Happy New Year! I wanted to kick off the year with my book review of the End of Business as Usual by Brian Solis.  The video review is almost 10 minutes long so grab a drink and a snack   If you’re looking for a book to read in 2012 that challenges your thinking and makes you want to learn more about the consumer and information revolution, then watch this review.  Hope the information presented is helpful. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post “Public Relations Expanded: Eight New Social Roles Assigned.”  The piece highlighted some new areas or functions in PR, where the professional can shine, from the PR Policymaker and Internal Communication Collaborator to the Pre-Crisis Doctor and Master of the Metrics.  However, in order to take on new challenges, change must take place. It has to come from within first, and then filter through to your role in the organization.

It was hard to find an exact statistic on how many people actually fear change, whether personally or professionally.  However, based on hundreds of articles, I can see how change affects people in various ways, and how they move forward differently to initiate it. You may have do go through several phases of change before you can become what I call a “True Change Agent” and assume a new function in your organization. Okay, maybe some people just wake up and say, “I’m going to change the world today.” But, there are also those folks that take baby steps to get to change, and that’s just fine too.

I’ve put together a Change Scale so that you can look at where you fall on the scale.  We all have to start somewhere to evaluate how to move through the different phases in order to reach the top goal, which is change agent status.  I also believe that if you are prone to accept change in your personal life, then it may reflect how you handle change in your work environment.  I hope you’re able to see yourself rising to new levels on the Change Scale.  Of course if you’re already a True Change Agent, then keep up the good work!

Phase One – Change Thinker and Visualizer: You can see what needs to be done, how the change would benefit your team and/or your company’s communication and you think about the many things that you would do to institute a change (even going as a far as putting together a list). Not only do you know exactly what the change will accomplish, but you’re also visualizing the pros and cons of the change, thinking about how it would affect the people around you and the process in your organization.  At this phase you are not quite ready to talk about the change.  However, you know that a transformation is inevitable.

Phase Two – Change Talker and Motivator:  You begin to verbalize how you feel about certain changes within your own area of expertise.  You are letting your confidants (those who work closely with you) know that you think there are better ways to approach a communications challenge or to solve a problem at hand.  You are opening your mouth, and not letting an opportunity to speak your mind, pass you by.  At this phase you are happy to be expressing your ideas for communications change, but not quite putting your good sense into action.  However, you’re rallying others to find potential change agents when the time is right.

Phase Three – Simple Change Activator:  You are ready to take a few baby steps toward change.  This is the decision to crawl, walk and then run, knowing that you may scare a few folks or find some naysayers along the way.  However, any negative forces that come into play don’t stop you from finding smaller ways to show how change will work and to help others visualize the benefits.  At this phase you believe in the transformation and you are finding others around you who are willing to take baby steps too, for the sake of a better communication.  With the help of a few other individuals you are taking steps to reach more long- term goals.

Phase Four – Complex Change Activator:  You are ready to take on the big communication change challenges, and you know that there will be several obstacles in your way.  However, you’re willing to show that there is a tremendous urgency for the change, you’ll work tirelessly on the vision and strategy, you’ll build a strong coalition to move mountains in your organization and you want to communicate with everyone regarding the overall change process.  At this phase you’re not only looking for small wins, but also focused on the big change goals. The folks who join your team are hungry for big change as well.

Phase Five – The True Change Agent:  You have left all of your fear of change behind.  At this phase, you’re teaching others how to move through the phases of change personally as well as how to apply the same principles to their professional development.  Being a True Change Agent means that you are a champion and influencer.  Your research, constant communication and continuous change progress show that you have a solid track record.  Those members of the organization who are following your lead are also strong proponents of change. Together, you will move from function to function and you will revamp, reinvent and innovate communications for your company.

Believing in change, rallying for support and implementing a transformation can be one of the scariest, yet rewarding experiences.  Where are you on the Change Scale and how have you applied your ability to focus and implement change in your organization?

Yesterday, I conducted an all day learning workshop.  It was pretty intense, with only a couple breaks and a working lunch. The employees who participated in the workshop were there to learn about the new social media plan and policy recently adopted by the organization.  They spent the day listening to presentations, getting involved in several team exercises (both with their departments and people who they never worked with before) and watching videos from outside experts and companies.

