The following article is a complete preview of Chapter two of Neryl East's latest
publication “Strategic Internal Communication for Complex Organisations”.
Throughout this chapter, Neryl explores some of the current thinking and
international research on new media tools.

How are these new channels being applied, and what are the main obstacles to
effectiveness?

Neryl will be expanding on these issues and a number of other communication

challenges alongside Louise Denver throughout an upcoming two-day professional
guide:

The Science and Art of Communication

Two-day professional guide

7 - 8 July 2011
The Sebel Surry Hills, Sydney

√ Strategies to help your organisation embrace social media now

√ A way to integrate new and old media in your communication strategy
√ Techniques to persuade your audience, whatever the medium
√ Practical steps to communicate with impact during times of change
√ The chance to hone your skills in a fun and engaging environment

Facilitated by:

Neryl East :: Writer, Speaker, Academic and Communication Specialist, Neryl East
Communications

Louise Denver :: Director, Corporate Affairs Communication, Deloitte Touche

Tohmatsu

 
Chapter 2: The impact of new media
tools on internal communication
IT’S ALMOST unbelievable that only a few
years ago, researchers and commentators
were debating the merits of organisations
taking on new media technology, be it for
internal or external operations. While there
was general agreement that the new tools
would be staying around, there was a
spectrum of views on the extent to which
they should be used, and how much time
and effort organisations should devote to
their implementation.
Now the question is not so much ‘should
we?’ but ‘how far can this take us?’
In 2007, research by information
technology specialist company Gartner
suggested businesses should take a cautious
approach to the introduction of Web 2.0
technology, and advised careful consideration
of issues before investing in or developing
internal social networking tools. “Ultimately,
Gartner suggests, the value of social-
networking technology comes from content
rather than the product itself. The analyst
recommends IT departments should think
very carefully before committing to expensive
‘social-networking white elephants’.”1
US communication specialist Shel Holtz
disagreed with Gartner’s analysis, saying
the benefits of social networks far outweigh
the risks, particularly in enabling employees
with similar roles in various business units
to collaborate and share information.2 “A
community of practices makes it easy for
all of these people to share ideas and seek
counsel rather than work in isolation,”
he wrote. “While there are challenges to
implementing social networks on intranets
– like getting employees to populate their
profiles with useful information and keep
them current – the software tends to be
low-cost and the benefits could be huge.”
Employees’ growing use of
social media
Whether organisations like it or not, their
employees are embracing social networking
sites at an astounding rate. MessageLabs
quotes Nielsen Online as showing a 228
per cent growth in use of Facebook from
February 2008 to February 2009, and a
1,382 per cent growth in Twitter use for the
same period.3 Inevitably a large chunk of
that, and other personal web traffic, will be
happening on company time. MessageLabs
says that’s not necessarily a bad thing: “It’s
not just a question of employees shopping
online or sorting out what they’re going
to do at the weekend. They’re also using
the web to download software that will
give them applications they will find useful
for work. Some are using personal social
networking accounts to generate marketing
leads through videos and the like. These are
committed employees using the internet and
personal accounts to help them work better.”
Baltatzis, Ormrod and Grainger point out
that social networking was largely considered
a “recreational tool” until Facebook moved
into the professional networking area,
and LinkedIn emerged as a product with
an “exclusively professional focus”.4 Now
organisations are implementing their own
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Chapter 2
social networking services that imitate those
well-known tools. For example, they cite
a project by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to
allow former employees to keep in touch
with each other and the firm. “Following
its unanticipated success, it subsequently
proceeded to add Facebook-style
environments for its employees. This was
perceived as a breath of fresh air in relation
to more rule-based Knowledge Management
tools, which met with user resistance.”
Weighing risks and benefits
It seems, though, that not everyone is
convinced of the worth of such projects.
Quoting 2009 research by British IT firm
Bloxx, Chris Crum writes that 90 per cent
of IT managers surveyed believe access to
social networking sites should be banned
or restricted because of factors including
staff productivity, network security risks
and damage to the corporate reputation.5
However, the research also found that social
networking is increasingly being used as a
valuable business tool. “There are plenty of
reasons why social network access shouldn’t
be completely banned,” Crum says. “If your
