The Key to Social Media Success Within The Key to Social Media Success Within Organizations THE LEADING

Abstract

Many organizations have started using social media (aka Enterprise 2.0) tools internally to interact with their employees. A number of companies, including Best Buy and Dell, have succeeded in using social media internally to meet important objectives, such as reducing their costs, increasing revenues or stimulating innovation. However, many companies have either stayed away from using social media tools internally or failed to see beneficial results from their use within their organization. In a 2010 survey we conducted of 1,060 global executives, only about 50% said that their companies had adopted social media initiatives within their organizations; of those, about 60% reported that social media had positive effects on their company's internal communications. Thus, only about 30% of executives whom we surveyed work for companies that have both adopted internal use of social media and seen positive effects on the company's internal communications as a result. In our qualitative investigation of 34 companies' social media experience, we found a similar dichotomy. Why do so many companies either avoid using social media internally or fail to make it work very well within their organizations? Our finding is that to be successful, internal social media initiatives must focus first and foremost on the development of emotional capital, which we define as the aggregate feelings of goodwill toward a company and the way it operates. A company's emotional capital with its employees can be built by the actions of executives; it represents the emotion-based assets that the organization has developed over time with its employees.