An eBook by

The enterprise social networking

handbookA definitive guide to best practices for

enterprise social networks

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Working social 2. Adopting an enterprise social network 3. Implementing your enterprise social network 4. Launching your enterprise social network 5. Moderating your enterprise social network 6. How to gain executive participation 7. Making your enterprise social network a success 8. Good luck!

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Working social

“Social” in the enterprise context means connecting people. It means associating work, content, knowledge or data with the person who created it. It means being able to see something that someone has done within a collaboration platform and viewing their profile where you can see what else they’ve done and get an idea of their field of expertise.

Getting to know the people that you work with helps you to find the right person with the right knowledge for the right job. Working social means that knowledge sharing can become a side-effect of working. Everything created within a social collaboration platform is visible to colleagues who have access, so knowledge is instantly shared and information is immediately communicated.

The enterprise social networking handbook

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Adopting an enterprise social network

Social business, on the other hand, refers to the concept of optimising the way an organisation runs in order to benefit its entire ecosystem, from owners to employees to clients. This is done by instilling a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing and open communication throughout the business. The goal of this is to become more effective as an organisation, help people get their work done, and leverage human capital in order to ultimately become a more successful company.

A predicted 65% of large European enterprises will have adopted social tools for business purposes by the end of 2014, so it’s increasingly likely that if your company hasn’t already adopted an enterprise social network it will this year. Adopting social tools is easy enough, but making sure it is adopted properly is a whole different matter.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Implementing your enterprise social network

Simply rolling out an enterprise social network and expecting people to start using it is not enough. In fact, implementing an enterprise social network requires planning, strategy and careful project management which begins before the system is even in place. So how should you prepare to implement an enterprise social network?

In many ways, preparation is the most important stage when implementing an enterprise social network. As long as you know what you want from the system and you have a strategy for getting everyone involved, the launch should go smoothly and user engagement should start strong and stay that way.

This should put you on the right track to achieve the ultimate goals of the enterprise social network which is to contribute to a social business culture and maximising efficiency and innovation through the network of people in the organisation.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Plan, plan, plan

Before you start doing anything else, you need to figure out exactly what you want to achieve from your enterprise social network. If you’ve had to pitch to higher ups in order to get buy-in, chances are you’ve planned it to the minutest detail already. Nevertheless, as with any project, planning is the most important step and it is without it that a project (and an enterprise social network) fails. !The first two steps relate heavily to the planning process of implementing an enterprise social network: step one, identifying your social business vision; and step two, establishing how your vision fits with your core business values. Once you’ve established both of these, it will be much easier to set goals and measure successes of the new system.

Before you implement an ESN

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Get the right tools

Really do your homework when selecting an enterprise social network platform. Ideally you want a platform where social tools integrate seamlessly with your file sharing and project management tools to help get work done, reduce costs and ease the administrative burden in an organisation. !It’s vital to remember that while technology is not what makes an enterprise social network successful (it’s the people!), it certainly impacts the success.

Before you implement an ESN

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Set measurable goals

You will want to be able to prove the value of your enterprise social network once it’s implemented. !The best way to do this is to establish some key performance indicators to measure how well it is working (you’re most likely to be measuring employee engagement here) and set goals that add value to the business (increased productivity, or increased innovation are good goals to aim for). !It’s up to you to work out how to measure these, but either way it’s important to be able to present this data to show how the enterprise social network is working meet your strategy.

Before you implement an ESN

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Find champions

It’s really important to kick your enterprise social network off with a core group of users who will show the rest how it should be done. Find champions who are social savvy to take charge in the new enterprise social network, who will guide less confident users through the system and encourage others to participate.

It’s important to get informal leaders involved at this stage, who will drive adoption with formal leaders along the line. Getting executives to commit to a certain level of participation is shown to stimulate company-wide activity.

Before you implement an ESN

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Assign a Community Manager

Choose someone to monitor and manage the activity on the enterprise social network. The Community Manager can promote and steer discussions if necessary, and can be helpful when it comes to tracking activity and measuring for the KPIs you set out.

A Community Manager can encourage users to get involved and help them build relationships with one another, while ensuring that any disputes (rare but possible) can be resolved quickly before they escalate.

Before you implement an ESN

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Launching your enterprise social network

So now you’ve got your plan in place, bought your tools, set your goals, found your champions and assigned a Community Manager. Now you’re ready for the launch. This may seem like it will be easy, simply open it up and let them loose, but a launch needs to be planned out and managed just as carefully as any other part of the project.

