Archive for Communications Strategy
How to Create Internal Social Networks for Employees
Posted by: | CommentsMore companies are using the power of internal social networks to help employees get the news and information they need, as well as other resources critical to doing their jobs.
Social networks connect employees
Some are at the starting line, just jumping into the social media waters. Others have built a global “digital village” for employees who can post updates in a Twitter-like feed, share information with colleagues and receive crucial corporate information that is fed to them daily.
One of these companies is Pfizer, the world’s leading pharmaceutical company. I wrote about Pfizer’s internal network My World last year. This network is truly awesome and it has only expanded its capabilities since then.
Come to Our Social Networks Webinar
I will be co-presenting with Bob Libbey, senior director of Global Colleague Communications and Corporate Social Media, Pfizer Inc., at an HR.com webinar on Tuesday, May 22, at 1 pm, EDT. You can register by clicking on the title of our presentation: How Internal Social Networks Enable Interacting and Responding to Employee Needs.
I will describe how smaller companies can also establish social networks for their employees by using third-party networks such as LinkedIn, Google+ and Ning.
Bob will explain how Pfizer consolidated more than 400 news and information sites, each with its own look, feel and navigation set-up. In the past year, Pfizer’s My World has attracted 175,000 unique visitors (including outside vendors and consultants) and over 60 million page views.
So I invite you to join us on our webinar to learn how your company can start or expand your employee’s internal social network.
Related articles
- Internal social networking can help employees get engaged (bizjournals.com)
The Reports of Blogging’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated*
Posted by: | CommentsWell, you’d think blogging was definitely on the way out for companies, based on a new study, 2012 Inc. 500 Social Media Update.
Although USA Today pretty much wrote off blogging in its coverage of the results, it did quote Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor, as saying that engaging blogs can serve crucial marketing goals — especially executives out to establish expertise in their industry.
CMOs Interviewed
The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts surveyed the chief marketing officers of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing companies to learn how their adoption of social media has changed since 2011.
The big news, according to the study, is that CMOs are turning to new platforms and tools including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, texting, downloadable mobile apps and Foursquare.
If you study the chart below, you will see that blogging has been increasingly successful as a social media strategy over the past three years, reaching 92% in usage even as its adoption as a social media tool drops. Blogging is still widely used by advertising and communications companies, less so by government agencies. Oddly, this was the first study including LinkedIn, which showed up at 73% usage, just behind Facebook’s 74%, which topped the list.
Read More→
How to Blog for International Audiences
Posted by: | CommentsThe blogosphere is by its very nature a truly global phenomenon. Anyone with an Internet connection can, in theory, access your blog, no matter where they are in the world. But that doesn’t mean they will. To blog for an international audience, you need to make sure your content is appealing and accessible across cultural and linguistic divides.
Target your blog
Christian Arno
On the day The Huffington Post launched its French edition, founder Arianna Huffington said, “While we will be importing the platform, technology, and tools from across the pond, Le Huffington Post will be rooted in French culture and will reflect France’s own unique personality, rich culture, and diversity of voices.”
As with the preceding Canadian and UK versions, the news giant has tailored its French content to appeal to a specific international audience. We can’t all have the resources of Technorati’s current top-rated blog, but we can focus our efforts on markets that are likely to pay dividends.
The exact nature of your blog will help determine where you should start. A blog about soccer will have a wide potential appeal throughout much of the world but may have a more select, niche appeal within the USA. Concentrating on the Major Soccer League (MSL) could help reach that niche audience while in-depth coverage of leagues based in South America or Europe could give you inroads into those markets. Read More→
The Secret to Telling a Story
Posted by: | CommentsI was just browsing through the McKinsey Quarterly, and stumbled upon an interview with the authors of The Dragonfly Effect, Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith, in which they discuss the secret to telling a successful story.
Create Tension
Jennifer Aaker
As a blogger, I am always telling stories. It’s at the heart of what bloggers do. So, let me lift a quote from Jennifer Aaker:
Good stories have three components: a strong beginning, a strong end, and a point of tension. Most people confuse stories with situations. They’ll tell about a situation: X happened, Y happened, Z happened. But a good story takes Y, the middle part of the story, and creates tension or conflict where the reader or the audience is drawn into the story, what’s going to happen next.
A Compelling Story
In their book, they describe a case study of 28-year-old Scott Harrison, a nightclub and fashion promoter, earning lots of money. But he felt spiritually bankrupt and gave it all up to volunteer on a floating hospital while he figured out what to do with the rest of his life.
He came back with a renewed sense of passion, and formed a foundation charity: water to help bring clean water to millions of underserved populations around the world who don’t have any.
In the McKinsey piece, they describe his story – about asking friends to donate $31 to his charity instead of buying him a gift for his 31st birthday. To date, the charity has raised $20 million and provided clean water to more than 1.4 million people spanning 17 countries.
Read the Middle
I just gave you the beginning and end of the story. If you want to find out the point of tension in the middle, go to the interview on the McKinsey Quarterly
