Marketing Blog | Internal

Secret Facebook Groups for Small Business Collaboration

Domino Theory works with a lot of small businesses on communications plans that often include Facebook. These communications plans are almost always targeted towards customer acquisition and retention, but we are continually encouraging our clients not to ignore internal communications.A great tool for improving internal communications and collaboration, especially when the team works from different locations, is Facebook's Secret Groups.

Facebook Groups are a great way to segment both the distribution of your content and to filter your listening to specific people (family, classmates, clients, etc.). Secret Groups take the idea one step further by making your Group interaction invisible. Activity in these Groups does not show up in your personal or business timeline, is not indexed by Google, and is invisible to anyone not in the Group - even if they have the URL!

Set up is simple, when you set up your new Group simply choose "Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts." All communications within the Group are visible only amongst members. While I don't suggest using this if there is a need for strict confidentiality, it is a great tool for business collaboration.

Now that your Group is set up and you've invited your members, you have created your virtual work space. Within the secret group you can share documents, have group chat, share photos and videos, and even have a shred e-mail address where your can send messages to the entire team and can upload and post remotely via mobile devices.

It's Domino Theory's belief that before you begin to communicate with audiences outside your organizations you should have your internal communications strategy in place. This is an often overlooked and under-managed piece of a Smarter Business Communications plan. Facebook's Secret Groups are just one of many tools that your company should be exploring as social invades the enterprise!

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Tags: Content Marketing, Facebook, Communications, plan, Business, Social, Smarter, Internal

Reboot Your Business in 7 Steps

Posted by jon yoffie

Reboot. You know what it means. It means my g*ddam PC isn't working and I have to restart it losing all the work I haven't yet saved. Now I get to start all over from square one. The only good thing that comes from it is that now my PC is working again and I can get back to work.

I got to thinking about "reboot" not because my computer is acting up, though it does far more than it should, but because the term "reboot" is all over today's newspaper. It is being used to describe how DC Comics, publishers of Superman, Batman, and 50+ other comic book titles, is restarting all its story lines. The comic book company that invented superheroes with the creation of Superman and Batman in the 1930's (and for whom I worked for several years in the early 1990's) is resetting all of its 52 continuing series. They start anew today.

Ballsy or stupid? In my estimation, ballsy.

The reality is that the folks at DC Comics have seen their market dwindling. Interest in comic books, and particularly their comic books, is down. Licensing opportunities for new movies and products have decreased accordingly. Management had a decision to make, either write a plan based on a shrinking business or make a move sure to upset many of its existing customers and reboot with the goal of returning to growth.

When's the last time you looked at areas of your company that could use a reboot? Chances are that in the midst this Great Recession there are areas of your business that would benefit from a fresh start. Here are the 7 steps that will guide your process.

Let go. The old saying that you can't get to second base with your foot still on first is never more true than when you start this process. Are you willing to break from the present to build a path to a new future? Anything short of that and you're talking tweaks. Be clear on which path you're choosing.

Set clear objectives. Where will you be when you've succeeded in your reboot? How will you measure progress?

Share your vision. And accept input from all of your stakeholders. Seek out the naysayers and listen to their concerns. You need buy-in, even from those coming along reluctantly.

Expect pain. Things will get worse before they get better. Count on it. You can't fix your golf swing without your game going in the tank along the way and the same is true of your business. Be prepared for the turmoil that change will cause and don't let it stop your progress. This is a natural progression.

Tap your leaders. Let others in the organization help to make your case. Avoid making your reboot a top-down mandate by allowing for leaders at all levels of the organization to help drive it. Your rank and file are the people who will hear the concerns and fears of those who just don't like change. Empower them to coach and counsel. Create a feedback loop and make sure all voices are heard and responded to.

Set milestones. Change will come incrementally. Set measurable goals against time. Celebrate as you hit them. Continue to measure progress against your schedule. Share the success across the organization.

Don't back down. A reboot takes guts. Trust your instincts and see it through. You've written your plan and set your goals. Don't let hiccups or unforeseen problems along the way derail you. Stay focused on the final outcome. Once you hit the reboot key, there is no turning back.

Along the way, keep on eye on our old superhero friends at DC Comics. If you see them with more and better movies, TV shows, and other products and a general increased visibility, you'll know they stuck to their plan!

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Tags: Communications, plan, Business, strategic, Honest, Smarter, Internal, Uncategorized

What's all the chatter about Chatter?

Posted by jon yoffie

This week in San Francisco Salesforce.com, the cloud computing/CRM company, is hosting over 40,000 people at its annual Dreamforce conference. The focus of this year's event is expected to be on Chatter, the year-old social-networking platform for business.

According to Salesforce.com, over 100,000 businesses are already using Chatter for for business collaboration. Is it something you should be exploring?

