Rethink Your Approach to Employee Communications

How do you communicate to your employees? Do you post signs on the bathroom doors? Send out a mass e-mail? Hang up posters in the break rooms? Or, are you more advanced, with an employee newsletter, executive blog, and/or intranet site? Honestly, I’ve been at companies that have used all these approaches, from the bathroom signs to the dynamic intranet site.

Depending on the make up of your company, any and all of these methods can be effective. However, you should also consider utilizing social media. Develop a group for your company on LinkedIn and FaceBook, set up a Twitter feed, and even utilize YouTube and Wikis.

Hey, your employees are on these sites - rather than ignoring that fact, embrace it and use it to your advantage.

YouTwitFace - Thanks, Conan!

“YouTwitFace.” I love it! Conan certainly got it right. Everywhere you go, someone is talking about who they’re friends with on FaceBook, while someone else is twittering away on their BlackBerry, and someone else is recording something on their iPhone to then post to YouTube.

All great PR and Marketing tactics, to be sure, but too often companies are forgetting that’s exactly what they are - tactics. They’re not an answer in themselves, they’re not a strategy on their own. They’re pieces of the bigger puzzle, and each can’t stand on its own. Twitter by itself is not an effective strategy; for some companies, it may not even be a good tactic. I know - I may be the lone voice in the wind out here with that one, but it’s true. Each company must evaluate its strategy and the goals of their campaign to determine what tactics work best for them - old school strategy creation.

Some companies utilize a social media plan, while others incorporate social media tactics into their overarching plan. Again, depending on your goals, each system would work if done properly. However, I’m seeing a troubling triend with clients (and even some colleagues) where the opinion is that Twitter/FaceBook/YouTube, you name it, is the be all and end all for them. They come to me with that answer in mind, without first considering what their goals are and if, in fact, Twitter would really be the best way to achieve them.

So, a word of caution - social media tools are amazing, and I certainly put them into use when needed, but proceed with proper planning. YouTwitFace, to be sure!