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The communication challenges Corporate Communicators face is constantly growing. Social Media can be the answer for collaboration among employees, break through the clutter, and drive organizational culture and results.
If done correctly, applying Social Media strategies to internal communications can have a dramatic and positive effect on employee engagement and productivity. A decentralized marketing model can promote innovative storytelling and a multi-tiered approach with incredible results, including:
- A reinvigorated company’s culture.
- Loyalty to the brand among the internal audience.
Corporate social media helps employees engage with each other and the company but – more important – it boosts productivity; to get real returns on social media investments, senior managers should lead the way.
The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published a comprehensive report on how mobile devices change employees’ experience of work and, if handled correctly, boost performance and employee engagement.
A major benefit of mobile technology is how it can help employees collaborate more easily, which is something employees certainly seem to value. The survey in the EIU report found that 76% of respondents say collaborating effectively is important to them.
According to a recent study, in UK:
• Three-quarters of research-funding bodies used social media for corporate communications last year.
• Large, government-funded bodies were most likely to use social media.
• Twitter was the form of social media used most, both for promotion and monitoring.
• Over half of organizations measured the performance of their social media activity.
• Media, web and marketing/communications teams usually handled social media.
Findings of that research show that organizations draws chiefly on microblogging, video-sharing and social networking sites. Building a dialogue with stakeholders is a prime reason for using social channels, yet one-way ‘broadcasting’ of information is widespread.
For instance, Topgolf, the global leader in golf entertainment, successfully developed a culture and communication strategy to promote innovative storytelling that resonated across the enterprise and extended beyond the company.

Social but also business tools
Many collaboration tools are social in nature (such as WhatsApp). They help employees engage and connect with each other, and give large organizations with dispersed workforces the chance to feel smaller. It therefore comes naturally that employees rank collaboration tools high in terms of their impact on job satisfaction, loyalty, and creativity.
However, these collaboration tools are social business tools and not just social tools. Increasing productivity through improved collaboration and communication is a cornerstone of their existence. Employees no longer have to run, email, and phone around the entire organization in order to find, share, or discuss information. The productivity increase from this is significant: McKinsey calculates that social business tools can increase the productivity of employees by 20–25%.
So, it’s time for all companies, no matter the size or industry, to start applying these strategies.