Social media on the inside

I'm reading Peter Kim's social media predictions for 2009 and i would like to add my very own personal view on what i think should happen more in SMM.

"Companies will develop social media techniques as an in house productivity tool to drive business during this economic downturn" -Melvin Kee

David Carter wrote a great article about companies embracing social media during economic turmoil as a way of engaging outwardly with customers/consumers. I would like to propose while that may be true, social media can probably help companies inwardly just as much.

Pete Blackshaw said "Intimacy touches emotions, emotions power conversations" This is as true as the sun's rays and if you are in the business of a product or service, then your employees/staff are the touchpoints of these conversations. What exactly are these techniques that im talking about? Well consider these,

1) Employee profile pages where everyone in the firm can view/connect with any other employee.
2) Mirco blogging site for easy exchange of updates
3) Community driven and collaborative wikis for research and analysis and commentary
4) Easy, 1 step , direct channel for feedback on front line staff tips, comments and general talk back
5) Community pages for birthday greetings, group gift sharing, lunch discussions etc

Yes, some of you out there are thinking, "this sounds like an extremely tree hugging way of encouraging my staff to slack off on the job." I certainly don't discount the possibility of these tools being abused by a percentage of your office, however, consider that the workplace is essentially a social environment and humans are social creatures. Channeling interaction into productivity makes sense especially now that social media is so much a part of our lives.

Happy employees make passionate workers. Passion drives a relationship between employee and brand . Relationship suggests intimacy which hopefully translates into external meaningful business conversations borne right from the walls of your office space. After all, isn't it the inside that counts?

Song of the blog is "Little Tornado" by Aimee Mann. ( this is the best i could get on youtube)