Twitter as an Employee Communications Tool? - Alternatives

Twitter is a much covered communications tool that has seen a massive growth in users and press coverage in recent months.

There is little doubt that Twitter is an important communications tool but is it really the next big thing for employee communications? The short answer is NO.

Effective employee communication is about providing context. How much context is possible in 140 characters? Research shows that the vast majority of tweets are right up there at 139 or 140 characters demonstrating that most people are trying to 'squash' their message into the maximum allowed space.

Don’t believe the hype. Some organizations are promoting case studies about how they have used Twitter as a tool to build employee engagement. Take the time to lift the lid on the numbers and you’ll find that the uptake usually under 10% of staff - Pretty poor for a ‘game changing’ employee communications tool.

Useless, unless employees are there. Twitter is an opt-in messaging system. Once an employee has set up an account they then have to follow your internal communications tweets…which brings us to our next point:

Engaging content. For microblogging to be successful as an employee communications tool, you need to have a stream of regular engaging content that staff will take the time to follow. Many organizations struggle to find interesting content for internal blogs… Twitter presents even more of a content challenge.

Message approval. Depending on the type of organization you work for, you may be struggling with message approval processes around certain types of internal communications. The issue escalates with Twitter which is in the public domain. Yes, internal communications should be open, some organizations are better than others at this, but there is a certain amount of fear that needs to be managed for Twitter to be successful as an employee communications channel.

Twitter is a ‘social communications’ tool. Many staff may not want to blur the boundary between work and their social lives. They could choose to create extra profiles on Twitter i.e. one for work and one for social, but this adds another potentially off putting step.

Inane chatter and spam can dilute the cut through for important messages and cause those employees who have opted in to stop listening.

Not everyone in the organization is a digital native. Our workforce may be made up of a range of demographics. Enterprise RSS is on shaky ground in many organizations due to low opt in amongst staff. Twitter can be scarier as staff need to ‘put themselves online’ which can be unnerving and off putting for some staff.

Alternatives to Twitter:

Scrolling news feeds. Instead of a CEO tweet, perhaps a better way is to send short scrolling news feeds to targeted staff computers. This allows you to send ‘Tweet like’ messages out to employees in a secure format that doesn’t require staff to opt in. Targeting features mean that only staff who will find the content relevant will receive the update.

Formats like news feeds allow you to initiate conversations and maintain direct interaction with staff. For example with a CEO news feeds containing Twitter like updates.

User generated staff magazines. Snap Mag allows staff to submit their own stories, updates and hyperlinks into auto aggregated staff magazines that are subsequently delivered directly to the desktop of targeted staff. Editorial controls allow you to approve and reorder items. Customizable templates make it easy to brand magazines into compelling formats and variable article expiry functionality means that ‘short shelf’ life messages do not clutter up the magazine.

Real time dialog…with more context. Staff discussion forums and blogs provide the means for real time dialog or to continue conversations following a CEO briefing or other more formal communication. The Snap Interactive channels have been specifically built for internal communications with plug and play functionality, security and reporting features that have been designed specifically for internal communications measurement.

Emergency alerts. Twitter can be a very fast way for staff to become aware of emergencies...however, speed doesn’t always equal accuracy. Twitter can act as a fast and inaccurate rumor mill too. Consider desktop emergency alerts like Snap Alert to get accurate updates out to the right people …fast.

Teasers to drive staff to contextual content. Interactive screensavers and scrolling news feeds can be great ways to provide short updates to staff. Staff can click to follow links to more contextual content on the intranet or elsewhere.

Alternatives to Twitter for employee communications - FREE TRIAL