Storytelling at its best – the tale of the tiger and the loaf

Jan, 26 – BY TAM SANDEMAN – A blog that is short and sweet… just look at this wonderful letter which brought a smile to my face this Australia Day as I came upon it on Facebook.

An employee who completely 100% gets customer service, so much so that it’s been reposted online – and Sainsbury’s will reap the reputation benefits as I have no doubt this will get re-shared and liked many more times over the coming days.

In our world of employee engagement two things struck me. One is organisations must now start to trust their employees to have the brains to do the right thing when customers (of any ages) want to interact with them and secondly it highlights just how powerful tailored communication can be. While this is just a cute story, it really shows Sainsbury’s has really got it right and not only engaged its customer service team, but is showing strength and authenticity of brand in communicating like this.

And now thanks to social media, we’ve been able to share it too. Just imagine if your organisation was brave enough to empower the front line to communicate online in this way. A true army of passionate employee ambassadors – just so powerful.

In the meantime, I’m off to find some giraffe bread.

Tam Sandeman
aged 41 10/12ths (but wishing she was still 3)

The art of creating conversation

Oct, 24 – BY TAM SANDEMAN – Not long ago I blogged about Australia’s PR industry dialing up its interest in the power of employees as brand ambassadors. So it was with great delight that I accepted the invitation from the PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia) to speak on employee communication at its annual conference yesterday – PR Directions 2011.

While it was clearly a positive move to see internal communication on the agenda – for me what was even more exciting was the title of the session – Cool watercooler conversations in your organisation: Effective internal communication – highlighting the industry’s understanding that we deliver so much more than newsletters, CEO blogs and mousemats with the company strategy on it.

Driving conversation and dialogue is absolutely what it’s all about – and to be fair, in our view, always should have been. Long gone are the days when a charismatic (and unfortunately sometimes the opposite) CEO’s town hall speech at the start of the year was enough to rally the troops. Today, more than ever it’s simply not enough. Employees are more comfortable to ask questions after hearing from the CEO and actively demand more transparency around company decisions. We say leaders are at their most powerful when they don’t really think they’re communicating – in the corridor after the big meeting, on the way to the car park, in the bathroom (not ideal) – but it is these informal interactions during which more authentic, genuine communication takes place that really counts – because they’re believable and tailored to the individual.

I was asked to give 10 minutes of insight from our rather enviable position of having a bird’s eye view into the employee engagement and internal communication of many of Australia’s top organisations. Here were the four points (there would have been more, but 10 minutes goes fast) I believe all organisations need to consider when it comes to driving conversation:

1. The introduction of social media has meant ‘water cooler’ conversation now has a new channel – with informal conversations enabled online as well as face to face.  Companies taking social media seriously as an external channel but not for their own people do so at their own peril.
2. Avoid MMM (Middle Manager Madness) – Time poor leaders and diverse workforces mean that many organisations are simply not giving communication the time it deserves. But who is it that needs to be skilled up on the art of conversation with the right content? Not just the senior leaders. It’s the middle or frontline managers who are key to succcess – they have the opportunity to converse with the frontline every day – so it’s clear – THEY are the ones who need to be invested in and at the moment they are clearly forgotten.
3. Great conversations don’t just happen. Well, they do sometimes – but they need help. Providing managers with the right tools to stimulate conversation is key. Be creative. Provide them with stuff they actually want to talk about – something they see the point in. Journey maps and conversation guides are just two of the tools flying off our shelves at the moment. What’s better is… when measured – they really do work.
4. And finally…  be culture and demographically appropriate with your tactics. If you want to drive a culture of conversationists – it’s got to come from the top. Don’t choose something crazy and out there if you have a cynical workforce. This may come in time – road test anything you’re not sure about. Nothing worse than getting it wrong – this could do more harm than doing nothing.

As we say – it’s not rocket science, but we are all different creatures and there’s an absolute art to getting it right. Thank you to the filled room at the Hilton today – it’s great to know so many PR professionals are interested in this side of communication. I hope to meet you all at a water cooler some day…

Brian Giesen

Director Social@Ogilvy Australia

Brian is an award-winning, founding member of Ogilvy’s 360 Degree Digital Influence group and passionate word of mouth marketing practioner.

Brian’s main blog is http://www.asiadigitalmap.com, and you can track all of his social media activities from Foursquare to LinkedIn at http://www.briandgiesen.com.

Since receiving the blessing of the Australian Department of Immigration & Citizenship to enter the country, Brian has developed and lead the 360° Digital Influence team at Ogilvy PR Sydney. Brian’s team of Digital Influence Strategists use the power of personal media, technology, and public relations to create comprehensive digtial and word of mouth strategies for clients – including IBM, Fosters, Tourism Australia, Engineers Australia, TED Prize, Lance Armstrong Foundation and more.

Brian speaks regularly on the state of social media in Australia and Asia Pacific, and has appeared at AdKnowledge, Frocomm, AdTech Sydney, Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), Future of Influence. In addition, Brian has conducted Webinars as part of an “Executive’s Guide to Social Media” partnership with the Wall Street Journal Asia which routinely receive more than 2,000 attendees each.