company completely ignores social networks,
you’re ignoring a tremendous amount
of opportunities for marketing, customer
service, traffic, sales, communication, etc.
Social networks are not going away.”
Baltatzis et al outline a range of
advantages of introducing social networking
in the workplace, including strategic benefits
through increased collaboration between
employees, better relationships between
individual workers which could assist
the organisation when responding to a
crisis, improved collective problem solving
through drawing on others’ experience and
judgement, and a breaking down of the
silos that so often impede organisations.6
Social networking (SN) offers “a means of
14
cutting across these silos, by encouraging
communication based on interests outside
of strictly professional, outcome based
motives,” they write. They also point out the
difficulty of proving or measuring the role of
social networking in enhanced productivity
and innovation, saying that even if those
positive elements become evident “following
the adoption of an online SN tool, it is often
not viable to incontrovertibly attribute these
benefits to the adoption of this tool.”
Weighing up the risks and the benefits
highlights the need for organisations to
develop policies and guidelines for the
use of workplace social networking. HR
outsourcing firm TriNet says while most
companies have policies on appropriate
conduct, and on e-mail and general
internet use, they don’t have specific
policies on employee blogging and social
networking and are leaving themselves
open to potential problems.7 “Business
owners need to stop and ask themselves
some important questions regarding their
employees’ personal online usage of this
growing technology in order to safeguard
the company’s reputation and protect
themselves from liability if legal and
harassment issues arise,” TriNet says.
MessageLabs’ whitepaper points out that,
amid the enthusiasm about social networking
benefits, the risks to organisations are real.8
“If there are so many advantages, why not
allow unfettered access to the internet?” the
report asks. “The answer is that even with
anti-malware/spyware protection in place
there remain real risks to an organisation’s
security, reputation and bottom line.”
That concern is supported by research
released in February 2010 by computer
security firm Sophos which claims an
“alarming” rise in spammers and hackers
targeting users of social networks like
Facebook and Twitter. The report also said
 Strategic Internal Communication for Complex Organisations, Second Edition
49 per cent of firms now allow workers
unfettered access to Facebook, up 13 per
cent on the previous year. “The grim irony
is that just as companies are loosening their
attitude to staff activity on social networks,
the threat of malware, spam, phishing and
identify theft on Facebook is increasing,” a
company spokesman said.9
Some user behaviour on social networks
might also prove to be a deterrent for
organisations considering a more open
approach within company walls. A February
2010 incident, in which insensitive remarks
were posted on the Facebook page of a
young female driver killed in a road accident
on the Australian east coast, prompted
debate about online communication
protocol. Among tributes posted on the page
were several comments which criticised the
woman’s driving. University of Wollongong
digital communications lecturer Jason Wilson
commented on the apparent lag between
appropriate behaviour and the development
of new technology: “You wouldn’t go to
someone’s condolence book and scrawl
something about how they should have
been a better driver, you would know that
is wrong... But sometimes those boundaries
aren’t obvious online [because] we haven’t
developed those social norms around
new media.”10
Baltatzis et al acknowledge the barriers
and risks to the increasing adoption of
social networking mechanisms in the
workplace including information security
and strain on network bandwidth.11 They
point out that an underlying barrier may
be conflicting organisational philosophies,
with social networking’s freedom of
information exchange clashing with the
control exerted by some management
structures. “True empowerment, possibly the
essence of recreational SN, is not likely to
be feasible under such circumstances,” they
write. “Control and power are central to
considering SN and the benefits available
to organisations.”
Tools such as wikis have flourished in
some firms where the limitations of e-mail
were keenly felt, particularly for staff spread
across vast geographical areas. In 2006,
Edelman found that e-mail was then listed
as the most frequently used communication
vehicle within companies, while in-person
communication was rated as the most
effective channel to communicate to
employees.12 Overall, electronic media
rated highly both in terms of use and
effectiveness compared with print. Wikis
were identified as a rapidly emerging
technology, particularly for communication
requiring input from a diverse network of
stakeholders. “The least known of the new
media offerings, wikis are quickly gaining
interest among internal communicators, with
slightly more than one-in-ten (11 per cent)
of leading organisations reporting use of the