Taking the time to communicate, educate and involve employees in your new initiative that’s poised to move the organization forward, makes people feel valuable and a part of the company’s growth.  It also motivates people to buy into a new program and to take action.  If a company wants an army of internal brand ambassadors, the company has to invest time and energy into creating those brand ambassadors.  Of course there will always be natural champions who surface.  These are the “Passionates” who raise their hands and want to immediately get involved. However, creating a broader learning environment and engaging more members of the company, means moving different people toward passion through education and team development.  Suddenly, you’ll find champions, you never knew existed in your company.

”It’s their job and they need to get on board” is not a good approach. Sure, in a tough economy, when companies aren’t spending a great deal on internal education, I’m sure this has been said a lot.  However, the reality is … if you want your employees to truly buy into your efforts and believe in the brand, you have to empower them, educate them and give them the tools that they need to succeed.  This is especially true with social media and employee participation. At the onset, social media to the employee may appear as “one more hat they have to wear.”  Of course, this type of thinking is not exclusive to social media.  Any change effort that necessitates a shift in culture (the mindset of the people), the process (management of systems and procedures) or the technology (infrastructure), should be introduced in a way that makes people feel a part of the process and working together toward a better solution.

Investing in your employees isn’t a one-time opportunity, it’s ongoing and the more you continue to empower, give trust and provide the right tools, the more they will feel motivated and use the tools to participate in programs that transform or advance your business.

Investment = Buy-In

I’ve been writing about the social media audit process, uncovering what an organization learns when they go through this exercise.  My last post “The Social Media Audit: Five Common Missing Pieces” mentioned the fifth missing piece as “Training and Education.”  This piece is a crucial part of your social media program.  Brands are finding out that social media focus should start from the inside out. If your internal champions are not on board, on the same page and working collaboratively, your program may suffer with its external social communications and not engage as effectively with the public.

If you know that you need to set up a training program or educate your employees on social media, here are several of the features you should keep in mind when deciding on an internal social platform:

• Social networking capabilities (with the ability to set up a profile)
• Internal communications tools including messaging, discussion and chat)
• Sharing capabilities including links, resources and documents editing
• Subgroups and/or discussion forums
• Data ownership and whether or not the social network claims any ownership rights in your code, content, or network data
• Ease of set up and use; the selection of a platform that’s easy to manage and upload content
• Ease of customization; a platform that enables employees to add designs, photos and maintain the brand’s identity
• Price (there’s a big difference between enterprise software and a platform for creating social sites)

When you review different platforms, make sure to keep your company’s culture in mind and select a platform that is intuitive, simple to navigate and one that offers some type of training (i.e., video tutorials). Moving from a traditional communications infrastructure to an internal social platform is a tremendous shift, so you want to ease into the change with a platform that is hands on and easy to use.  A few platforms that we’ve reviewed are SharePoint, Socialtext, Grou.ps and Ning. Of course, it’s important to do a comparison and demo each platform to see which one is the best for your organization.  Remember, when you’re finally up and running, it’s also really important to set up benchmark measurements to gauge employee adoption and participation rates.

What platforms would you recommend for internal social collaboration and learning?

January 19^th from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET is our #PRStudChat session, which will focus on a hot topic that’s weighing on the minds of many executives: the social media policy.  Our discussion will cover everything from team development (who is responsible for policy creation) and the important areas to be addressed in a policy to how policies should be guiding employee social outreach and participation.  Our special panel of experts, joining us that night, include Diane Gomez (@gomezdm), PR Manager at the Public Relations Society of America, Jeffrey Esposito (@jeffespo), PR Manager at Vistaprint and Ryan Gerds, Public Information Officer at Munroe Regional Medical Center (@munroeregional).

For those of you who don’t know our special guests, here’s a little background information on each panel members:

Diane Gomez:

Diane Gomez has been a PR Manager with PRSA since 2007. She manages PRSA’s communication strategies and programs, including identifying communication needs, developing PR plans and pushing out communications, as well as managing media events. She currently directs social media efforts, including developing PRSA’s social media strategy and policy.

Diane brings a wealth of knowledge to PRSA drawn from more than 20 years experience in writing, editing, public relations and coordinating special events, as well as graphic design, where she has received multiple awards. She has worked primarily in the public sector, with industry experience in higher education, transportation and associations.

Jeffrey Esposito:

Jeff Esposito is a public relations manager at Vistaprint, a leading online provider of professional marketing products and services to micro businesses. He is responsible for the day-to-day management, development and growth of Vistaprint’s social media properties and campaigns.  He is also active in a number of other communications areas for Vistaprint, including marketing communications and PR.