Prior to moving to Sydney, Brian pioneered Ogilvy PR’s internal social media training program which, trained the majority of the agency’s North American staff directly, and helped develop a suite of training programs for clients – ranging from “Digital Influence 101″ to full day bootcamps.

Brian’s previous roles at Ogilvy PR give him unusually strong perspective of the total digital landscape. As interactive marketing manager, Brian developed a deep expertise and passion in search marketing, interactive advertising, email marketing and digital PR programmes.

Prior to joining Ogilvy PR, Brian was a legislative aide for U.S. Representative Jay W. Johnson where he advised on issues of technology, education and telecommunications. It was here that he first witnessed the power of the Internet, helping lead an effort to connect rural Wisconsin schools and libraries to the Internet.

Brian holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Melcrum Social Media Conference for Internal Communications – Day Two

June, 30 – BY ALISON PIGNON – The standard of the content, presentations and debate on the second day of Melcrum’s Social Media conference for Internal Communications was very high overall. I was madly scribbling notes all the way through. Meanwhile, others were tweeting madly to share the gems they were picking up, with a prize being given to the person who tweeted the most throughout the day.

The conference was opened by international keynote speaker Euan Semple, with his entertaining mixture of dry Scottish wit and insightful observations. These included the need for organisations, and particularly leaders, to think less in terms of justifying ROI when it comes to social media and more in terms of justifying COI, i.e. Cost of Inaction – that is, not allowing it to happen.

The first case study was from a high profile professional services firm who is using social media to successfully encourage innovation and sharing of ideas by employees through an ‘Idea Zone’ on their internal website. It also turns out that this organisation has the largest Yammer community worldwide with 3,000 employee members. Their governance approach includes a social media steering committee and also a social media response team.

Next we heard from Robin Crumby, Managing Director of Melcrum who flew in from the UK to speak. He took us through some of the key findings of Melcrum’s 2010 global research into social media adoption internally by large corporations. It was interesting to hear that half of the 2,600 respondents (19% from the Asia-Pacific region) feel that the business case for social media is clear while the other half feel it is not clear. It seems the business world is still completely divided on this point. The research revealed what communicators believe to be the three most effective uses of social media internally:

1. Getting employees to talk, share information and collaborate
2. Building communities
3. Connecting to and learning from Generation Y employees.

After lunch, Lizzy Geremia, Brand Strategy Manager at NAB talked us through a very interesting case study on the use of online event technology to engage employees in the Personal Banking part of the business in the new brand promise. Using an easy to navigate and visually interesting online conference platform, employees were able to listen and watch a recording of the business head talking in an auditorium about the brand promise and then wander through to other booths to listen to other leaders’ ‘talking heads’. Employees were able to put questions to leaders via chat functionality, as well as talk to each other, and also provide online feedback. The results were great with the event reaching nearly 50% of the population and 95% of those who completed the feedback saying they had a better understanding of NAB’s brand focus as a result.

A final highlight of the day was the case study presented by a large banking, insurance and investing services organisation. I particularly liked how they measured the levels of employee engagement with social media tools and were able to group them into champions, advisors, members or just ‘missing’. The organisation identified the need to be more collaborative and grouped their communication tools under four groupings:

Connect – online portal

Share – video channel for employees to use

Discuss – Yammer and Microsoft Office Communicator

Innovate – Magazine

A lively panel debate closed what has been an interesting and engaging conference. Perhaps the next one will take place in a virtual setting?

Melcrum Social Media Conference for Internal Communications – Day one

June, 29 – BY ALISON PIGNON – The two-day Melcrum Social Media conference for Internal Communications started today. So far, the most interesting thing I have got out of it is the reinforcement in my mind that appetite for social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, or Yammer – the internal version,  is a personal thing. There’s no right or wrong, good or bad about it.

It was also encouraging to hear fellow internal communicators voicing what we already know: the more you learn about what the different tools can be useful for, the less afraid you are to use them.

The focus of the afternoon session by UK-based presenter, Euan Semple, was essentially about understanding the opportunities for harnessing the way employees are now communicating online, both inside and outside the organisation.

The session reinforced some important things:

• It’s about conversations: We emphasise all the time that great employee communication is conversation-driven. And unsurprisingly, it’s the same with social media. Social media tools are not terribly complicated. They’re really just a way of having more person to person conversations.

• Control to influence: He reinforced what we’ve also found, that one of the fears organisations have about using social media tools internally is that they appear to be disorganised and lacking in control systems – yet this is actually what makes them user-friendly. Because they are created and evolve organically, based on what the employees are interested in and want to talk about. This also means the business has more, not less, opportunity to influence what is happening. The internal communications team can tap into existing successful employee-led forums to seed questions and topics of discussion, rather than trying to push a ‘corporate’ version.

