Being social is instinctive. We're social animals after all. We have assimilated social technology into our lives with unparalleled speed and intensity. For us, social feels natural and something we should never have been without. However, as with much 'instinctive' human behaviour, mapping social into the workplace is not a straightforward task. Becoming an effective Social Business is something that warrants a bit of forethought; not a huge amount - social is a world that flourishes in the absence of protocol - but success comes more willingly when you invest a bit of thinking up front. This is particularly so when much of your current business is already working reasonably effectively in a decidedly 'pre-social' manner. Here are three things +Tim Difford and I have found helpful in our pursuit of building great Social Businesses.
Define the use case Having a clear and widely understood expression of why and where social technology is going to make a positive difference to work is, we believe, an invaluable first step on the way to success. We frequently create simple 'Use Cases' to define the outcomes we are anticipating and their impact on the business. Publishing these at the outset enables us to explain what we are planning to do, guides how we configure the environment and finally helps us explain results. In our opinion, use cases (or whatever you choose to call them) are the single most important factor in directing instinctive social behaviour into productive success.
Help others find their voice Using social in the workplace can be pretty scary - even for those all over Facebook and Instagram in their private lives. All of a sudden people tighten up, become extremely wary about revealing their inner thoughts in the full glare of a professional audience. Social technology is most effective when people are comfortable with 'working out-loud'. And not just one or two confident evangelists, either. Social needs volumes to work and you need to get as many people as you can past the nervously-tiptoeing-through-etiquette stage into social-fluency as quickly as possible. Two suggestions here. Firstly, role model. Loudly and obviously. Blatantly use hashtags, @mentions, likes and other taxonomies, signposting their value for all to see. Secondly, give people a safe sandpit to experiment in. Consider creating private areas where an individual can feel that the jeopardy of exposure is limited prior to leaping into the wider enterprise and beyond!
Make it ordinary In many ways an organisation's journey to enlightenment will only be complete when social moves from being something special and exciting to something ordinary and, dare I say it, unnoticed. Much of this transition will be Darwinian. 'Natural selection' will ultimately ensure that the medium of social will eventually supplant much of the pre-social world. However, there is also room for some judicious 'intelligent design' in the building of a social business. Don't rely on the power of viral uptake alone. There's nothing coy about social. It is brash and loud and should be bold too. Identifying some core day-to-day processes and actively transitioning them to social is often the key to getting things moving. This isn't about mandating the elimination of email, but it could and should be about replacing regular communiques, running workflows and publishing governance documentation. On its journey to the ordinary, contriving social is definitely OK.
photo: Howard Lake
Define the use case Having a clear and widely understood expression of why and where social technology is going to make a positive difference to work is, we believe, an invaluable first step on the way to success. We frequently create simple 'Use Cases' to define the outcomes we are anticipating and their impact on the business. Publishing these at the outset enables us to explain what we are planning to do, guides how we configure the environment and finally helps us explain results. In our opinion, use cases (or whatever you choose to call them) are the single most important factor in directing instinctive social behaviour into productive success.
Make it ordinary In many ways an organisation's journey to enlightenment will only be complete when social moves from being something special and exciting to something ordinary and, dare I say it, unnoticed. Much of this transition will be Darwinian. 'Natural selection' will ultimately ensure that the medium of social will eventually supplant much of the pre-social world. However, there is also room for some judicious 'intelligent design' in the building of a social business. Don't rely on the power of viral uptake alone. There's nothing coy about social. It is brash and loud and should be bold too. Identifying some core day-to-day processes and actively transitioning them to social is often the key to getting things moving. This isn't about mandating the elimination of email, but it could and should be about replacing regular communiques, running workflows and publishing governance documentation. On its journey to the ordinary, contriving social is definitely OK.
photo: Howard Lake
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