Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

Inspiring employees first means motivating yourself. If you’re not out there blogging and Twittering, then why should you expect the same of your employees? A culture that breeds involvement in social media must start from the top down.

Matt Cardwell, director of e-commerce marketing at Quicken Loans, says motivating employee to blog starts with active leadership. “It’s a leadership thing. At the very beginning, you have to make people use it…and you have to make sure any direct reports or leaders in the team are talking the same talk on it,” he said.

Northwest Mutual also started its internal social networking from the top down. Kevin Olp, director of organizational communication at Northwest Mutual, said his company uses various social networking initiatives—an internal blog, marketing blog, a wiki, and RSS. He said senior management wanted to build a dialogue with employees rather than talk at them. Northwest Mutual first motivated employees by starting with a group of seed bloggers. “We went around and got folks around the company who had something to say…we set them up as a test group, combined them with an internal communications program, and stepped back.” Now the blogs are grassroots with 91 active employee blogs in the system.

But what about making employees find the time to blog during their hectic days? Between email, meetings, phone calls, and everything else they’re working on, employees are already overwhelmed. Serena Software found a solution. The company started “Facebook Fridays” where employees are strongly encouraged to spend at least one hour per week updating their profiles on Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, interacting with colleagues, and even responding to customers. "We prefer that they email each other and customers using it," said Kyle Arteaga, Serena's vice president of corporate communications. "About 40 percent of us are consistent users, and everyone on the management team is very active."

1to1 Media’s own Ginger Conlon held a “Get Social” day earlier this year for all media and marketing employees. She logged it into our Outlook calendars and blocked out the morning, incorporated lunch into the day where we discussed the process, and then finished in the afternoon. She banned us from responding to emails and phone calls and said no other work should be done during that time.

Ginger’s plan worked. Most people here today actively update their social media pages and participate regularly in industry blogs.

To get your employees involved in social media, I have some additional advice:

* Replace your intranet with a Web 2.0 application. This will force employees to work in the medium and familiarize themselves with the social applications.

* Mandate employees to install an RSS feed on their computers.

* Create an informal social network where employees can post introductions, meet new employees, and connect with colleagues with common interests.

* Charge your HR team to develop blogging guidelines so that employees understand that being social is expected of them.

Hopefully you can take away at least one of these ideas to put you on the path to getting your employees socialized.