The success of how you launch your enterprise social network depends fully on how well users engage with the system. By planning out your launch and conducting it in a measured way, you can help to ensure that as many users get involved and invested in the system as possible.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Conduct a pilot launch

In most cases, a big launch will be a flop. Throwing users in the deep end and expecting them to become adept social networkers straight away, immediately changing the way they work and communicate with one another, is unrealistic. !Instead, ensure you do a soft launch first with a select group of users before you roll it out company-wide. This way you can work out any quirks in the system and establish a plan of action for getting users fully involved with the platform.

Launching your ESN

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Get your champions started early

Get a group of champions to start using the enterprise social network. They’ll help you iron out the bugs and will help you to roll it out to a wider user-base later. !Invite a spectrum of people from across the business to be your first users, including a mixture of early adopters, socially savvy people, contributors, spectators, key users and executives. Train these users on the system and encourage them to start working in the platform. Once they get to grips with the system they will become advocates and will be able to help and train other users later.

Launching your ESN

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Build out your content

Your champions will help you to build the content within the platform. It’s important to have the enterprise social network seeded and alive before it is opened up to the rest of the organisation, so that there’s somewhere to start and work from. Populate the network with valuable content and information like user guides. !New users will take clues from the existing community on how to use the system, and will find it easier to venture into using microblog posts, comments and @mentions when they see experienced users doing so. Joining an active, vibrant community will help to enthuse new users into getting involved.

Launching your ESN

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Educate users

Provide training opportunities for all new users to the system so that they understand not only the technicalities of the enterprise social network but also the benefits of the system, how it can help them to streamline their work and communications. !Don’t just train everyone once at the start. Continue educating users over time, especially taking care to help users with lower levels of expertise or those who use the system less frequently to avoid user drop-off.

Launching your ESN

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Document wins

Once you’ve launched your enterprise social network, remember to continually identify and document wins in order to promote the success of the platform once they start to emerge. These could be things like increases in product knowledge scores since the launch of the system, or reductions in the time certain projects take to complete. !Broadcasting successes with colleagues via the enterprise social network will demonstrate the value of the platform to users, particularly those who may be skeptical or haven’t fully signed on to using the system yet. Consider starting a hashtag to group these wins together and use them to measure the results of the system.

Launching your ESN

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Moderating your enterprise social network

Once you’ve got your enterprise social network up and running, it’s important to make sure it’s running smoothly. By preparing for the implementation and carefully launching the platform, rolling it out gradually across your company, you should be in a position where you have a good take-up of the system and a strong user-base.

Now, you should be considering whether you need to moderate your social network. Chances are, if you’ve got a small group of users you won’t need to moderate it formally. When it comes to larger communities, however, this is where moderation might become necessary. It is important to get the balance right when it comes to moderating your enterprise social network.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Set some guidelines

Write a short set of simple, understandable community guidelines that highlight positive behaviours in the community. Make it clear that your assigned Community Manager is available and ready to answer any questions. Your Community Manager is there not just to to enforce the guidelines, but to guide, educate and help users rather than punishing them for deviating from the rules.

Moderating your ESN

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Trust your community

Although it’s important that members stick to the guidelines, employers should trust that their employees will not intentionally behave negatively. These people are deemed trustworthy enough to work in the company, therefore they should be trusted to communicate in an online environment. Subsequently, most enterprise social networks are self-moderating and don’t need governing. Focus on encouragement and guidance instead.

Allow non-business content

Give users the opportunity to digress into non-work chat. This is especially important early on when you’re trying to get users enthused about using the system. It’s an ice-breaker for many and helps the community to build relationships, which in turn leads to a more productive network.

Moderating your ESN

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Moderate sparingly

It is unlikely that you will need to remove content, but consider it carefully if the situation does arise. Only remove posts if they violate HR policies or are intentionally offensive to others. Don’t censor negative comments in general, as they often present an opportunity for dialogue between colleagues that may not happen face-to-face. Remember that people usually resolve disputes themselves, but the Community Manager can step in to help if necessary.

Reward and reinforce

Remember to let users know when they’re doing it right. Reinforce positive behaviours by using shout-outs and praise, through microblog posts using @mentions and hashtags. As well as rewarding publicly, privately thank people who are setting a good example and helping to set the right tone. !In short, try to moderate your enterprise social network it as little as possible. Let your users feel like this is a space where they can work and communicate without fear of being censored for expressing opinions or being outspoken. Encourage positive behaviours and continue to educate users so they make the most of the system that is designed to help them work better and connect with their colleagues.

