July 27th, 2009 | by Sharlyn Lauby

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.

I admit I’m a Twitter addict. I enjoy the flurry of tweets and the variety of information my followers share with me. But even though I like the variety, it’s still important for me to feel some sort of connection to the people and companies I follow. On the people side, the way I connect is by getting to know someone’s personality. It’s the same if I’m following a company. Where the person is offering personality, the company is successfully tweeting their corporate culture.

But if all you’re doing is sending out auto-tweets, I’m not sure either of us is getting the full benefit of your presence on TwitterTwitter. Some people don’t like communicating with a company logo. But when a company offers a pleasant look and feel, and tweets out information of value to customers, then it is possible to connect with them. Here are 7 suggestions (along with some Twitter examples) for establishing a rock-solid corporate culture on Twitter:

1. Share Your History

Another historic moment is when an organization grows and expands, especially in the current economic climate. Dunkin’ Donuts did a great job announcing their entry into the Birmingham market.

2. Talk Vision and Mission

His point is well taken. People want to be engaged with companies that look engaging. Think about the purpose of your organization. Twitter can be a place to talk about goals, plans and offer a glimpse of what life is like at your place of work.

3. Reveal Industry Insights

Another company setting the standard in this area is Pandora Radio. When a piece of legislation that could impact their business was introduced in the U.S. Senate, they turned to Twitter to educate listeners. They regularly updated their followers on the progress of the legislation. And, they thanked their tweeps for the support. (Very important!)

4. Recognize Employees

First, they very smartly tweet about their company’s commitment to diversity. As a reader, this speaks volumes about what’s important to Marriott as a company. Second, I have been equally impressed with the sensitivity they expressed for their associates and others during the recent tragedy in Jakarta. That puts a very human face on the corporate Twitter account.

5. Profile Customer Successes

Jessica Lee, senior employment manager for APCO Worldwide, feels that as Twitter matures we’ll start seeing companies share more of their own and their clients’ successes. “I personally like sharing even the very smallest things – clients wanting to get more involved in social media, or how our own Facebook Fan Page is growing – because it’s exciting to see the growth along with new and different ways of being applied in the business world.”

DAXKO, meanwhile, is combining the popularity of Twittering by their customers with their company user’s conference by setting up a Twitter account for the conference. According to Dunn, they’ll use the site to “live tweet from the conference so our customers that couldn’t attend can follow what’s going on and hopefully get some value out of it.”

6. Be Responsive

Much of the success attributed to @ComcastCares is their responsiveness. Dunn agrees. “I think I’d rather have no Twitter account than an account that wasn’t responding to replies or DMs within 5 to 10 minutes. Customers that are savvy enough to use Twitter are going to expect a lot of responsiveness.”

And, it’s not only how fast you respond but how you respond. Lee reminds us that “whether your customer is a consumer of your product or service, or in my case, a potential employee who is interested in working for APCO – the tone should still be conversational and friendly. And ultimately, you want it to be an extension of yourself and a reflection of your organization’s culture.”

7. Ask Questions About the Future

Or, what do you want to see in our tweets?

As a consumer, I love it when companies ask me for my opinion. It shows me they care about me and what I have to say. And, I love it even more when I see a company take suggestions and ideas seriously.

Conclusion

Use the examples in this post as the starting point for a conversation or training session about Twitter best practices and your corporate culture. By sharing with your team the right way to leverage Twitter, we can all celebrate our successes together. If you know any other good examples of companies using Twitter to share their corporate culture in a positive way, please share them in the comments.

July 16, 2009 by aniisu

Planning to get your organization on the social media map? There are factors which I learnt along the way that is needed to get completely immersed. Read more about the do’s and don’ts of kick-starting your firm’s social media communication. Understand also how you can leverage internal communication context and content.

The power of social networking sites can’t be ignored and communicators may be worried if your stakeholders are being actively engaged on them. If your organization believes that social media is meant only for the Marketing or Public Relations department to handle, they may be missing a great opportunity to maximize the power of your employees and internal communication.

I believe the boundary between the external world and the internal environment is blurring rapidly. Internal communicators who spot this opportunity can maximize the value social media offers. Extending an organization’s reach is today an avenue for collaboration between internal communication and external media teams.

