Talking Internal Communication...

CommsFlashMob – what on earth is it?!

It all started with an innocent throw-away comment a few weeks back…

Anyone interested in social media and communications will know just how big Wikipedia is these days - a staggering 3 million entries and the seventh most popular website globally. But despite its huge reach and considerable influence it’s clear that the entries on some topics, like Internal Communications, are a little way off the mark.

Enter the CommsFlashMob.

The child of some idle Twitter-based banter between Rachel Allen, Abi Signorelli, David Ferrabee, Liam FitzPatrick, Wedge and myself, the idea is to get a bunch of passionate communicators together, lock them in a dark room with coffee and biscuits and try to “fix it” in one afternoon. 

That afternoon is tomorrow (Thursday 20 August) and, work commitments permitting, we’ll all be getting together in London – and online - from 3 pm to 5 pm BST (10 to 12 EST).

But we’re not trying to do it in isolation - we hope others will join us online and contribute from a distance.If you’re around at that time feel free to roll up your sleeves and join in – either way you can follow us live on Twitter at CommsFlashMob.

It may not work, but we’ll give it our best shot!

L

Directory of Twitter tools for communicators

In line with my new found enthusiasm for Twitter (you can see my ramblings and follow me via the right hand column of this blog), here’s a really helpful post from Brian Solis in San Francisco - on the tool and the phenomenon. Better still, it’s written especially for comms people. Excellent, timely stuff. Enjoy! 

Lee

Employee spokespeople and the online conversation - free article to download

I was interviewed recently by Alex Blyth, a freelance journalist, for a piece he was researching for Personnel Today on the impact of social media inside and outside the workplace.

I've just got around to checking the PT website and I noticed that the article was published a few weeks ago - so I thought I'd share it with you as it makes very interesting reading.

Alex spoke to people from a variety of organisations, public and private, and he's written an interesting and insightful piece.  He touches on the experiences of organisations like Cisco, the Department of Health, Vodafone, the Ministry of Justice and others. 

Enjoy.

L

Who should be driving social media inside the organisation?

A quick pointer.... There's an interesting debate emerging over at The Parallax View on social media within the enterprise - what it is, who should drive it and how it links to 'traditional' internal communication. It builds on a recent post by Chris Brogan.  

It touches on that age-old debate (which I've already discussed way too many times on this blog..) about where internal comms should sit, which function should own it and what it's there to do. 

Where does communication end and collaboration begin? Whose role is it to build a sense of community inside an organisation? Which function should champion social media and ensure it is implemented in the right way?  Interesting questions...

L

 

PS - the Parallax site includes a great list of social media case studies and the top ten communicators on Twitter

Employers slow to tap into social media in search for recruits

I received an interesting press release today from the CIPD.

The Institute included a section on social media in its annual Recruitment, Retention and Turnover survey - and the findings make sobering reading.

The vast majority (80%) of the 779 organisations surveyed do not currently use Web 2.0 tools to attract or recruit employees - with only 8% planning to start using them in the next year.

Yet, of the 100 CIPD respondent members, over half (56%) believe that social networking sites are useful for engaging potential job seekers and welcome its ability to shed light on how they are perceived in the marketplace (52%). The majority (62%) are concerned, however, that damaging comments about their organisation might be posted.

Encouragingly, the majority of organisations that do use social networking (85%) do not use it as a tool to vet candidates during the recruitment process.

Of the 54 respondent organisations that use social networking sites to attract or recruit employees, the favoured sites include LinkedIn (62%), Facebook (58%) and MySpace (11%).

There are some excellent examples of organisations out there that are using blogs, photo and video sharing, podcasting and social networking to connect with potential employees and to build their employer brands. It's clear, however, that they represent the minority of employers at present.

IBM experiments with social networking

Spotted this really interesting article in the latest issue of Business Week. It outlines how IBM is using social networking tools similar to Twitter and Facebook to enhance internal communication and knowledge sharing.  It's interesting because, whilst there's an awful lot of hype and discussion around internal social networking right now, there are still far too few case studies on organisations that have actually experimented with it. Enjoy the read. L

Prime Minister's Questions on YouTube

There's widespread coverage today of Gordon Brown's decision to open up PM's questions to the general public by encouraging questions to be submitted via the Downing Street YouTube site. 

'Ask the PM' is the latest move by politicians to embrace the power of social media - and is seen by many as Brown's response to David Cameron's criticism that he is 'an analogue politician in a digital age'.

Although there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about this move, it's great to see the Prime Minister follow the lead of a number of CEOs who have already used such techniques to engage with their workforce.

I'm often asked how to get an online 'ask the boss' facility up and running - this example provides a nice case study in how to go about it.   

Users have until 21 June to submit their video questions - which must be less than one minute long.

YouTube top 10 corporate clips

Here's the excellent first installment of the 'top ten' corporate/brand clips currently on YouTube - compiled by Matthew Yeomans and the team at Custom Communications ahead of the forthcoming Social Media Influence conference (see calendar for details). Just follow the link to view the videos. 

If still you need convincing about the enormous influence of YouTube on corporate reputations, just check out the viewing figures - all of these videos have recorded upwards of one million views. And did you know that a staggering 80million clips are now viewed on YouTube every single day?! 

The Observer's 50 most influential blogs

Thanks to Matthew Yeomans at Custom Communication for flagging the Observer's recent feature on the 50 most influential blogs, which had passed me by.  What the list shows, as Matthew rightly points out, is the enormous power and influence leading bloggers now wield. PR professionals take note - if you're not already actively targeting bloggers (or at least keeping tabs on what they're saying) then you're missing a trick.

More perspectives on social media...

Following on from my last post, here are two additional - and timely - perspectives on social media and employee communications from the team at Ragan. 

As usual Steve Crescenzo gets to the nub of the issue in his piece exploring how these technologies could - and are already - changing our roles as communicators. 

Sarah McAdams, meanwhile, showcases how one PR firm is using a wiki to revolutionise its internal comms.