Socializing Your Organization

If 2009 was the year that businesses jumped into the social media channel in a big way, then 2010 is already shaping up to be the year that they’re taking a step back to get more strategic.

We’re seeing public, private and not-for-profits looking for a more structured approach to leveraging this here-to-stay channel. They’re looking for help in assessing the ways departments and employees are using social media now and in developing policies, procedures and detailed protocols for moving forward in brand-aligned ways.

There have been too many companies big and small being embarrassed by brandjacking incidents, overzealous employees spilling confidential beans, and employees very comfortable with social media for personal use not realizing—until it’s too late—that there are differences between communicating personally and communicating on behalf of their firms.

The continual blurring of the lines between personal and professional time is one factor driving much of intra-company debates as to when employees are “on the clock.” Another driver is who owns the content that employees create when it’s created “on their own time.” Still another is how much a company can dictate, or suggest, in terms of what employees choose to tweet, post, or blog about.

To get a better understanding of where organizations are along the 5-phase process that DBE has identified for enterprise-wide adoption of social media as a communications channel, we’re fielding a survey. It’s short, taking about 3 minutes to complete. Once the results are tabulated, we’ll be writing an analysis to share our findings. If you’d like the results delivered to you, take the survey and make sure you provide your email address at the end.

We’re expecting to close the survey in mid-February, so give us 3 minutes now and we’ll give you some good insights to help you see where you company stacks up compared with others of its size—and how to work with your colleagues to make your company an engaging player in the social media channel.