Thursday, November 18, 2010

3 Ways to Make the Most of Your Company's Social Platform

More and more companies are introducing social networking tools to help employees connect. However, these should not be considered "work versions" of Facebook or Twitter. These platforms are intended to support your work, not give you a place to post pictures of your poodle. Here are three ways to make good use of these tools to advance your work:

1. Narrate your work. Talk about your current projects: where you are, what you're struggling with, and what you're producing. This will help others who may be doing similar work find you.
2. Ask questions. There is often collective wisdom out there. If you're stuck, ask the crowd to help you out.
3. Talk about social stuff. If your company softball team won last night's game, put it out there. Socializing is an important part of work and these tools are perfect for supporting it. You may want to dedicate a specific part of the platform to socializing, however, so people can avoid it if they want to.

Harvard Business Review Blog Today's Management Tip was adapted from "Do's and Don'ts for Your Work's Social Platforms" by Andrew McAfee.

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