Assimilating from the Top

How corporate leaders can build trust and influence on internal social media

Written with John Scardino.

LIKE IT OR NOT, social media is moving beyond its role in personal life and fanning out into corporate culture to become a vital element of communications infrastructure. It brings both risks and opportunities, and if you’re a leader, you need to know how to mine its resources and navigate its dangers.

Social media is a wild and unpredictable world of news, humor, debate, absurdity, thoughtfulness, abuse, energy, and beauty. Behind the firewall, it’s a bit more tame, but often no less intimidating. As companies roll out enterprise social media platforms, employees will use them to discuss business topics (like company strategy, layoffs, work-life balance, policies, reply-all storms, work spaces, or IT challenges,) and personal topics (like parenting, commuting, books, or cats).

Many of your employees’ private conversations are now happening on social media, which means there’s a shining opportunity: they’re in the open now. But there’s a challenge: they’re in the open now. Conversations are quickly developing that affect the culture and trajectory of the company, and they don’t always follow the rules you’ve built your career on. Those conversations will happen with or without you, and many of them need your voice.

If you write off the emerging community, you’ll risk losing relevance, missing opportunities to understand and influence your employees, and widening the gap between leaders and people on the ground. But if you embrace it, enterprise social media can give you a window into your employees’ needs and perceptions, a source of ideas to enrich your company, a context to build strategic relationships, and a platform for building your influence as a leader.

Maybe you’ve seen enterprise social media as the town square, where the local rabble stirs up the crowd. Maybe you’ve seen it as the virtual water cooler, where employees waste time and avoid hard work. Or maybe you see its promise, but you’re not sure where to start. Social media isn’t exactly new anymore, but it might be new to you, so here are a few tips for how to meaningfully engage.

Start small.

Social media (even behind the firewall) is a unique medium with its own etiquette and cultural norms—a world that takes time to understand. This is true for every platform and every company, and unfortunately, there is no shortcut. It’s a world that already has its own influencers—maybe ones you don’t yet know or trust—and it can be pretty intimidating. So learn to navigate the subculture like everyone else does: watch what others do, and start small. Don’t think you have to share the official leadership perspective in every conversation or win anyone over yet; just start by filling out your profile, liking a few posts, following a colleague you don’t know, thanking someone for that helpful link, asking a clarifying question, or sharing something cool you found on the internet. As you engage consistently, thoughtfully, and charitably, influence will come.

Be a person, not a company.

What’s valued in social media is authenticity, accessibility, and meaningful contributions to a body of knowledge. Your rank counts for very little (at least at first); it’s all about the quality of your contributions (not someone representing you) to the community, demonstrated through meaningful interactions over time. And so, what gets you credibility in real life can actually hurt your credibility in social media. For example, there’s nothing wrong with using your official company portrait as your user photo, but be aware that it may send a subtle signal that you’re not as real or honest as everyone else. In that world, you can’t have influence without authenticity.

Find a role model.

On almost every platform there are savvy, generous, community-builders—often emerging organically. Find those people and watch how they do it. How do you find them? Leaderboards showing stats by user, most replied-to threads, and other metrics can give you a hint, but most of the time you’ll spot them if you hang around long enough. Look for the people everyone seems to trust, or the ones who carry the most weight in conversations. Even if you don’t always agree with their perspective, pay attention to how they communicate and build a following.

Embrace the messiness.

Because everyone has a voice, social media can get a bit messy sometimes. And because everyone has a voice, it can be a place for incredibly meaningful conversations, great ideas, and even positive culture change. It goes both ways; it’s the cost of the opportunity. Someone might be a bit too pushy with their opinion. Someone might say something better said face-to-face. Someone might not have all the facts. That’s okay. Build the credibility first, and then wade into the misunderstandings to share your perspective. You have a unique and valuable insights as a leader, but rather than using your rank to control the conversation, use that insider knowledge to enrich it.

Learn the culture of the platform.

Every platform is a different animal, with its own quirks and habits. Just like you would if you joined a new club or professional association, take the time to get savvy about what’s valued in that particular community, what gets attention, what the inside jokes are, or other cultural signals. And remember, culture is mostly organic—if employees build a grassroots network on their own, you can’t easily annex that community for your own purposes.

Be ready for response.

Social media is inherently social. You’re either joining or hosting a two-way discussion with specific people (whoever joins the conversation). So don’t approach your social media platform the way you’d approach an all-hands meeting or re-org announcement email. For those, there’s nothing wrong with corporate style, but that doesn’t work on social media. People can spot the party line from a mile away, and it usually backfires. Does that mean you shouldn’t try to influence people with a consistent leadership message? Not at all—just do it in a way that engages with what people are actually saying in that conversation, and talk like a human (no canned statements or corporate buzzwords).

Loosen up.

Not every conversation will be business-related. But business is about people, and people need to be people. Sometimes that means cat pictures and internet memes—topics you might see as frivolous. Those conversations are creating personal connections, just like you do when you grab a drink with a colleague. In the long run, those connections pay off in better collaboration, shared information, and morale.

Social media is where your people are (or will be soon), and it’s where you need to be if you want to have a voice in culture-shaping conversations, connect with dispersed employees, maintain credibility, and expand your influence. If you follow these tips, you’ll have a meaningful presence in a place that counts with your employees.