Strategic Use of Social Media in Your Organization: Live From The Conference Board

I am participating and speaking at the Social Media for HR seminar at The Conference Board in New York this week.  As always, The Conference Board brings together high-level executives to share insight into how major organizations are tackling human resource and leadership issues.  This particular seminar is solely focused on social platforms and implications and is interesting for anyone who needs to learn more about implementation and strategy for your organization.

One session that stands out for me was led by Karl Sanchak, the Director of Innovation, Corporate Engineering and Technology for Lockheed Martin.  Mr Sanchak addressed the strategic use of social media in the organization.  Lockheed Martin is clearly aware that people’s actions in the online world most closely reflect how they really think.  They use the idea that Information = Intelligence in their creation of a strategy that incorporates and measures social platform use.

 What are some key components to build into a social strategy?

• Look first at social platforms that your employees are already using.
• Measure the patterns of use and frequency in order to know when the best times to post information or invite collaboration are based on the users.
• Build in subject matter experts and data experts who can work collaboratively to bring the social strategy to fruition.
• Plan how the social tools will be used.  For example, social can be quite effective for R&D and new business initiatives.
• Innovate the future! Don’t wait for your competition to pass you by.  Create your focused strategy now.

As you can see, quite a bit of great insight and I only scratched the surface of what the session covered.  Be sure to check The Conference Board website for upcoming events.