What do corporate social networks mean for you?

Almost everyone is familiar with such a new tool for organizing the life of a company as a corporate social network or corporate portals. The idea itself is new and good, only there are companies where the introduction of corporate social networks has been successful and very few companies bring business benefits. What are the situations that advanced Russian companies fall into when they decide to introduce a corporate social network or corporate portals?



Currently, a large number of people have heard about what corporate social networks are, and many have even tried it. Almost everyone can hear that the idea is new and good, but there are not enough companieswhere the introduction of corporate social networks was successful and brings real benefits to the company. On your fingers, you can count the projects in Russia, where the implementation is recognized as successful in the number of employees actively participating in the life of the network and the resulting business benefits.

What are the situations that advanced Russian companies fall into when they decide to introduce a corporate social network or a more functional product - corporate social portals:

1. "Desert". For some reason, no one lives on the network. It seems that the project was actively starting and the benefits were obvious, but quickly employees forgot about its existence. Here, the surprise of some employees of companies is always very “happy” when you communicate with them at our introductory seminar on the introduction of social networks . They are completely delighted with the idea, and when you ask how your corporate social network is doing (after reading the press releases about how cool it was implemented), you see the complete amazement on the faces - and what, we have a corporate social network?!
   
   
2. The corporate social network is turning into a “flood room”, “facebook”, where the percentage of involvement goes off scale, and employees who previously disabled “classmates” at work have finally found the opportunity to do the same thing legally. I recall an example when, after a long training and individual consultations, instead of developing a group of your department, laying out useful materials, news about new arrivals of goods, a user goes into a group of “non-working” activities and begins to actively apply all the knowledge invested in him about how still use a corporate social network.
   
   
3. "Theater of one actor." It happens that a corporate social network becomes a place for the Elect, and for various reasons. Or employees who started using the network are perceived by the collective as “renegades”, and on the sidelines they are given different nicknames: Mr. and Mrs. corporate social network. Or the employees responsible for the development of the corporate social network are left there alone and generate a large amount of content to show how effective their work is, while others read this content at best. Often such employees are internal communicators or HR specialists who are concerned about the level of employee involvement in the life of the company. Although it also happens that a corporate social network becomes a place for a leader’s monologue, urging its employees to start changing and working in a new way,
   
   
4. "Honey Apiary." Finally, in some companies, corporate social networks perform their primary function and bring business benefits to the company. This is due to the fact that employees actively share information about the market, the best working methods, look for new ideas and implement them in team work. This leads to the fact that the corporate social network becomes a place of accumulation of knowledge, accelerates teamwork, promotes high involvement (through the exchange of opinions and the collection of new ideas), and also improves customer service and the quality of work with partners.
   
   

Let's try to depict these options in a diagram:


So, now the fun part. And in which square is your corporate social network located? In order to understand this, answer a few questions:

• What is the percentage of active users (those who logged into the network at least once a month) on your network?
  
  
• How many people generate the main content?
  
  
• Does the corporate social network bring you any benefits?
  
  
• Does a corporate social network help solve the problems of the organization? Did it work better after the introduction of the network?
  
  

After you honestly answer these questions, I think it will not be difficult to determine which quadrant your corporate social network is in.

And what to do next with this knowledge we will discuss in the next article.

ps By the way, friends, colleagues from HSE, do you know that the Higher School of Economics has its own corporate social network (and this is not a forum or an email list of interests)? Frankly, I found out about her only at the next conference on corporate social networks, which told how much benefit she brings to employees. So draw conclusions ...

Ekaterina Buzulukova Facebook | LinkedIn