For today's corporate communication professional, it's now assumed that you have a solid understanding of social media. What if that's not the case? Here are case studies, research tools and resources to help you make appropriate decisions.

Are you being asked to advise your company on the correct social media strategy to fit with your culture? What if you've never even used Twitter, let alone know how Pinterest works, but are expected to know what's right for your business?

Internal communication is as important as external communication. Social media use is as crucial a conversation as explaining the profession of corporate communication or role of employee engagement. There will always be a requirement for organizations to engage with online communities, albeit the tools may change over time. You need to be able to demonstrate gravitas in this area, and fast.

Digital versus social

Even the term social media creates complications in some companies, which choose “digital”, “social” or something entirely different. I think its use for corporate communication will become ingrained to the point where the focus is the communication, content and conversations rather than the name.

Management consultant Peter F. Drucker said the best way to predict the future is to create it. That's never been truer for corporate communication, particularly regarding social media. If you believe collaborative communication is right for your culture, choose the phrase that suits your workplace.

GAME, a large UK high street retailer of video games and consoles, uses tools for sharing best practice and tools for reducing inefficiencies. “Hardly catchy” says Paul Bennun, communications and engagement manager, “but they fit into a sense-making framework for our senior leaders.”

The organization is currently exploring a media database for video/image sharing. If each of their 340 stores takes two photographs over a new product launch weekend, and only one in 50 creates a good video, it has 700 photos and seven videos to use internally or externally. GAME is equipping employees with information to prepare for this change.

Paul adds: “It's incredibly exciting and opens up a wealth of content we currently aren't using. It's about plugging the business into conversations, creating the arena for them and extracting value from the content, which in most cases is already there.” In the words of Philippa Snare, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft UK: “Social is a mindset, not technology. Only do it if it comes naturally, or you could look like a dad on the dancefloor.”

Role of 21st century corporate communicator

Corporate communication is a broad term. Underneath it can sit internal communication (with employees, stakeholders and interested parties such as shareholders), external communication (with customers and media), public and government affairs, corporate social responsibility, sponsorship, brand, events and more.

These disciplines often overlap and each one requires unique skill sets and dedication. An effective corporate communication function and team recognizes and celebrates this and aligns effort, content and timings to benefit the business and its customers.

The lines between internal and external communication continue to blur. You're only a forwarded email/status or misplaced employee magazine away from headlines.

Assuming that all information will stay purely internal is foolhardy. In heavily unionized workforces or in times of change such as mergers and acquisitions, the criticality of your communication's accuracy and mindfulness of audience cannot be underestimated.

Alex Smith, head of communications at the Target Ovarian Cancer charity, says: “We don't distinguish between internal and external communications as we have fantastic volunteer support from women with ovarian cancer, their families and friends, in fundraising and campaigning. I prefer to view our audiences as concentric circles with those most involved (staff and women with ovarian cancer) at the centre.”

Ensure clear guidance is in place with regard to what can be shared via social media. Treat employees as an internal and external audience and create a framework of flexibility within boundaries, such as using a social media friendly mark. The Local Government Association (LGA) developed one in 2012 and I've secured permission for you to access the images and guidance.¹⁸²

There are many arguments for and against having a policy. I recommend including employees in its creation to aid adoption, and you can find hundreds of examples online.¹⁸³

Writing well is still important, but the focus is now on creating timely, shareable content for your organization to use, written in an appropriate style. In the words of Euan Semple's book, organizations don't tweet, people do.

Technologies are appearing within companies with the label “social media” but they aren't always sociable or indeed social. There is an undeniable feeling within the communications community that you have to be seen to “do social”.

Brian Solis, digital analyst, sociologist and futurist says: “The challenge is the ability to link business objectives, social media strategies and the bottom line. Executives need to see how social fits in to the overall vision and goals of the organisation in order to lead a top down charge that changes how employees and customers connect and collaborate. There must be a purpose coupled with tangible results.”¹⁸⁵

There are a plethora of social media training courses available¹⁸⁶ to suit your time and budget, and you can't beat actually doing. I couldn't see a use for Pinterest until I tried it. Now I regularly pin on my own internal communication and social media boards¹⁸⁷ to collate shareable content. With the introduction of “secret boards”, its suitability for corporate communication increases.