Ryan Gerds:

Ryan Gerds, APR is the Public Information Officer at Munroe Regional Medical Center, a 421-bed hospital, in Ocala, Florida.  He has been with Munroe Regional since February 2005 and is responsible for the public information office overseeing public relations, media relations, community relations and internal/external communications for the medical center.  Prior to joining Munroe Regional he spent six years working in professional baseball with the Tampa Bay Rays, as a media relations assistant, as well as with the Birmingham Barons and Charlotte Knights where he served as the Media & Community Relations Director.

Since moving to Ocala, Ryan has joined numerous community boards and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Florida Public Relations Association as the Vice President of Member Services.

We are very excited to hear our experts’ responses to the following questions:

• Who did you include in the social media policy building process (from other depts. in addition to PR)
• Do you have an internal policy for employees and an external policy for the public?
• Did you policy include a statement on employee’s personal use of social media?
• Do you feel that your organization’s current policy guides employees?
• What are the issues or areas that need to be discussed in a social media policy?
• When building a policy do you have to take your industry into consideration?
• Do you think a policy should be more legal, middle of the road or a total people policy?

Of course, we look forward to hearing insight from our community of educators, pros and students that night too.  We hope you will join us on the 19^th to learn more about social media policies, which are a critical component of an organization’s social media program.  If you have any questions that you would like answered, please feel free to post them to the #PRStudChat LinkedIn Group.  Hope to “see” you on the 19^th!

Now that you’ve written your organization’s social media policy…you’re only halfway there. I recently finished working on a social media policy for a hospital.  The employee guidelines turned out to be over 15 pages, with information that touched up the following areas:

• Employee Access
• Employee Conduct (the Rules of Engagement)
• Account Management of Social Platforms
• IT and Security Issues
• Legal Concerns: specifically HIPAA & privacy as well as Public Record
• Employee Use of Content

We also developed a separate public policy instructing the hospital’s online web communities on how to interact with them on Facebook, Twitter and any of their other social media sites.  However, the other critical part of the social media policy exercise is getting employees to read, understand and then embrace the guidelines that are created.  Writing the policy is only the first part of the equation.  Delivering and supporting the policy the right way, to motivate and create action, is the other.

Here are a few ways to get your employees to embrace the policies that you put in place to guide them.

• By all means create the longer more detailed policy, but also develop a two or three page summary that is a quick and easy way for them to understand the contents of the longer document.
• Build a presentation template so that the policy is in an interactive format rather than a long Word document.  For example it could be a PowerPoint or better yet, a Flip Book for them to review.
• Develop a quiz or quick way to evaluate if employees have read the guidelines and if they understand the contents.  This quiz should be taken within a certain period of time, so that the policy is read and understood before they engage in social communities (or continue with their previous social networking interactions).
• Develop a survey to ask employees about their knowledge of social media (from social networks like Facebook and micromedia including Twitter to photo and video sharing networks).  Try to assess the areas of social media where they may need tutorials and/or more instruction and training.
• Create training classes (webinars or in-person training) to get your employees better acquainted with social media and make them feel for comfortable about their participation.
• Create a social newsletter and distribute it internally so that all employees know what social outreach programs are currently in place, planned for the future and also how employees can become more involved.
• Launch an internal social platform that not only promotes your social media participation externally but allows employees to test social media, collaborate with peers, meet other members of the company and allow them to be privy to ideas and innovation that they normally would not access, without an internal social media platform.
• Consider rewarding social media participation as a part of an employee recognition and/or reward program, so that employees realize that social media is accepted by the brand (there’s buy in from leadership) and is a part of the culture of the company.

These are just a few of the ways that organizations can introduce social media to employees and have them not only reading the policy but also wanting to engage and participate in new ways to benefit the brand.  Remember, writing the policy is only the first part.  You need your internal brand evangelists to be willing participants and to be that unified voice or army of champions that supports and adds value to the brand’s social presence.

In the past, you may have heard me say,”No one owns social media.”  However, that doesn’t mean that different departments in your company aren’t trying to own it.  Actions always speak louder than words.

I remember reading a post a year ago by Jeremiah Owyang that I thought was excellent.  He outlined five ways that companies allowed their employees to participate in social media.  I took the liberty of taking those five examples and tacking on my own perspective to illustrate how a few of the groups within an organization can try to own social media (as the company moves from stage one “no rules” through to stage five, which “empowers” the workforce).

