your plan for helping to drive adoption of these tools across your entire company?
   

Walter Rogers is the President and CEO of Baker Communications. Baker Communications is a sales training and development company specializing in helping client companies increase their sales and management effectiveness. He can be reached at 713-627-7700.

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