Archive for Employee Engagement
Social Media Measurement and ROI Next Focus of Inc. 500, Fortune 500
Posted by: | CommentsFor the past five years the UMass Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research has surveyed the Inc. 500 and Fortune 500 companies on their use of social media. Last week, we reported the results of the 5th Annual Benchmarking Study of the Fortune 500. Previously, we wrote about the Center’s 2012 Inc. 500 Social Media Update. We invited the co-author of the studies, Dr. Nora Barnes, to expand on her findings in both studies, comparing social media usage of the two groups and her predictions for the future. Here are her responses to our questions.
Based on five years of data, any predictions on where companies will be on social media in the next 5 – 10 years?
Nora Barnes, Ph.D.
Our studies indicate that attention will move from a focus on tools to focus on measuring, monitoring and a discussion regarding the ROI of their social media efforts.
Companies will move from repositioning or retraining employees to handle the social media function to hiring social media professionals.
Social media plans will be as common as marketing plans for a company and budgets (including investments in software or consulting and hiring) will be clearly defined. Read More→
Fortune 500 Increased Use of Social Media in 2012 — Twitter #1
Posted by: | CommentsFortune 500 companies have increased their use of social media in 2012 to reach key constituents, according to the 5th Annual Benchmarking Study conducted by the University of Massachusetts, the Center for Marketing Research.
Twitter Tops
Twitter is the tool of choice with 73% having corporate T
witter accounts and at least one company from every one of the 71 industries on the list tweeting, according to the statistically valid study.
That was a bit of a surprise, as many brand name consumer companies are successfully leveraging facebook to sell their brands, their product/services and to build interactive communities.
YouTube is also closing in on facebook users (62% vs. 66%) among the the 2012 Fortune 500. The new social network on the block, Pinterest, has attracted only 2%, or 11 companies, as members.
As a blogger, I was pleased to learn that blogging is more popular than ever. The most successful companies understand that a blog is an essential component of their social media strategy.
For the first time this year, the study included specialty blogs that corporations have created to recruit new employees, to promote a particular topic or for fundraising.
“In addition, it is worth noting that there is evidence of usage of social media tools such as blogs inside these corporations,” says the study. (See a previous post Engaging Employees on Social Media).
Key Findings
Key findings reported by UMass are: Read More→
Engaging Your Employees on Social Networks
Posted by: | CommentsDoes your company have an internal social network for employees?
Internal social network
That was a question that my co-presenter and I asked participants in a recent HR.com webinar entitled “How Internal Social Networks Enable Interacting and Responding to Employee Needs.”
More than half said no. The good news is that a majority said they planned to start one.
External or Build Your Own?
A company can take one of two approaches to engaging its employees on a social network: use a third-party vendor with the technology in place to link your employees, or build your own network.
In the webinar, I described how companies can leverage external networks. Robert Libbey, Senior Director, Global Colleague Communications and Corporate Social Media at Pfizer, Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, took participants through the process of how Pfizer built its own social platform.
Three of the best-known social networks – Google +, LinkedIn, and Facebook – offer social sharing, although they have limitations.
Enterprise social networks such as Chatter and Yammer will build a customized corporate internal network on their platforms.
Building a Digital Town Square
Bob Libbey characterized Pfizer’s internal network as a “Digital Town Square” where employees come to connect, distribute and receive information from each other and the company.
Using the SharePoint 2007 platform (to be upgraded to SharePoint 2010), Pfizer consolidated 410 information-based sites and 10,000 team sites onto a single platform called PfizerWorld. The new network launched in 2011 and at year-end recorded these impressive statistics:
- Unique users: 175,068
- Article views: 5,148, 738
- Page views: 60, 518,608
- Savings: $12mm
What’s striking about the first statistic is that Pfizer has 100,000 employees. Is that 175,068 a typo? No. The company also allows vendors and consultants to access the network in an incredible nod towards transparency. Pfizer trusts its employees and the outsiders accessing the network to use their good judgment about what to post and share. They call it “guidance without prescription.”
If your company is interested in creating an internal social network to engage your employees, the presentation below this post will describe the types of social networks that you can investigate to decide what’s right for your organization.
How Internal Social Networks Enable Interacting and Responding to Employee Needs
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)