Here are the five ways that Jeremiah outlined originally, with my added comments in bold regarding “ownership” in the organization:

1. Employees have no rules, no guidelines and no policies.  Just go out there and do it! Translation: No one wants to own social media and frankly this can be dangerous for the brand.
2. Shut it Down: Protect the brand and protect the employees from any liabilities that may occur from “losing control” as a result of social networking.  Translation:  Legal and IT are trying to own social media. Regardless of this type of ownership, conversation will continue. Employees will talk after hours, on their Facebook or via Twitter feeds.
3. The media trained spokesperson will be the only person who can blog and be involved in social media.  This person already has the training and can represent the company.  Translation:  Corporate Communications is trying to own social media.  This won’t work because social media is about open, human and transparent conversations.  The trained media spokesperson doesn’t necessarily allow customers to interact with the people behind the brand and tends to speak with prepared statements.
4. The corporate employees blessed for social media. A few select individuals will receive social media training and best practices Translation:  Executive/Leadership, Corporate Communications and/or Human Resources are trying to own social media.  Although the organization is willing to train certain “lucky” individuals, there are many other internal brand champions who want to engage and be trained the right way.  There will be dissent in the ranks, if only a chosen few are able to participate, and other employees are banned from social communications.
5. Empower the employees…the “all in” approach.  Translation:  This is the best way to handle social media within an organization. To empower, educate and have guidelines for the employees to participate; where there is buy in and trust from the top, and there is the willingness to participate and the right tools to engage on the bottom.  Both ends meet in the middle with a great social media policy that frames out participation.  In this scenario, many departments own social media and together, the organization finds value.

So, there you have it, five ways that clearly illustrate how some types of ownership are not beneficial.   The last scenario, having everyone work together, is the best way to approach social media across the organization, with good guidelines, for a successful program.

Going through my RSS feeds, I came across Dave Fleet’s article on the 57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources in SocialMediaToday.  A very useful article with excellent examples!  There are so many best practices for us to review.  So, as you are scouring policies, you may want to consider separating your resources into a couple of different buckets: the employee and the public bucket.

Simply stated, what you request of your employees may look similar, in some respects, to a public facing social media policy, however, it will also be very specific to your organization.  For example, you may want to consider the following information for the employee bucket.

Employee Bucket:

• Employee Access to Social Media:  Are any social networks “off limits” to employees or will they have open access to all social sites? Is there a formal process when a department or employee needs to have full access to a social media site?
• Employee Conduct: How do you want employees to use and collaborate on social media? This is where you may see “The Rules of Engagement” and the three “Rs” which stand for Representation, Responsibility and Respect. Is an employee’s participation strictly for work and how should they represent their personal views?  Is an employee able to check their personal Facebook page or Twitter conversations during the course of the workday?
• Content Use: What kind of content can and should be shared?  Will you provide any guidelines regarding how content is published, whether internally or externally with the public?
• Legal information:  Do you inform employees regarding privacy, defamation, intellectual property, etc? How do you educate employees on these laws and regulations without going too deeply into the details of each?  Will you require employees to use disclaimers for personal use of social media?
• Social Media Profile Management:  Who is the gatekeeper per department or for smaller organizations, the gatekeeper for the entire company?  Should an employee leave your company, who will have the information regarding the profiles set up by that person, including which social networks, user names and passwords? Who will go in and change the user name passwords when an employee leaves the company?
• Additional Policy Information: Is your social media policy is tied to a Code of Ethics or an employee communications handbook? If so, you must include references to additional resources for employees to review.

The Public Bucket:

• Participation Guidelines: Will you offer information about social media and how will you encourage public participation?
• Blogging and Comment Policies:  What do you want your public stakeholders to know about how you moderate your blogs?  What should they understand regarding the manner in which comments appear or maybe don’t appear?
• Legal Language: Will you have a passage that says the information posted on blogs and social networks is the copyright property of your organization for further use?  How will you address any behavior that is considered inappropriate social media conduct?  Should you discuss privacy, confidentiality and security?

You will definitely see areas of similarity between the information that you want to share with employees and the public regarding social media.  And, in some cases, maybe one policy does fit all.  But, you may also want to consider the differences between the internal/employee social media policy and your public policy, which highlights the way you want customers and other stakeholders to engage with you.  There are many considerations, far beyond what’s above.  This is just a starting point so that you are able to dig in deeper.

How is your social media policy development going and are you developing one policy for all groups or using the bucket approach?