Moderating your ESN

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How to gain executive participation

Dubious executives can slow the momentum of the enterprise social network, so it’s crucial to make sure that you get full backing from your higher ups. So how can you win your executives around?

Winning your executives around is key to ensuring that your enterprise social network becomes fully integrated into the way your organisation runs. The more your execs get involved in the network, the more likely the rest of the staff will engage, so ensure you follow the steps to get your execs involved. They can be the most difficult people to convince, so remember to be persistent! And always show positive results.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Demonstrate the value

Continue to reinforce the value of the enterprise social network even after it has been implemented. Reminding your executives that there’s a reason why they signed off on it in the first place will help them to see successes for themselves. !Show them how the enterprise social network is already showing results based on the metrics you outlined in your proposal. That could be increased engagement, better collaboration or reduction in email. Make sure you tie these back to core business values. Results will erode their scepticism, the first step towards getting them to participate.

Gaining executive participation

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Identify influential early adopters

Not all your execs will be sceptics, so identify influential people who are engaged with the enterprise social network or have at least expressed an interest in it. Provide these people with one-on-one training to get them to advanced level knowledge. These influencers will help to push other execs towards the platform and will act as an example for others to follow. !Research shows that the higher a user is in the business hierarchy, the more interaction happens with their posts on social networks. When other execs see the high level of engagement with a peer, they are more likely to want to try it for themselves.

Gaining executive participation

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Mentor and advise personal goals

Invest time in mentoring your execs. Start up a reverse-mentoring programme in which less senior employees coach execs on how to communicate with social tools (likely, some execs won’t be familiar with social tools of any kind). Start small: teach them to consume the activity stream and like content. Commenting, blogging and microblogging will come later. !Remember that execs have very little time to commit to learning a new process, so try to make it as effortless as possible. Set them up with one thing to do regularly, such as spend five minutes each morning checking the activity stream, or like three pieces of content a week. Most importantly, don’t expect too much to soon.

Gaining executive participation

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Empower their assistants

Administrative or executive assistants can help to listen out on the enterprise social network and identify themes and discussions that their execs can get involved in. They can effectively act as information seekers, and can even suggest responses from execs. !As long as the assistants fully understand both the goals of the execs and the goals of the enterprise social network, they will positively impact an exec’s interactions with the network and can encourage them to participate and see the value.

Gaining executive participation

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Making your enterprise social network a success

So you’ve made it through the hardest parts of implementing your enterprise social network: launching, moderating, and getting execs to participate. Now all you need to do is keep the momentum going!

Your enterprise social network should enable people to create and share knowledge with ease. Depending on the culture of your company it may be difficult to encourage people to use these new tools and adhere to the strategy once it’s in place. It’s essential therefore that you eliminate barriers to participation in the enterprise social network. It is vital that everyone within an organisation’s network fully signs on to the strategy to ensure that the full benefits are felt across the business.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

Build your community steadily

You can’t force people to get involved in an enterprise social network any more than you can force people to make friends with each another. Conduct your roll out gradually and allow people to slowly make their way into the platform. A community will form on its own over time as people build relationships with one another. Sit back and watch it happen.

Making your ESN a success

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Share successes and reward people

Create use cases and success stories to share with your colleagues to publicise wins across the business. Shout-out and feature users that are leading the way in the enterprise social network, and reward and recognise good practice and users who help other colleagues.

Employ a passionate Community Manager

Get a Community Manager that is genuinely passionate about community. They will support and encourage users to engage with one another and build community relations. !A Community Manager will train and support group owners empowering them to become micro-community managers. It’s important to remember that community managers are not social media managers – their role is to foster a community, not manage communications.

Making your ESN a success

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Focus on people, not on tools

Remember that your company has a social network already. The tools you’ve employed are simply to enable and extend it beyond physical barriers and better facilitate natural collaboration. Don’t dwell on whether people are using the tools ‘right’ but rather look at whether users are collaborating more easily, developing relationships quicker, and extending their professional-social circles wider.

Making your ESN a success

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Trust your employees

You’ve implemented this system to help your employees, so trust that they will use it for good. When people see the value in the system they will use it as it should be used, and conversely when people use it as it should be used they will see the value. So make sure that you don’t put too many barriers in the way of adoption. Trust that they will use it professionally and within the bounds of company codes.

Good luck!

If you follow these guidelines you and your colleagues should gain vast amounts of value through your enterprise social network. Remember, the success of the network rests on it becoming integrated into the way people work and communicate. It’s not easy to change the way people think or connect with others, so be patient and persistent.

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The enterprise social networking handbook

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