If You Build It, They Will Come

You just finished the final preparation to launch your company's new intranet. Even better, you've built it with all the social media functions, including employee blogging, status updates, discussion forums and the list goes on. You're beaming with excitement for the world to see your hard work and to finally give employees what they've been asking for. Confidence will lead you to flip the switch, send the welcome email, and see employees living on their new site.

Two months later, blogs have been started and stopped, status updates are stale, employee profiles are still incomplete, and all you can think is, employees lied - they are not using what they've asked for.  

Sound familiar? Maybe it's not the same project for you, maybe it was the creation of a company event, an upgrade to a company tool, a new communication vehicle, etc. I've seen it happen a lot and I've even experienced it. Just building or delivering social media to our employees, even if it's great, isn't enough to get them to engage. 


The culprits

• Strategy: For a few different reasons, you may be launching your project without a complete strategy or plan to support this new space. Maybe it's because your executive has told you, "we just need to get it out there" or "we just need to deliver on time". The only answer here is, strategy is a must. Otherwise how can you answer the question, why am I doing this project and what will it solve?
• It's not social: Have you ever compared internal social media to Facebook and Twitter? If so, stop. Leaders and employees both usually think of these platforms as social. As in, for fun,  to keep up with family, friends, share memories - nothing to do with networking and employment. Try explaining the new social media tools with real examples. Speak to the power of networking, breaking down company hierarchy barriers, extending knowledge, and collaboration on documents with a larger audience. Employees need to understand why social media is not extra, it's part of their job, just like email. Help them learn the "why". 
• Guidelines: Employees need to know more than just what's new. They need to know how to interact. A lot of companies are publishing social media policies. These are great to tell employees what not to say. But how about teaching employees how to say it. Help them answer the question, what's the difference between a blog and a forum. Teach them the tool, share the best practices and build easy to understand guidelines.
• The company says it's OK: While some employees are early adopters and embrace technology change, not all feel the same way. I've heard from employees that they are not comfortable sharing information so publicly when the company hasn't officially said it's OK to do so internally. Yes, send the email sharing the news that the company embraces their opinion. But also, get the executives in the space. Employees are looking for their voices as an OK to proceed.    

These often overlooked ideas will help guide you in the right direction. Mark these off on your project planning and you'll be a step ahead. 

Of course, there are many other factors to think about. So I ask these questions of you:

• What has helped you reach your communication goals in a project or launch?
• If you've rolled out social media for your employees, what's been the biggest challenge?