A chat with Belgium's first chief social media officer
Last week in the Financial Times, Steve Rubel, senior vice president of Edelman Digital said: "Social media should not just be 100 percent of one person's job, it should be one percent of 100 people's jobs." Rubel is talking about a massive shift in an organization's communication culture, which, like any large-scale change, requires a dedicated person or team to drive it throughout the business. At Van Marcke Group of Companies, this person is Philippe Borremans. In an exclusive extract from the new report "How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues", find out what steps Borremans, Belgium's first chief social media officer, has taken to develop the company's social media strategy.
You’re one of the only chief social media officers in Europe. Why is that?
We need to put the title in context. If you’re talking about someone who’s 100 percent dedicated to social media with no other responsibilities, and if the role involves reporting directly to the decision makers, as in my case, then yes, I think it’s a unique position. I’ve met other media officers in other organizations and most of the time they have other responsibilities and don’t report to the board, and in that way the function is unique, definitely in Belgium. The Van Marcke Group is one of the first companies to invest in that.
Why do you think that is?
The Van Marcke Group is active in different industries and it’s a matrix organization. The company owners had a clear vision of a full change management program and saw that the use of internal social media platforms could help manage, promote and activate the change that needs to happen across the group.
It’s both the external awareness created by the consumer and the internal need for change to optimize collaboration between different companies and across different business units that really activated the decision to create a role that’s 100 percent responsible for both internal and external online communications and collaboration.
Philippe Borremans will be delivering the key note speech at Melcrum's forthcoming conference "Building the business case for social media in internal communications". Find out what Philippe will be speaking about in this short video clip.
What approach have you taken to create a social media strategy?
We begin by examining the business and collaboration issues from an end user point of view and only then we will look at the IT solutions.
There’s no point jumping on the social media bandwagon if you don’t know which problems it will solve. There’s no use in saying, “we should be using internal blogs” when you don’t have an application for those blogs. If it doesn’t solve a problem, there isn’t a use – and I think this is the issue that the business case is missing in a lot of organizations.
We started by optimizing our external communication (public and media relations) using social media tools. We’ve taken out traditional press releases and completely reformatted them using a social media press release template. We now have an interactive press corner that’s fully integrated with social media. We started a Twitter feed around one of our projects and it’s very active. We established the business case first by looking at which topics were being discussed in existing social media channels. We knew that certain topics which were important to one part of our business (ecology and sustainability) were being discussed on that channel, therefore on that basis we decided that we should work more with that channel.
That was fairly easy as we just used the tools to improve what we were already doing. We listened to the conversation very carefully and very openly, and then joined in. The first thing you always need to do is to listen very carefully and very openly because people also want to hear the negative things.
We’re also putting together a business case for internal communication and that’s very much underway. We’ll have real metrics to demonstrate return on investment, and we’ll know exactly what will change, how much it will change and what it will change.
How are you collecting this information?
There are different facets to this. Social media internally is focusing on different aspects of the business. But it’s not just about internal communication or collaboration it’s also about culture change. Last year we carried out a full company culture audit looking at what people say when they tell others that they work at Marcke, what the issues are and what that means from a cultural point of view.
Then there’s the other side of the collaboration point of view. We did a full employee survey asking people how they collaborate today. This included questions that were both general and specific such as: “How many phone calls do you make internally everyday?” and “How much time do you spend on finding the right people and the right information to do your job?” The results are very interesting.
We’re also carrying out face-to-face interviews with employees and colleagues, interviewing different functions and asking them what they do, what their day-to-day workflow is, and, from their experience in the company, what do they think could improve when we talk about collaboration and internal communication? This is very time consuming but extraordinarily worthwhile and gives us a real insight into how they do their jobs.
What role does internal communication play?
Internal communication and the role of HR is crucial because for these kinds of projects to be successful, around 30 percent is based on the new platform and 70 percent on information, education and putting the tool into context. It’s more about cultural change than having a new platform to collaborate. Putting these changes into context, making employees understand what’s in it for them, giving them the right training and ensuring it’s ongoing are all crucial steps that internal communication and HR need to take.
Because of the importance of communication, the role of social media officer should work closely with IC and be supported by the executive team.
Because of the importance of communication, the role of social media officer should work closely with IC and be supported by the executive team. Internal communicators should co-ordinate these types of projects because there are so many players involved such as HR, legal, IT and so on.
How are you starting the rollout of internal social media processes?
We’ve already started several pilot groups (85 people in total) and given them access to the full set of tools. Then we’ll gradually start rolling out the platform. But the business case will determine each step of the process. For example we feel the biggest issue that we’re facing today is the fact that our employees need to find the right people within the business. So, the very first feature of the platform to be opened up will be internal social networking – the profiles section within Lotus Connections means that every single employee will have his or her own profile, and that even if you don’t know the right person you can search using keywords linked to him or her experience, likes, dislikes, job title, and so on.
What’s the next stage?
The gradual roll out of the full platform, then the integration of corporate chat within the organization which should have an impact on the amount of unproductive phone calls made. Then there’s the biggest activity involving the entire company changing from an information management point of view. This is part of the bigger change that has to do with enterprise search meaning that all our employees will have the Google experience inside the organization with all the information that sits on our machines. This is part of a bigger scope of change.
Did you add social media guidelines to your company guidelines?
In my first week at the company I wrote the social media guidelines which go together with the corporate values and the existing guidelines. Management has approved them and we just need to communicate them internally, hold information sessions and also make them public so the whole process is transparent.
What do you want to achieve in 2010?
The most important thing will be to prove and demonstrate the added value social media can bring to the organization, firstly to our employees because they’re the main client here, they’re the main focus. We need to improve the day-to-day work of our employees before we start thinking about increasing sales, for instance. The big objective this year is to kick off the whole project, to give employees tools so they can work much more efficiently.
Philippe Borremans is a Belgian PR professional with more than 15 years experience in media relations, crisis and social media communication. He began his career with Porter Novelli in Brussels. In 2005 he led a team of seven IBM colleagues across Europe to promote the use of social media tools and techniques for corporate communications purposes within the company. In 2009 he left IBM and became Belgium’s first chief social media officer at the Van Marcke Group of Companies reporting to the family board.
Have your say
Do you think your organization would benefit from creating a role that's 100 percent focused on social media strategy? Where would they sit or who would they report to in your company? What should the role encompass and what would be their main objectives?
Other recommendations:
How Twitter has increased engagement @Virgin Media