The ubiquity of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn means that your employees and customers are already interacting constantly online. Despite all of their advantages, these networks leave something to be desired when the need arises for more secure communications, project collaboration, and discreet customer interaction. This is where Chatter fits in by providing a platform for smarter business communications.

Chatter is a collaboration and communication tool for business. Chatter allows for the ease and interaction of the public social networks, but protects communications by keeping collaboration secure in the Salesforce cloud. Your communications remain private and secure.

Beyond secure communication, Chatter allows for secure document and file sharing and collaboration. Instead of transferring files via FTP or a service like YouSendIt and waiting for a response, Chatter allows teams to work together in real time - even if they are working from dispersed offices. You set the security rules based on organization, role, object, or department based on the sharing model you need to conduct your business. Projects can move forward at greater speeds and be tracked through their stages of progression by everyone on the team.

Here's an example of a collaboration stream from the Salesforce site:

Chatter offers two levels of service programs. A social collaboration service is free, and a service that integrates with existing an Salesforce.com CRM account and allows for customizations is listed at $15 per seat per month and is probably better for larger companies than smaller ones.

You have likely found that social networks are a great way to stay in touch with family and friends. Some of you are also using them to grow your network of business contacts and to market your products and services. Chatter allows business to take all the advantages of social networks and apply them to business while keeping communications secure.

The top uses include:

Connecting with experts

Collaborating with remote employees

Sharing of large files

Managing team projects

Confidential group discussion

Sharing of important company information

Customer service

Brainstorming

If these are areas where your company could benefit from improvement, it's worth your time to take a look at Chatter to explore how you can apply social networking to your smarter business communications plan.

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Tags: Marketing, social media, Communications, plan, Business, time management, Smarter, Internal, internet

A Real Life Lesson in Smarter Internal Communications

Posted by jon yoffie

I spent last night at a community meeting watching 4 hours of he said-she said between our town's elected officials and their highest ranking employee. Both sides were lawyered up as the Board argued their case for the recently hired employee's dismissal and the employee claimed he was being railroaded.

I watched as an interested citizen but also as someone who cares about smarter business communications. I left the meeting close to 11PM shaking my head as to how a group of successful and bright professionals could have allowed things to get so bad. Clearly there are either poor communications procedures or the procedures are poorly disseminated and followed..

At most businesses we spend more time communicating internally than we do with customers, and prospects. Unfortunately, as I witnessed last night, most organizations forego formalizing an internal communications plan. Big mistake!

Your workforce is one of your most important constituencies. You need to make employee communications a key element of your corporate communications plan.

Here are 12 Steps to setting up a Smarter Internal Communications Plan:

Identify target audiences and customize your message for each. Management and rank and file employees need different information to be successful. Recognize and acknowledge the importance of each group. By customizing your message for each audience, just as you should for your customer segments, you show your understanding of the needs of each group.

Establish lines of communication. Communication can't be only top down. It must be bottom up, sideways, interdepartmental, and intradepartmental.

Expand awareness. Make each employee feel a part of the team. Don't leave anyone feeling isolated on an island, be inclusive.

Highlight best practice. Don't just tell people what you want, use examples of best practices from members of your team.

Let staff tell their own stories. Encourage participation from your team in sharing successes. Recognize success.

Accept feedback and show how it is being used. Think of this as internal customer service. Problems will happen, but what people will remember is how you address those problems. It may seem insignificant to you, but it was important enough to someone else to raise the issue.

Promote employee development. Make sure employees know about education and training programs. These don't have to be internal programs. Direct them to association programs and encourage membership in professional organizations.

Communicate on a schedule and on time. Regular communication is key to the effort. Starting and stopping can be as bad as never having started in the first place, it sends a message that communication really wasn't so important after all.

Promote staff successes. Don't make communications about you and how clever and successful you are. Surround yourself with the best and the brightest and shine the spotlight on them.

Promote staff opportunity. Many on your team are looking to grow professionally. Make sure they know when an opportunity for advancement arises.

Catch dissatisfaction early. Don't hide from morale issues. Acknowledge and address issues in the workplace.

Measure! Are employees receiving your messages? Are they opening e-mails? Do they click the links? Apply the same metrics to internal communications as you do to external ones.

Most often, workplace problems arise from a vacuum created by a lack of communication. If you allow the vacuum to be created, it will get filled by rumor and innuendo that become the de facto corporate communications. If our local district management and board had followed these guidelines, our community and district employees would all be better for it today.

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Tags: Communications, plan, Business, time management, Honest, Smarter, Internal

Domino Theory's Marketing Blog

Secret Facebook Groups for Small Business Collaboration

Reboot Your Business in 7 Steps

What's all the chatter about Chatter?

A Real Life Lesson in Smarter Internal Communications

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