Institute of Internal Communication

Social networking involves building and joining online communities that share interests and activities, facilitating information-sharing and relationship building. In the internal communication context, it is about helping employees to: develop constructive and fruitful workplace relationships; understand the challenges facing their colleagues and the organization as a whole; and readily offer and receive support, ideas and feedback. It is, therefore, potentially a useful way to build and maintain employee engagement.Social networking encompasses a wide range of tools including intranets, wikis, blogs, as well as external social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Background

The initial landmark in the development of digital social networking was the rise to prominence of the internet in the late 1990s, as this immediately offered more opportunities for interactive communication and also led to new approaches and systems that facilitated this. Blogs quickly became an important way for individuals to share their thoughts, ideas and activities, and receive feedback.

This has been followed in recent years by the launch of a range of social networking tools (eg Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) which offered greater immediacy, flexibility and easy, quick access to online communities of one’s choosing for anyone with access to appropriate digital technology.

The right conditions in technological terms were mirrored in society by a greater desire for participation and being involved in making the news rather than merely receiving information. The weakening of ‘them’ and ‘us’ demarcation lines in society has also been reflected in the workplace in a more collaborative, less hierarchical approach and a greater desire for two-way and, indeed, multi-way communication.

The use of external social networking sites has increased dramatically within the last five years For example, a 2009 Nielsen report stated that active usage of social networking and blogs is now higher than personal email (66.8% versus 65.1%) and that usage of social networking sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall internet growth.

Familiarity with these services has had the knock-on effect of employees placing value on access to such systems when at work to help them communicate with colleagues, keep up-to-date and generally do their jobs effectively. Recognizing the benefits, many organizations have now introduced in-house social networking, with the intranet often forming the basis for this.

So widespread has been the take-up of social networking and recognition of its significance, that monitoring services are now providing data about the amount and type of coverage that organizations are receiving in this way.

Issues

Social networking is very much the flavour of the moment. With rapid technology development and the hype that surrounds this topic, it can be challenging to step back and decide which, if any, social networking tools would be appropriate for a particular organization.

This aside, social networking offers many specific benefits including:

• Helps to maintain and develop relationships with colleagues and more distant networks.
• Facilitates more informal collaboration, creative thinking, working across multiple locations/departments and the breaking of traditional hierarchies which, in turn, can furnish new ideas and opportunities.
• Helps remote workers to feel part of the team.
• Supports learning by enabling sharing of knowledge and information, indeed can form part of a training and development programme.
• A very good way of reaching certain individuals and groups who have become enthusiastic about using such tools in their private life.

Potential drawbacks of social networking could include:

• Enthusiasm about such tools and their technological capabilities can sometimes lead to an over-reliance on these methods.
• Specific problems relating to abuse and time-wasting – there has been much media coverage recently about staff spending too much time on social networking sites and making highly negative – and potentially libellous – comments about their organizations. Research by Computer Weekly in 2008 found that some 63% of organizations were planning to monitor or limit staff access to external social networking sites, while 17% intended to ban usage entirely. There may also be security issues, both in terms of information that is divulged on sites and the potential for IT security breaches.
• Employers do have certain legal obligations, for example in terms of taking reasonable steps to prevent the harassment of or discrimination against employees. This would involve taking appropriate action should abusive or offensive material be found to have been posted on an internal or external social networking site by a member of staff.
• This type of communication will leave certain individuals and groups cold, and will not be readily available or attractive to some staff because of their specific work circumstances

A lot of the problems reported – for example time-wasting and critical comments about employers – have typically related to external sites, but similar issues could potentially arise in-house although probably with less impact.

The IoIC perspective

Social networking tools should be used as part of an integrated communication strategy – they should be weighed up against other communication tools in terms of their ability to fulfil particular objectives and reach particular audiences. They are not a must-have in all situations although fast-evolving stakeholder expectations always need to be borne in mind.

Social networking capabilities are often incorporated into intranets which are valuable to many organizations, not least because of the variety of functions they can fulfil. A number of multi-functional collaboration platforms are also available. The appendix at the end of this document lists a number of commonly used social networking tools. However, organizations do need to weigh up what they want to achieve against available resources, in order to decide what they will be able to deliver consistently and to a high standard. Setting up a system is one thing, managing and maintaining it effectively in the long-term is another.

Regardless of the extent to which social networking is currently in use within any organization, it is important that communication practitioners remain up to date with evolving technologies, services and their capabilities, so that they can give management informed advice and recommendations on appropriate communication solutions.
In the cultivation of effective employee communication, social networking or any form of technology can never replace face-to-face contact or the need for line managers to communicate effectively on a one-to-one and group basis with their team.

In-house social networking tools should integrate well with existing systems and be clearly visible so that they are easy to find, understand and use. Apart from the obvious benefits to everyone, this also lowers barriers to adoption.Training should be provided to enable users to understand all features and capabilities quickly. This can also cover protocol, for example, what the organization and co-workers should be able to expect from users of the systems. And again, training will help to encourage adoption by individuals who might otherwise be reluctant users.

Communication professionals should have systems for measuring the impact of introducing social networking tools in relation to identified objectives, just as they would for other channels.

In terms of policy towards external social networking sites, organizations should monitor the situation and assess whether there is any kind of significant, negative impact at all before taking drastic action. It may well be that it makes more sense to consider this on an individual by individual basis, as one might opt to do in relation to any type of non-work related activity, for example personal phone calls or internet sales transactions. One half-way measure might be to restrict use of external social networking sites to lunch hours and breaks.

Any potential security risks or issues relating to the organization’s legal responsibilities should also be taken into account when developing a policy relating to the use of external social networking sites.

Individual employees’ obligations in terms of their use of external and internal sites should be linked explicitly to terms and conditions of employment and policies relating to how they should conduct themselves.

Staff may not always think about what could cause a problem for them or their organization on a social networking site – one of the issues that exacerbates this situation is the immediacy of being able to post a comment.

It would, therefore, be useful to provide readily accessible guidelines that explain what the organization should be able to expect of its employees, best practice, how to get the most out of social networking and to avoid potential pitfalls.

It should also be borne in mind that staff’s use of external sites could be harnessed for the good in terms of them acting as ambassadors for the organization, and this aspect could also be covered in guidance material that is produced - but, of course, an organization can only expect this to happen routinely if there are high levels of employee engagement.

Clear and sensible strategies and policies in relation to internal communication, that help employees to understand and identify with their organization and their colleagues, will have positive, knock-on impacts in terms of their use of social networking tools in both their work and private lives, and in terms of the organization’s external image generally.

Some key points

• Because of its growth in popularity and influence, organizations need to have a clear policy in relation to social networking, even if this only involves a slight adaptation or extension of existing policies.
• Appropriate guidance and/or training is also desirable to help staff make the best use of social networking tools, and to avoid pitfalls.
• Social networking should be used as part of an integrated communication strategy and weighed up against other communication tools in terms of its ability to achieve particular objectives.
• Social networking can never replace face-to-face contact, or the positive impact of having a line manager who is a good communicator.
• Internal communication specialists should keep in touch with technology developments, regardless of what techniques and tools their organization is currently using.
• Measurement of results in terms of meeting original objectives is just as important for social networking as for other communication channels.

Appendix

Some commonly used social networking tools

There are a wide variety of tools that support online social networking activities. These can either exist as part of an external site or service or an element of an in-house system. They include: