November 5, 2010 in Blog, Business by malte

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 2 – Social Media: improving staff communication

Social Media: improving staff communication

The internal communication processes of a given organization are generally highly diverse and fragmented. They encompass communication at different levels as well as different communication practices. Various aspects such as organizational learning, conflict management, values and information distribution are addressed under the umbrella concept of internal communication.

A sophisticated flow of communication is not only vital for proper dissemination and utilization of company information, but also plays a significant role in empowering people.

To put things in a nutshell: Use of social media within a company can help boost idea dissemination, generation and R&D. Via Employee-to-Employee and Employer-to-Employee connections, knowledge can be shared. The use of social media can, in addition, be extended to the recruitment and retention of employees.

Outcome managers will see an increase in idea generation, investment and loyalty from empowered employees and discover new skill sets and expertise among employees. Social media will also help the manager to share his/her culture and values.

Social Media is not simply confined to marketing: It is about people that an organization should value and also help develop both inside and outside the context of their corporate culture.
In our next blog post learn about some easy steps and techniques to use social media in internal marketing.

Malte Kempen

November 2, 2010 in Blog, Business, Facebook, SEO, Social Media, Training, Web Development by malte

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 1

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 1

Internal Marketing is learning to socialize.

By now it must be clear that social media provide a powerful and very important tool when it comes to communicating with so-called external customers as part of the overall marketing mix.

Another possible use open to you is to harness social media within an organization, as a means of internal communication and internal marketing.

Internal communication is as important as external advertising. After all, how can a company win the trust of its customers if it does not have the goodwill and trust of its own employees? When successful communication takes place in a company, the business has more information available with which to base a successful marketing plan.

Surveys of managers indicate that leadership understands that efficient internal marketing is a key factor in achieving corporate success as it acts to ingrain corporate culture, implement change management and/or to keep the workforce up-to-date. However, there are indications that managers lack knowledge in how to implement an appropriate internal marketing campaign, using social media.

It is, therefore, not surprising that half of all employees surveyed in a UK study indicated that they do not feel well informed about company-related issues. Such findings reveal just how important it is to improve communications with staff as part of an HR (business) strategy.

When it comes to social media, managers tend to act with caution. Companies need to stop asking to what extent they should limit and control social media and instead they have ask themselves how they can expand their organization’s internal and external communications via social media.

In short, social media platforms can help achieve business objectives beyond marketing. Key elements that go beyond the scope of classical marketing include: shaping company culture, strengthening change management initiative, improving execution of corporate strategy, facilitating corporate communication and last, but not least, increasing employee engagement.

In the following weeks we will post more on the topic of shaping internal marketing using social media.

Malte Kempen