Etsy has more than 800,000 online shops and 15 million one-of-a-kind handmade items. Editor in chief Alison Feldmann says: “Our goal of using Pinterest is inspiration – not just sales. We showcase Etsy's values to drive loyalty and engagement, and we post things that resonate with our community. We maintain a careful balance of Etsy items and other content pinned to maintain authenticity with our audience.”

Visual communication, such as infographics and visual roadmaps, are on the rise for corporate communication. They consider the receiver rather than the sender of the message and often generate positive feedback. They've been used by companies including Hallmark, Royal Bank of Scotland and GKN.¹⁸⁸

Corporate reflections on social media

In October 2012 I conducted research into how internal communicators use social media, both personally and professionally (managing or writing on behalf of an organization). It revealed that 93% of communications professionals expect their professional use to increase. There is further information below and the full results are available as an infographic.¹⁸⁹

Communications recruiters VMA Group led a Business Leaders in Communications Study¹⁹⁰ with 95 directors of communications in leading FTSE organizations in 2012. Only 15% of respondents said social media skills were “critical” when recruiting to their teams. This is surprising when compared to the fact that three quarters of comms professionals surveyed expect to see an increase in demand for “websites, digital and social media”. Almost one in ten “do not see social media as a challenge”.

Statistics around the ownership of the digital space raise the possibility that we may be seeing the beginning of a decline in influence for marketing departments as we currently know them. The influence of social media on reputation and brand is well established, and results showed communications departments largely “own” social media.

Communications directors “own” the following:

• 43% corporate advertising – further 15% have indirect remit.
• 34% sponsorship.
• 42% brand and marketing communications.
• 43% corporate social responsibility.
• 43% corporate giving.
• 71% events and publications.

I said corporate communications was a broad term, a fact confirmed by this analysis.

The Social Media Report (Nielsen, 2012)¹⁹¹ reveals social care – customer service via social media – is transforming customer service and has become an immediate imperative for global brands and communications teams.

Customers choose when and where they voice their questions, issues and complaints, blurring the line between marketing and customer service. Brands should consider this evolution and ensure they are ready to react on all channels. Nearly half of US consumers contact brands and service providers directly to voice satisfaction or complaints/questions and one in three social media users say they prefer this method to telephoning.

Enterprise social networks are more than “internal Facebook or Twitter”. Altimeter Group defines them as a set of technologies that create business value by connecting the members of an organization through profiles, updates and notifications.

There are many to choose from including Chatter from Salesforce.com, IBM Connections, Jive, Newsgator, SharePoint, Snapcomms, Socialcast and Yammer. I've featured many examples on my blog including how Aviva Investors use Yammer¹⁹² and Coca-Cola Enterprises use Chatter.¹⁹³

According to Altimeter Group, enterprise social network technologies evolve from three scenarios: standalone solution, collaboration and enterprise application add-on and they detail the networks to suit each one.

My research¹⁹⁴ showed that 55% of comms pros who responded felt people expect them to have a “good understanding” of social media. An additional 33% felt they are expected to “know all about” it.

Communications teams are most likely to introduce internal social networks (29%) followed by IT (24%). However, 11% said they didn't know where it came from. Models like Yammer allow employees to sign up using company email; so corporate communicators often have to play “catch-up”.

• Social sites communications professionals use personally, multiple choice: Facebook and Twitter (94% each), LinkedIn (91%), Instagram (42%), Pinterest (33%), personal blog (31%), Google+ (25%), other (6%), MySpace (4%).
• Used professionally: Twitter (69%), LinkedIn (40%), Facebook (39%), blog (35%), enterprise social network (23%), none (20%), Google+ (11%), Pinterest (7%), Instagram (5%), other (2%).