channel,” Edelman found.
Obstacles to using online tools were
seen by survey respondents as including
inadequate resources, staff not having
daily internet access, general resistance
to change, fear of losing control of
communication channels, and opposition
by senior management. Similar observations
were made two years later by Baltatzis et al,
who wrote that “the specific approach and
utility of a SN site within an organisational
context can be limited by both security
and available infrastructure, or a lack of
corporate desire to invest in these areas.”13
Many commentators share the view that
the pressure to keep up with the bewildering
array of tools and the need to learn about
their capabilities, combined with the complex
organisational issues posed by the whole
social networking scene, make for a very
demanding time for internal communicators.
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Chapter 2
Amid all the debate, there is still the basic
need to ensure communication is fulfilling
the purpose for which it was intended.
David Ferrabee of Hill & Knowlton writes,
“Often we find that electronic channels have
created a big game of tag: ‘I sent you the
information. Now it’s your problem.’ But
communication is the exchange of views, not
the exchange of files.”14
Corporate blogs and tweets
Senior management blogs have been
well established in some businesses,
while for others they continue to be a
vehicle of the future. Todd Defren of
SHIFT Communications writes that many
organisations lose a golden opportunity
for engagement because the person at the
top rushes into blogging without properly
researching the best approach.15 “Too many
would-be CEO bloggers treat their new toy
as little more than a weekly newsletter. They
expect that simply because they are the
CEO, naturally people will be magnetically
drawn to their words. And then they are
crushed to see ‘Comments (0)’ after each
post... And then they give up, poo-pooing
the ballyhooed Blogosphere as they munch
on some sour grapes.”
The debate over blogging has also
shifted to workplace ‘tweeting’. Lee Hopkins
points out that the take-up of Twitter by
high-profile politicians and celebrities puts
increasing pressure on businesses already
wrestling with various ‘do we/don’t we’
questions about social media.16 “Do we
allow our employees to blog or don’t we?
Do we allow our employees to Twitter or
don’t we?” One enthusiastic blogger has
no such qualms about using Twitter for
internal communication, describing how
it can be used to collaborate on projects
and provides almost-instant information
exchange.17 It seems there are also some
16
downsides, though: “if you are a big Twitter
freak like me, the messages can get lost in
the mix.”
With such a range of viewpoints, there
is clearly no one-size-fits-all solution for
practitioners looking to make or recommend
decisions on the introduction of social media
tools within their organisation. Research and
advice must be gathered from reputable and
reliable sources, and decisions made that
tailor the tools to the organisation’s required
outcomes, all the while ensuring the basic
principles of effective internal communication
are not lost along the way.
One thing is clear, however; there’s no
going back to the ‘old’ ways. As Hopkins
observes, “The social media genie is out of
the bottle and it won’t go back in! The wise
communicator will get involved as soon as
possible, even if just in a small way, lest their
own career prospects become limited.”18
References
1. Ferguson, T., ‘Businesses warned: Don’t rush
into Web 2.0’, ZDNet, 14 December 2007.
See http://news.zdnet.co.uk.
2. Holtz, S., ‘Internal social networks not worth
the money?’, 14 December 2007,
http://blog.holtz.com.
3. MessageLabs, ‘Is Social Networking
Really Bad for Business? A MessageLabs
Whitepaper’, October 2009, p1.
4. Baltatzis, G., Ormrod, D.G. & Grainger,
N., ‘Social Networking Tools for Internal
Communication in Large Organizations:
Benefits and Barriers’, Swinburne University of
Technology paper, 2008.
5. Crum, C., ‘Social Networks Don’t Waste Time,
People Do’, WebProNews, 10 November 2009.
6. Baltatzis et al, ibid.
7. TriNet, ‘Is Social Networking and Blogging
Bad for Business?’, 28 July 2008.
See www.businesswire.com.
8. MessageLabs, ibid.
 Strategic Internal Communication for Complex Organisations, Second Edition

9. ‘Alarming rise in cyber attacks at social

networks – Sophos’, 2 February 2010.
See news.com.au.
10. Hasham, N., ‘The ugly face of the internet’,
Illawarra Mercury, 2 February 2010, p7.
11. Baltatzis et al, ibid.
12. Edelman Change and Employee Engagement
in partnership with PeopleMetrics, New
Frontiers in Employee Communications, 2006,
p12. See www.edelman.com.
13. Baltatzis et al, ibid.
14. Ferrabee, D., ‘Technology versus
communication’, 21 November 2006,
see http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com.
15. Defren, T., ‘Open Letter to CEO Bloggers,
PR-Squared’, 12 December 2007,
www.pr-squared.com.
16. Hopkins, L., ‘Social Media is a load of
time-wasting rubbish!’, Better Communication
Results, 7 September 2009.
17. Morton, L., ‘How to use Twitter for internal
communications’, 6 January 2009.
See http://snapblogger.wordpress.com.
18. Hopkins, ibid.

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