Social business begins with internal communication between executives and employees, according to Sarah Gilbert, social business expert. The article is interesting and the question, as the title says, as well. Let’s look a bit closer.
The article elaborates:
Social media is an extremely powerful tool in today’s business world. Social media interaction and engagement is a lot more personal and can feel very intimate, and studies indicate that more meaningful business relationships are built on social networks compared with those forged via email communication.
Social business is therefore critical for companies big and small, however training your staff to engage with social tools can be challenging.
and
Internal Communication
Social networks, especially those built specifically for business communication, can play a huge part in building and developing relationships between business executives and their employees[…] and
Direct Communication
Social media communication is a lot more personal – it allows comments, and looks informal and employees feel like they are having a more engaged conversation with the executive. As a result, they are more inclined to comment, share or embrace the message[…]
The question is, does social business start with internal communication, thus at the inside of an organization?
Yes, No and Maybe, depending on.
Yes: because ideally you start first understanding what employees want, can and want to do with supported by social technologies. You co-create social integration with them. Based on learnings and best-practices, the organization can –with phases- open up the organization to its external stakeholders.
No: because the ideal picture can only work if the outside world would not have been that open and transparent as it already is. This means or a parallel process or choosing to neglect the outside world for now. Is this possible? Probably not, as you might have employees that are experimental, intrapreneurial and started testing, opening up the doors to the outside a bit.
Maybe, depending on: if you’re in a laggard industry sector, start inside, if your market is already fully present, deep dive, go for it, but not in a business-agnostic way. Social media are means to an end, in this case certain business objectives.
What was the focus of your social business integration?
Gianluigi Cuccureddu is co-founder of Damarque, helping you to improve your commercial performance through better engagement with your employees, customers and strategic business partners.
We offer high-impact training, coaching and consulting services for professionals, teams and organizations to help improve people ánd organizational performance and innovation capability in an efficient and sustainable way.
