The importance of social media to organizations

Yesterday was at a seminar hosted by SHRM on Social Networking is changing the way people manage their careers and organizations. The panelists; Mahesh Murty of Pinstorm, and Rajeev Dingra of WatConsult, expressed balanced views on both the upside and downside of the use, as well as the non-use, of social networking within organizations.

Mahesh described his company's use of two metrics, the Desirability Index (DI) and the Engagement Matrix. The first metric, the DI, was directly proportional to the number of times the company's name appeared in search results, and therefore indicated a prospective employee's interest in it. By inference, it served as a barometer to the company's popularity as an employer. An event like the publishing of a book Employees First Customers Second by Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL, propelled the DI of the company northwards, indicating its rise in rankings as an employer of choice.

On the other hand, the second metric, the EI, tracked and analyzed what people were talking about the company on various social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media have the power to transmit any view, either good or bad, extremely fast across the globe and therefore a company needs to be highly alert to what kind of conversations are going on about it. Prompt action in such matters as adverse reports about the company's products or services can help avert disastrous consequences. Obviously, both these metrics are critical in a company's recruitment efforts as well as, sales growth, and need to be monitred closely.

Rajiv on the other hand made the important point about how employers need to track what their employees are talking about the company on the social media networks.  Most importantly, Rajiv explained, used the right way, these networks can serve to alert employers about the gripes and complaints their employees are making on various company related matters. Employers responding promptly and sensitively to such feedback would be seen as caring employers, making social media powerful culture building tools..

A lively interaction with the audience by both panelists followed, which made the event even more interesting.