I ran across an interesting blog post a few days ago by Jeremy Robert, titled “Internal Communications- Freedom of Speech? You cannot be serious!”

In it Jeremy says he cannot understand companies like Coke and Ford letting their employees loose in social media channels – they’re planning to let them talk on behalf of the company without going through PR.  Here’s an exerpt:

You simply do not allow employees free rein. You don’t. It is accepted.

Then along come the social media strategists. “It’s all about content, it’s all about dialogue, it’s all about the quality of the conversation” – free spirits in the digital age. Not for them the rules of the old guard – no, the rise of the internet and FaceBook and Twitter has changed the world and we must move on or wither and die.

It appears that their lobbying – and the continuing spread of Shiny Object Syndrome – has convinced even the most conservative of organisations (Coke, anyone?) that they should be allowed to let employees post directly to the social media sites, without passing the sense/health check that is the PR department.

I stuck in my 20 cents here (employees should be empowered/let ‘loose’ but properly trained/guided as to what’s appropriate what’s not).  What do you think? Are employees encouraged to get out there in the social media world and represent the company? What kind of training/caveats are in place to ensure they don’t damage the company’s reputation?

Who in your company is speaking on its behalf and how has this worked for you?

Check out this great post I just ran across at “General Smelectric”, a spoof blog as far as I can tell.  A funny example of extreme internal spam. A lot of it rings true…

Recent research has shown that out of 300,000+ employees:

• 95% do not read this email
• 33% automatically filter it into a folder marked “SPAM”
• 60% who do open the email scan through it for notifications on discounts or contests, then Shift-Delete it when finding nothing

Thus, going forward, instead of “The Latest at General Smelectric,” Corporate Communications will be using the following subject line: “Please read: You have been fired.”

Please join us this Thursday for a 30-minute webinar to discuss how to protect employees from internally-generated email noise and irrelevancies. I commented a few weeks ago here, wondering why internal communicators don’t spend more time protecting employees from internal spam and got some good feedback, which we wanted to share!

This webinar will explore some practical ways to both manage email internally and to channel noise away from email and into more appropriate vehicles.  

We will mention the SnapComms channels that we market as one possibility, but they won’t be the focus of this session. We’re talking about the bigger picture.  (If you want to get your head around our visual messaging software, book us for a demo or visit our website and check out the videos/details).

Hope you can join us!

Details: Wednesday, August 19th, 11am PST (2pm EDT). Register Here

A global company based in the UK is using the SnapTicker to broadcast internal ‘tweets’ twice a day from the CEO, according to Chris Leonard, one of the founders of the SnapComms software company.  We met up in June at the IABC World Conference in San Francisco, and he told me the story:

The company took on the SnapComms software in order to recapture staff’s attention and refresh their internal communications.  The CEO began sending short ‘tweets’ out to all employees twice a day, as a way to engage them directly. But instead of using Twitter, he sent them through SnapTicker which fires a company-branded scrolling message onscreen for a couple of minutes. 

The first time he included a link to his internal blog in the ticker (unlike traditional TV crawls, this one lets him embed links), so many employees clicked through that I.T. had to quickly scramble to accomodate the sudden and significant increase in blog traffic! The outcome far surpassed their expectations.

For this company, the SnapTicker has proven to be a powerful way to initiate regular interaction between the CEO and staff, especially those outside of their head office.

Hearing stories like these is great, because content still is king. It’s how the SnapComms tools are used and what content you put in them that takes them beyond being just another cool gadget, right?

So how would you use the Snap Ticker in your corporation?  What content/link would be worthy of an onscreen ticker?  Submit your thoughts and we’ll publish the best ideas to Twitter and our website (giving you credit and a free link).

SnapComms, the software company behind the Snap Messaging Tools for employee comms which we market in the U.S., are a Global Sponsor this year for Melcrum.

As their U.S. partner, we’re able to extend to our network and customers in North America a 25% discount on registration for the upcoming Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit (Chicago, Sept 22-24, 2009) (standard registration costs $1215 -$1850).

The SCM Summit has some stellar Corporate Communicators lined up to speak from companies such as Kraft Foods, International Monetary Fund, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, IBM, Pfizer, and Walmart.  You’ll also find some of the very best consultants sharing their knowledge as well, including Stacy Wilson, Chris Gay, Linda Dulye, David Grossman, and Kathryn Yates.

If you’re interested, call or email me by September 4th.

Cheers,

Paula Cassin

paula.cassin@cutthroughcommunications.com

Tel: 1.805.715.0300