When posting to internal social sites hosted by your organization, it’s important to understand that you are posting to a corporate network that has a business function behind it. This is one of the key differentiators between social media sites like facebook where the action of announcing yourself for the sake of announcing yourself is not only accepted, it’s expected; and internal social tools like Yammer which have business needs and strategy behind it. If you are wondering if your post should remain to yourself, ask yourself this question – Is there an actionable next step besides…cool story, bro?
Here’s an example –
Susan posts – Going to a meeting
Susan posts – Going to a meeting
When I read this, my immediate thought is to post "Cool story Susan" which I won’t, because sarcasm should be avoided on social business tools so, what would I reply? I guess I could ask her what kind of meeting it is, why she’s attending, and most importantly, why is she sharing with the organization but, this is a social tool and the information is meant to be consumed quickly so I can collaborate quickly and prying information out of Susan isn’t in the best interest of my time. Most likely, Susan felt that there was something about this meeting that she felt the organization would care about and could contribute to.
Let’s look at how Susan could have improved her post –
Susan posts – Going to a meeting to discuss Q4 employee engagement for our regional BU offices – waterparks, picnics and more! Now’s the time to weigh in
My response – I recommend more picnics, it’s a great way for those of us with families to participate
Now – this was a sweet example but, you can see that by adjusting the post to include an actionable next step, the social tool can better do what it was designed to do which is to encourage collaboration and tap into the collective knowledge of your peers and the organization as a whole.