Institute of Internal Communication

Helen Farrar, the company's head of internal communications, stressed the importance of not getting carried away with the latest technology when considering social networking. The key to success was understanding what employees would actually value and use in terms of building fruitful relationships across all locations and supporting high-level business performance.

The intranet is one of Virgin Media’s key methods for giving its people a voice. Every intranet story has an open comments function, with some resulting in feedback from 700-800 people. Members of the senior management team get involved, and this helps to show that they are listening to staff’.

In addition, office wikis enable people to comment on what is going on at their local site.

The company’s use of Twitter for employee communication has also been very successful. The decision was taken that the account should only be open to Virgin Media staff, and, to ensure that the service is not compromised, the company has been careful to develop a process linked up with relevant internal systems so that individuals can no longer gain access when they cease to be employees.

One important, non-digital method of encouraging social networking has been the introduction of a communications group made up of individuals in customer-facing roles such as engineers and employees from call centres. This has been invaluable in getting information to hard-to-reach groups. Members act as the eyes and ears on the ground and provide feedback on future campaign ideas and how things are currently working.

The company also has ‘product wizards’ who maintain a dialogue with employees who need an in-depth understanding of products and the latest developments.

As the company is very much at the cutting edge in terms of digital communication, and is committed to Richard Branson’s belief that “a happy, well motivated workforce means you’re much more likely to have happy customers, and therefore happy shareholders”, management has shown a high level of acceptance to the methods outlined here.

Of course, there has been a need to achieve buy-in, for example to gain approval from call centre managers for members of their team to become part of the communications group. However, these managers are also very aware of the value of improving the quality of information exchange and feelings of being part of the whole organisation amongst widely dispersed employees.

The company did not produce specific rules covering the use of social networking media, as it was felt that this was covered by existing company policy relating to appropriate behaviour by employees and that an overly heavy-handed approach could discourage take-up. Virgin Media has also found that systems are effectively self-policing, as employees will soon pull colleagues up if they feel they have made unfair or inaccurate comments.

In summary, Helen  says:

• In today's world its very easy to get distracted by the noise surrounding social networking and confuse social networks with new forms of social networking technology. Social networks can be formed through social networking technology, but they are not reliant on them.

• You don't have to wait for technological advances to create social networks. Social networks have been part of all our businesses from the start, as businesses employ people. A social network is about people and how they connect to one another.

• As an internal communicator it is really important to recognise how the social networks in your organisation operate – how the flow of information in your business works. If you do this successfully you'll be able to tap into the networks that already exist and use them as an integrated part of your communications strategy.

• Get to know how your audience communicates. Who are the influencers? How can you tap into their network? Understand how people make connections and don't presume that a shared office location or a similar job title is a connection.

• By mobilising an existing social network, or helping to drive the creation of a new one within your business, you're using the most successful communications channel – word of mouth, from a trusted source - to get your messages out there in the business.

• Used to maximum impact, social networks become a fantastic communications channel and also a source of dialogue from the internal communications team – a source of feedback, comment and representative voices from across your employee base.

• To really build a solid relationship with the social networks in your business involve them in communications planning and test ideas with them.

• Using social networks to communicate involves understanding how to mobilise the people in your business as one element of your communications channel mix.