If you are for instance starting out on a social media campaign, here are some ideas to translate the great work you do internally to feature as your organization’s effort to hire, engage and collaborate with their stakeholders.

a)       Study the scope and environment: You may not be the first to get on any of the well known social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin or MySpace. That does not take away anything from getting what you want to achieve by starting out now.  Understand what others in your field have done in terms of content, engagement, methodology and monitoring feedback.

b)      Define how your organization can engage: Do you expect the page to be an extension of your website? Is it a channel to provide support for your products or services? Are you hoping to hire the right candidate? Should you be showcasing your culture? Do you believe your customers will share their practices and pain points on your page? Document the precise objectives and measurement criteria. Get a legal point of view – it never hurts to know what can get you in trouble and out of it!

c)       Get an enthusiastic team in place: This is a cross pollination project – not an individual initiative. Have employees from different departments to play leading roles in the administration, content generation and maintenance.  Some of the best ideas can come from those fresh out of college – since they use this medium the most!

d)      Create a site-map before you tackle the content: Are you clear about how the site will look? Are you sharing a lot more than what you bargain for? By getting a buy-in on the structure and outline, you hold the key to the best outcome from your content.

e)       Articulate the rules of engagement: So you expect your prospects to visit your site? Will you allow them to use it for their personal marketing objectives or do you want them to focus on what you have defined? Do you have a set of ‘do’s and don’ts’ called out?

f)        Content matters: Every organization has a lot to share ranging from their culture, values, ethics, policies, their work, client wins, industry awards, employee testimonials, office imagery and fun events. Choose how you want your organization to be perceived. Content once published can always be replicated in no time across the web world.

g)      Pilot a site: Having got your site live, you can begin by getting your employees to test drive it first, get feedback, have them as fans and improvise.

h)       Get leadership to promote it: Nothing works more than the commitment of your senior leaders. Request a senior leader to officially announce the page open, seek participation and drive traffic.

So now that you have your company’s social networking page live, how can you keep it current?

Invest time to brainstorm ideas such as leveraging ‘internal writers’ to contribute, getting employee profiles, running a contest, having your recent employee fest showcased or an upcoming event highlighted. Also give the site mind space on your intranet.

Other thoughts to keep in mind while keep your organization’s social networking page buzzing.

a) Be open: You may have feedback which is scathing and embarrassing. Step back and understand the context of the feedback and take action if merited.

b) Start small: Begin with the basics and evolve as the page take shape. Remember social media is about collaboration and your employees and other stakeholders can help make it robust.

c) Monitor progress: Understand that having a page on MySpace or Facebook is not the end but a start of the social media journey. Keep a finger on the pulse and monitor posts, comments and inputs coming on the page.

Go ahead, let the power of ‘six degrees of separation’ maximize the potential of your organization’s social media plunge.

The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications

E-mail has become one of the dominant forms of workplace communication, but new research suggests it also may be the most deceptive.

Researchers at Rutgers and DePaul Universities studied how e-mail influenced communication among 48 graduate students. In the study, they told students they had $89. Each student could then divide the money any way he or she liked and give a portion to another person whom they didn’t know.

The students used e-mail or pen and paper to divvy the pot. In describing the amount of money to be divided, students using e-mail lied more than 92 percent of the time. In comparison, about 64 percent of the students using pen and paper lied about the pot size.

Among those students who lied about the size of the pot, the students using pen and paper were more generous. On average, students using e-mail claimed the pot was $56, and they offered the other person $29. Pen-and-paper students said they had $67 to share and offered the other person $34.

“There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust,” said Liuba Belkin, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor of management at Lehigh University. “You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing nonverbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception.”

Researchers noted that something changes when a person puts their fingers on a keyboard, rather than putting something in their own handwriting.

“E-mail communication decreases the amount of trust and cooperation we see in professional group work, and increases the negativity in performance evaluations,” said co-author Terri Kurtzberg of Rutgers. “People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing.”

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: September 02, 2008 – 10:54AM CT

Companies making use of Google Apps as part of their business operations can now share videos within an organization without having to upload them to YouTube or another video sharing service. Google introduced Google Video for business today, which allows businesses to upload a video to Google Apps, then invite others to view it securely without having to worry about messing with privacy settings. The feature is already available for enterprises making use of Google’s services, and will soon come to education customers, as well.

read more…

This certainly won’t be the most interesting product launch of the day for Google, but it’s worth noting anyway. This morning Google is launching Google Video for business, a customized video platform aimed at businesses for internal use. Think training vides, HR videos, etc. (anything that isn’t outside facing). The product is included in Google Apps Premier Edition for free, with 3 GB of storage per user account.

This is a “Zero billion dollar market today” Director of Product Management Matthew Glotzbach said in a briefing about the product. The reason there’s no market, though, is that it’s a huge pain to build a video infrastructure for internal use. Google Video for business aims to make that trivially easy.

Videos basically have the same features and limitations as YouTube, including upload size and file type limits. Videos have access control, even if they are embedded outside of the intranet or Google Apps, and can be tagged and commented on just like YouTube.