• Ask for forgiveness, not permission: Again, supporting our counsel that piloting tools and giving them a go is advisable for companies wanting to dip their toe in the social media pool. Rather than feeling that it’s absolutely necessary to first build a social media strategy and get buy-in from the whole senior team before launching a new tool, sometimes it’s just best to go out there and try it. Get a few people involved who you know are interested, for instance in a wiki or an online discussion forum, and then see how it grows. If there’s appetite for it and it turns out to be popular, it becomes a hugely useful source of knowledge and information for the organisation.

• Risk v reward: One of the things we know is top of mind for our clients when it comes to using social media is the perception that inappropriate conversations could pose a risk to the organisation’s reputation. Particularly if sensitive or damaging information gets out. And who has the resource to monitor all of this? It’s worth remembering that a) emails are not screened, yet they too can be damaging, and b) if you don’t trust your workforce, then you have a management issue, not a communication issue. Meanwhile, encouraging free and open discussion (based on a good social media policy and user guidelines) can only help to demonstrate the trust you do have in them.

• It’s not just the young who are interested: Statistics seem to show that the level of interest you may or may not have in using social media is not based on your age at all, but simply on your way of thinking. For instance, a large proportion of Facebook users are women over 30, not the typical twenty-something Gen Y-er we all might imagine.

I’m looking forward to hearing and sharing more tomorrow.

Recruiting Through Facebook

Graduate recruitment among Australia’s ‘big four’ accounting firms is a very competitive business. Each firm wants the best recruits – the highest achieving, the biggest all rounders and the most motivated.

In 2008 one of the big four accounting firms approached Impact Employee Communications to develop a Facebook page to attract graduates via Facebook, a widely used social networking site in Australia and overseas. Impact was engaged to develop the communication strategy and messaging for the Facebook activity.

From a tactical level, Impact created the Facebook page from scratch, which involved the development of regular written content, such as career tips, myth busters, monthly features and interviews with employees. Impact also filmed employees and developed video clips which appear on the page, providing Facebook users with first-hand knowledge of life at the firm. To ensure the interactivity of the site, Impact developed a close relationship with the firm’s recruiters, who regularly post responses to queries put up on ‘the wall’ of the page.

The Facebook page has been highly successful, based on feedback from within the firm and from viewers of the page. In the review section of the page, the majority of reviews have been 4 or 5 stars, with very positive comments about the method of using a social networking site to reach their target audience. After four months of the Facebook page being live, the total number of fans on the page was over 1,497 and is steadily on the rise.

Social Media Event

Sept, 24 – Social Media Event: This morning, 35 employee comms professionals gathered at Ogilvy House for a hearty breakfast of yammer, tweets and wikis. The drawcard was Brian Giesen, Ogilvy PR Worldwide’s director of 360° Digital Influence, explaining why social media matters for employee communication now more than ever before.

Brian discussed the recent trends in social media internally and externally, and how it’s being embraced as an effective employee engagement tool in organisations globally.

Click here to download Brian’s presentation. Feel free to share it with your colleagues.

If you need a hand using social media to tackle your business challenges, call Tam Sandeman or Stephen Hale on +61 (2) 8281 3222.

Digital Expert Arrives Downunder

Brian Giesen, the vice-president and senior strategist with Ogilvy PR’s 360° Digital Influence Group in Washington DC, has joined Ogilvy PR Australia as a Digital Strategist. Brian will be based in Sydney until May 2010.

An award-winning global expert, Brian brings more than ten years of experience developing, managing and executing a range of digital marketing and social media campaigns for brands such as Lenovo, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, DuPont, Yum!, National Institutes of Health and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Brian will provide senior counsel on crisis and issues management from a digital perspective, educate employees on the fundamental parts of digital influence strategy and educate on a range of digital tools to help build further understanding on the power of digital influence among both existing and new clients.

“This is a well timed appointment and provides all the Ogilvy PR companies in Australia the opportunity to further grow our digital influence skills as they become increasingly important to our client’s communications campaigns,” Ogilvy PR’s Managing Director John Studdert said. “Brian will also boost our leadership position in the Australian market across each of the areas of specialisation, while maintaining a high-level global role based out of Sydney.”

“The Australian Ogilvy PR companies have already established themselves as leaders, having executed a number of digital campaigns for their clients,” Giesen said. “I’m excited at the prospect of now working alongside them in person, to merge our international experience from our overseas campaigns, with local and regional clients.

“With the explosive growth of online media, consumer word of mouth and new technologies springing up every day, we now have to create comprehensive digital strategies for clients who want to engage customers or constituents in direct conversation. We’ve spent several years developing our methodology for identifying and engaging these new influencers in a way they find valuable, and it is this discipline we call digital influence.”

Brian’s arrival in Australia follows the appointment last month of Thomas Crampton as Ogilvy PR’s Asia Pacific Regional Director of 360° Digital Influence. Thomas is a veteran, award-winning journalist and digital media specialist. In addition to his Australian responsibilities, Brian will support Thomas and the region.

Brian will be speaking at The Insight Exchange’s launch event, The Power of Influence, on 19 May 2009, where he will give an overview of how influence impacts the success of businesses. For more information visit www.theinsightexchange.com