I know my blog tends to go all over the map, but that’s just me right now. As I take in all that’s happening and all that’s changing in the universe of marketing, public relations and communications, my thoughts jump to all of the implications and opportunities, and a wealth of diverse topics come to mind.
One of the many topics I’m exploring right now is the implications of social media for employee communications or, as I like to call it, internal brand communications.
Let me get right to the heart of the idea I want to share in this post, and that’s this: internal brand communications today, to be difference-making, must be more engaging than ever before and less corporate than ever before.
More engaging because… that’s what’s always worked and that’s what people want and expect. What forms of communication have employees always trusted the most? Face-to-face communications, that’s right. Why? Because it’s personal, two-way, engaging… much more like a conversation, much more credible. Isn’t this what we’re learning in the midst of the social media revolution?
Less corporate because… corporate isn’t personal! We don’t trust corporate. We trust people. Again, isn’t this what we’re learning in the midst of the social media revolution?
If your employee communication program looks corporate, talks corporate and acts corporate, you’re on your way to becoming a dull bland, not a compelling brand. People expect more. And successful brand-building is all about meeting and exceeding expectations.
The new rule is to embed the personal back into your internal brand marketing and employee communication programs. People respond to people. They do not respond to the same old dull and lifeless corporate output.
I’m not saying all of the practices and tools we’ve traditionally used should be set aside. I believe we still need to engage and reach out to employees across several media. However, the character of those media forms must change. And that character must have conversation and people-to-people at its core if we are to motivate, drive behavior and build trust in our organizations.
I’ll be sharing more with you on employee communications 2.0 in future posts. I plan to scour the Web to see what insights and emerging best practices are available and I’ll be sure to share what I learn. In the meantime, if you’ve already done some of this work or have your own thoughts and experiences in this area, please share with us.
