Peak performance through social content
Internal communicators have all the right skills to make the most of social media – but we must be involved.
For many, this means a change in mindset, according to Richard Dennison, intranet and channel strategy manager for BT.
“In the past too much internal communication amounted to chucking hand grenades over the wall and walking away,” he says.
“Nothing ever changes that way. What makes things change is having a conversation and arriving at an understanding – and social media is built for having a conversation.”
Richard will be outlining his ideas at the IoIC annual conference in Birmingham from May 23-25, using many examples of how BT’s 92,000 employees worldwide connect online via social content.
“Internal comms people have gone through the same process as everyone else – first they didn’t understand social media so they didn’t worry about it, but it’s grown and grown so the profession has realised it’s quite important and can solve a lot of problems,” he explains.
“But where you go with that knowledge is quite tricky - knowing that and doing something different is quite difficult.”
He will offer conference delegates practical ideas about how to take advantage of the huge opportunities social media throws up for internal comms.
“IC people are really busy all the time and are really tactical and have a whole host of customers to service,” he says. “They don’t have a lot of time to think about tomorrow – especially if they spend a lot of time servicing CEOs or directors.
“There’s also a perception that encouraging more online social content at work means you’re losing control and in a way you are - but there are big opportunities as well.”
Richard explains that internal communicators have all the right skills to thrive in a social workspace.
“Decent communicators are good at networking, good at writing, we know about channels, we have empathy with our audiences. All those things are really critical in social media, so if anyone can thrive there, it’s an IC person. But sometimes we don’t have the confidence and we’re afraid of it.
“But, even with all those skills, the only way an IC person will thrive in a social space is to get involved and become a power networker – that’s how we influence other users in a social space.
“It’s about being part of the conversation rather than being part of the establishment.”
Because of the way internal comms have been operated in the past – and often still are – it can be a difficult switch.
“A lot of the time we just do stuff,” says Richard. “But what happens to that stuff when it arrives and whether it’s effective in that people understand and change the way they behave…we don’t really know.
“We measure activity and not outcomes but social media has outcome written all over it – you can hear the conversation loud and clear.
“The outcome may be push back or revolt, or it might be ‘this is a great idea’. But even if it’s revolt, at least you know and can do something about it.”
At BT Richard breaks communication into three areas:
Content: producing stuff - we write stuff and create websites and so on.
Distribution: it’s about getting the stuff we’ve created to the right people.
Conversation: this is what happens when our stuff hits the streets.
“If we don’t have conversation, we don’t have a shared understanding, and we don’t have change,” he points out.
“That’s been missing and it’s been a major barrier to us being effective. But social media is about the conversation and it’s a huge opportunity.
“So, do we make our channels more conversational - or go to the places where people are having the conversations?
“You have to be properly involved for this to work. People think they can just stick a blog on their intranet and they have social media. It’s not that simple.”
BT has various incarnations of social media, including their own internal versions of Twitter, wikis, and YouTube, and is introducing Sharepoint.
The company’s online corporate news channel includes feeds from blogs (and anyone can have a blog) and there is no official moderation at all.
“It’s moderated by the community,” says Richard. “You can tag and ‘like’ and comment on all stories on the corporate news desk.
“It’s a big site which gets millions of hits and obviously sometimes BT people might want to get things off their chest. Comments may be stuff you don’t want to hear but it’s never abusive. If someone comes up with something scathing, in an ideal world someone else will come on and give an answer.”
To hear more from Richard, book your place at the IoIC Conference here.
 Internal communicators have all the right skills to make the most of social media – but we must be involved.
For many, this means a change in mindset, according to Richard Dennison, intranet and channel strategy manager for BT.
“In the past too much internal communication amounted to chucking hand grenades over the wall and walking away,” he says.
“Nothing ever changes that way. What makes things change is having a conversation and arriving at an understanding – and social media is built for having a conversation.”
Richard (right) will be outlining his ideas at the IoIC annual conference in Birmingham from May 23-25, using many examples of how BT’s 92,000 employees worldwide connect online via social content.
“Internal comms people have gone through the same process as everyone else – first they didn’t understand social media so they didn’t worry about it, but it’s grown and grown so the profession has realised it’s quite important and can solve a lot of problems,” he explains.
“But where you go with that knowledge is quite tricky - knowing that and doing something different is quite difficult.”
He will offer conference delegates practical ideas about how to take advantage of the huge opportunities social media throws up for internal comms.
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