Social business doesn’t thrill employees (yet)

Social media continues its’ persistent march across the firewall and into the day-to-day lives of intranet users, but executives and employees alike are less than thrilled with the end results. In fact, the initial overall rating on internal employee-only social media (intranet 2.0) is middling at best.

READ AND DOWNLOAD THE SOCIAL INTRANET WHITE PAPER

Results from The Social Intranet Study (1401 respondents from across the globe; conducted by Prescient Digital Media in association with the IABC Research Foundation in June 2011) reveals that a small majority of employees and executives rate their intranet social media as ‘good’ or better. In fact, only 28% of employees rate their internal social media as good or very good; a greater number rate these tools as poor or very poor (31% combined).

Executive ratings fair no better, rather worse: only 28% of executives rate their internal social media as good or very good; 35% rate these tools as poor or very poor.

If your executives aren’t happy, and your users aren’t happy, your social media efforts are failing.

How is it then, with so much on the line, and so many dissatisfied executives and employees, that internal social media (social business) is barely cutting it or failing? Too many organizations are relying on out-of-the-box SharePoint and free, open source solutions, with little thought or execution on the needs and requirements of the organization and its users. And technology is only one-third of the equation; a successful intranet requires two-thirds people and process (in fact, technology is really only an enabler, but when it’s poorly deployed, it works poorly for all). Change management is tantamount to success: social media will only work when properly deployed with the requisite education, communications, and promotion. It is not enough to merely build it and hope “they will come.”

I’ll expand on these thoughts and other key findings and recommendations from the Social Intranet Study in the very first webinar and presentation on September 27, 2011, at 12pm EDT, Business Turns Social: Key Learnings From The Social Intranet Study.

READ AND DOWNLOAD THE SOCIAL INTRANET WHITE PAPER