5 Strategies For Implementing Social Media Into Your Organization

• Published in: The American Salesman Vol. 56; no. 2; p. 13
• Main Author: Lutze, Heather
• Format: Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Burlington National Research Bureau 01-02-2011
• Subjects: Corporate culture; Customers; Employees; Guidelines; Marketing; Personnel policies; Productivity; Search engines; Social networks; United States > US
• ISSN: 0003-0902

Australian scientists at the University of Melbourne recently published an interesting study that found when employees take time to visit Web sites of personal interest, such as social media sites, it provides them a mental break and actually increases their ability to concentrate. Clearly, giving your employees an acceptable distraction is the way to go, especially if doing so helps the company's bottom line. With that said, you can't simply allow everyone to post to the company's social media sites arbitrarily. Rather, you need to establish rules of engagement. The following suggestions will help you do precisely that: 1. Put everything in writing. 2. Start by giving social media access to certain people to test the waters; then open it to others in phases. 3. Make it fun. 4. Consider your IT and other staffing needs. 5. Implement your social media activity and policy from the top down.