Web 2.0 is alive and well in the workplace. No wonder, with social business collaboration in the workplace causing an 18% boost in employee engagement (Aberdeen Group) and engaged workforces delivering 2.6 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to their industry counterparts (Gallup), I’m surprised the take-up isn’t faster than it currently is.

If your organization has embraced social methods for communication in the workplace – congratulations! Convincing IT and the C-suite to invest in social business software is a huge success. Your next challenge is to make sure the organization uses it in a way that demonstrates all the ROI you promised. Here are some thoughts on how to do just that:

In the pre-launch phase …

1. Integrate social into your overall business strategy. Make sure the social media platform you use, your social media training, and the way you communicate changes, are in line with your company’s vision, strategy, and general culture. If you go too far off from these, employees won’t know what to do with it. Have a strategy for the platform itself, and integrate it with other communication channels.

2. Clearly define roles and responsibilities, as well as behaviours you envision for all stakeholders. Some key roles to identify and define: Community Manager, Execs/senior leadership, Corporate Communications, “champions” (see tip #3)… and others depending on your social media platform design and purpose. Develop guidelines and other resources to make their job clear.

3. Involve your audience at the early stages of design and pre-launch. They will become your champions who test, shape, and then promote social media in the workplace. Not just early adopters either. Grab some people who say “this is a waste” or “I’ll never participate once it’s rolled out” so you can get all perspectives. Use their suggestions/ideas/comments when fine-tuning your platform and the launch. This includes involving them in a pilot, analyzing pilot results, and incorporating what you learnt.

At launch …

4. Create a launch strategy that will get noticed. Following your traditional communication channels, especially those you know are well-received, create excitement and build up to the launch of your internal social media initiative. Tease the employee audience with a sneak peak into what the pilot participants have been doing. Highlight the benefits. If your culture allows, have some fun with it – make a video and help it go viral (internally). Create a theme and run a poster campaign around it. Or simply identify all audiences, the messages they need to receive, who should send them, when, and what supporting resources you can provide (For example: an announcement from senior execs at a meeting or event, followed by a webinar for management with a tool kit for front-line managers to roll out to employees including talking points and FAQs).

5. Make it easy for executives to contribute content. An executive blog goes along way in encouraging employee comfort with using social media for communication in the workplace. C-suite blogs for their own lines of business, or the organization as a whole, are powerful. If the executives hesitate there are ways to help them along:

• start them with microblogging – just 140 characters about what’s new today, what they are up to
• simplify it – 6 to 8 blog posts a year is plenty; one 140-character updates a month piques employee interest. Think quality not quantity
• encourage video or photo blogs if they don’t want to/have time to write – use Flip or another simple camera – it doesn’t have to be professional quality
• if they’re concerned about content:
  • advise them to share a link that interested them – something from the morning paper (help them find the article online), news from a competitor – then they can just ask for thoughts and comments
  • get the community manager involved. If your exec is worried no one will comment on their post, have the community manager run an audit to listen what the hottest employee topics are and build a blog around those that resonate most with the exec
  • remind them of the principle uses of social media – collaboration, crowd sourcing, notification/news, and sharing knowledge – all described well on OrangeTrail’s blog about encouraging the right messages on your social business collaboration platform.
• encourage them to review peers’ blogs – or those of leaders they respect, whether within the industry or not. One communications guru suggests we get them on the golf course with other C-suite execs who’ve had success to talk about the benefits of engaging in the platform
• remind execs this is about internal branding – about creating culture and leaving their own legacy behind. Encourage them to be themselves, it’s a conversation – just as it would be if you came across a group of employees waiting for the elevator.

Post launch…

6. Audit usage regularly. A formal audit process can help identify how many people are active on the site, what is working well, and where there are opportunities for more social media training. This should happen in regular intervals, not just within the first few months, to help keep the community moving forward.

7. Allow your organization to move at its natural pace. If your company has traditionally been slow to adopt new technology, don’t expect your internal social media platform to be any different. One of my clients in the industry says, “People think their new platform will take off overnight because they think that’s what happened with facebook and twitter. They think facebook is young; but it’s been around for over 7 years. It took years for it to become what it is today.” Organizations can’t expect to transform overnight.

Do you have any other tips on encourage internal social media adoption? I’d love to hear them.

Here are some links/sources I found helpful:

The ROI of social media networks: http://socialmediatoday.com/nancy-kaplan/288293/3-benefit-measures-roi-internal-social-media-networks

OrangeTrail blog: http://www.orangetrail.com/category/blog/

A survey to deliver to employees before launching your social media network: http://123socialmedia.com/employee-activation-and-corporate-social-media/

The social future for CEOs: http://mashable.com/2010/08/30/ceo-social-media-future/

A book for execs on using social media in the enterprise: http://www.amazon.com/Executives-Guide-Enterprise-Social-Strategy/dp/0470886021