photo by seattle municipal archives
I’m developing recommendations for an internal communications program for a large nonprofit that currently has little in the way of formalized channels. At a later date I’ll share with you the process I’ll take to arrive at an effective solution, but right now what’s really intriguing me are the possibilities presented by Twitter.
An effective internal communications program does four things. It enables all stakeholders to listen, speak, question and share feedback with the rest of the organization. Communication is constant and flows both up and down. It enables management to communicate organizational mission, vision, values, goals and objectives to all, and helps everyone understand how they contribute to the organization’s success.
No one tactic or tool can achieve all this, which is why we have staff meetings and email, newsletters and intranets, formal channels and the informal grapevine.
The important thing to remember (and which senior management frequently forgets) is that internal communication is about facilitating, not dictating. Handing down the news and royal edicts from on high is a shortsighted approach that doesn’t begin to tap the power of effective internal communications. The smart organization seeks to do more than simply inform; it enables the effective completion of work through supportive communication.
“Shut up and do what I tell you to do” has never been an effective management technique. And many managers get a little queasy when you suggest that exercising tight control on internal communication isn’t possible or even desirable.
Which brings me to Twitter. Here’s a tool that epitomizes the freewheeling, uncontrollable nature of social media, and yet take a look at it through the internal communications lens.
Twitter enables everyone to listen, speak, ask questions and provide feedback quite easily. There is no top-down or down-up. Tools like Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck allow you to casually monitor the conversation while working (at least for those of us usually at a computer monitor). Group Tweet enables you to “privatize” the internal communication stream, making sure internal communication stays internal. The hashtag convention allows an organization to carve out specific discussion streams (#budget, #strategicplanning, #bestpractices, #marketing, etc.) for easy identification and grouping.
Senior management can ensure that key information is being shared throughout the organization, departments can more easily collaborate with one another, individuals can raise questions and managers can monitor commonly asked questions to identify training and development needs, among other things.
There are some obvious downsides. Many organizations are filled with employees whose jobs don’t involve access to the internet. And a tool is only useful to the extent that it is embraced and used by people. I’d venture a guess that I can count on one hand the number of people in my organization who use Twitter, and that’s a pretty tiny percentage of 1,200-plus employees.
But as I said earlier, no one tool is the answer to all questions. Combined with more traditional channels, Twitter could be one of the most effective internal communication tools to date. It’s a lot less invasive and interruptive than instant messaging and email, more accessible than maze-like intranets, and frankly more closely mirrors normal human conversation and interaction.
Introducing Twitter to an organization with little social media experience would initially involve a great deal of education and training, introduction of tools like Tweetdeck and Group Tweet (and Twitter for that matter), and working closely with individual managers to ensure that they set the best example for the rest of the organization. Most of all, it requires the unflinching commitment of the CEO and senior management, because this won’t be successful overnight.
What do you think? Worth a shot or crazy talk? I’d be especially interested in hearing from anyone who’s had experience using Twitter in their internal communication efforts.
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I think it is worth a shot, but the company first needs to be internet savvy enough. Making a jump to Twitter from no social corporate network might be too much freedom to employees.
I would think employees are not ready to have gained such easy access to talk to the entire organisation. I would believe this would work for a smaller organisation, like 50-100 people who already know each other. In a larger company, employees might be unaware who is “reading” also?
Very interesting to see how this might develop!
Good points, Ralph. Education and training definitely would be key prerequisites to the success of any Twitter initiative along these lines. The issues of freedom and transparency are interesting ones. Knowing that your tweets are accessible to all within the organization, will employees exercise too much or too little caution in what they post? Either would be potentially damaging to the effectiveness of the program. Corporate culture obviously plays a huge role in this.
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