One of the most complex parts of social engagement and advocacy programs is the process re-engineering that is required.

Treating social business as a team sport and enabling open communication, unobstructed collaboration and best practices sharing across individuals, teams and the organization is imperative to success.

Activation of employees while developing their social business judgment is as critical as putting the right emphasis on the tools and content resources to assist in amplification of social business.

As programs are formalized and organizations embrace social as mainstream and integral to business success, there will be a spike in demand for frameworks to support the employee social journey. Ensuring that employees have access to tools, training, advice, content and collaborators as they begin their individual brand building efforts will become critical to social business success.

From a tools and training perspective, formal guidelines will assist in developing employee judgment as they engage in social business activities. At the departmental level, conducting scenario-based trainings in the form of lunch and learns or team discussions is a tactic to develop a common understanding of expectations.

The ability to effectively and consistently deploy a social engagement program across the organization will require a structure that allows for both centralized and decentralized leadership. Advocate or ambassador programs that allow for decentralized training as well as centralized and cross-departmental sharing is key. This also necessitates a strong leader that can galvanize the team in a shared direction.

In addition to the people-intensive nature of social business, providing training materials, “how to” videos and information such as content calendars or content resources are the building blocks of a social engagement and advocacy program. Relevance of the content to ensure interest on the part of the employee is also paramount.

Take Aways

1. Take the first step, or next step.

2. Bring the rest of the organization with you on the journey.

3. We are all learning - this is not a destination or end state.