Using social technologies

Social technologies are defined by McKinsey & Company¹⁹⁵ as products and services that enable social interactions in the digital realm, allowing people to connect and interact virtually. When used within organizations, they have the potential to raise the productivity of the high-skill knowledge workers that are critical to performance and growth in the 21st century, by 20 to 25%.

Using collaborative techniques impacts organizational communication and has many benefits. However, they aren't a magic cure to turn your hierarchical top-down culture into a collaborative, information-sharing organization overnight. They should be approached in the same way as any other channel and be given the same attention, resources and thought.

According to McKinsey, social technologies promise to extend the capabilities of high-skill workers by streamlining communication and collaboration, lowering barriers between functional silos, and even redrawing boundaries to bring in additional knowledge and expertise in “extended networked enterprises”.

Does it work? In 2011, 72% of companies surveyed¹⁹⁶ reported using social technologies in their businesses and 90% reported that they are seeing benefits.

McKinsey states: “The benefits of social technologies will likely outweigh the risks for most companies. Organisations that fail to invest in understanding social technologies will be at greater risk of having their business models disrupted by social technologies.”

Healthcare specialist Bupa has customers in 190 countries and 52,000 employees and aims to put digital at the heart of the business. It developed BupaLive, a global internal social media platform, which aimed to be “one single place to communicate, collaborate and share”. The company introduced it as: LinkedIn = “your career”, Facebook = “your social life” and BupaLive = “your work”.

Bupa set challenging and measurable business outcomes. These were collaboration across teams/business lines/geographies/time zones, to deliver:

• Searchable employee networks.
• Sharing of knowledge, products, services, best practice.
• Social media capability and coordinated strategy.
• Increased innovation/idea generation.
• Decreased duplication of work/silos.
• Faster communication.
• Rapid integration of new acquisitions.
• Accelerated delivery of Bupa's group-wide corporate strategy.

BupaLive results in numbers:¹⁹⁷ 5,000+ user-generated groups (91% work and 9% social), 85% of desk-based users, 90,000 documents shared, 60,000 comments, 55,000 discussion threads, 12,000 blog posts and 10,000 videos.

I think BupaLive has done well because they took an integrated approach. The site acts as a global internal communications channel and also enables employees to download their smartphone apps and promote them via external social media such as Bupa's Facebook Pages.

The perception of social media as weapons of mass distraction has clearly been overcome, because its leaders have recognized their role as part of the wider business strategy. Incoming CEO Stuart Fletcher was introduced to the organization via a video on BupaLive.

Social business strategist Nick Crawford, who oversaw BupaLive's launch, told me: “Corporate comms teams have a vital role to play in introducing social media within an organisation. Their knowledge and expertise is invaluable to ensuring the best choices are made. They need to work collaboratively with IT and HR and ensure it's not just driven by one function, like IT, as is often the case. Corporate communicators should take the lead as their expertise and knowledge will be critical to success.”

Gatwick Airport integrates social media into everything it does. Lindsay Baldwin, head of airport communications, says: “Twitter is used predominantly as a customer service tool to start two-way conversations with customers, across marketing campaigns and internal communication. If we launch a new airline, we use our social media channels to support those as well.” The airport uses SoundCloud¹⁹⁸ for its customers by uploading stories for parents to listen to with their children while they wait for their flights.

How can social technologies add value? McKinsey & Company¹⁹⁹ has produced a table detailing 10 ways they can add value in organizational functions within and across enterprises.

My final piece of advice is stop, collaborate and listen. Before you make great strides with social, assess your company's strategy, work with your business, employees and customers to determine what suits your culture and then continue to listen and ask for feedback.

Biography

Rachel Miller (@AllThingsIC) is an internal communication and social media strategist. She started her career as a journalist and has worked in internal communication in-house and agency side for companies including BSkyB, L'Oréal, Visa, Tube Lines and London Overground. Rachel was named in PR Week's Top 29 under 29 professional communicators list and is a Kingston internal communications management postgraduate. She is part of the Engage for Success guru group and regularly speaks about, writes and teaches internal communication and social media. Rachel co-founded @theICcrowd, is a CIPR Inside committee member and blogs at www.allthingsic.com.