by Tom Nugent

Here's how you can use today's rapidly evolving Social Media networks to enhance your Recognition Program.

How powerful is Social Media today, and how effective can it be in helping HR to enhance employee communications and recognition programs?
U.S. marketing executive Bob Thacker was one of the first to ponder how emerging social media could be used to help a business communicate its message.  Since then, Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and proprietary networking applications are becoming more and more important as a component of business communications.
Thacker was the Office Max ad exec behind the popular “Elf Yourself” viral application that spread like wildfire during the holiday shopping season of 2006.

The results were nothing less than spectacular. During the next three years, Elf Yourself would draw no fewer than 250 million online visitors, more than 40 percent of whom would later remember that their hilarious fun had been sponsored by OfficeMax.   Describing the enormous popularity of the website, Thacker says, “By the end of the first year, we discovered we were using more bandwidth each day than the U.S. Pentagon!”  

The wildly successful viral marketing campaign showed how important social media has become as a communications tool in the world of business.  “At this point, I don’t think people have even begun to understand the power of this tool,” Thacker told the Recognition Insider recently.  “It’s an active form of communication, not passive, and it’s already changing the way businesses reach their customers.

“Of course, it’s also changing many other types of business communication, including the way managers and workers talk to each other.  I don’t think there’s any doubt that Social Media, like Facebook and Twitter, are going to play a major role in organizational communications during the years ahead.  Whether you’re a marketer or a human resources manager, you’re going to need to know how to use these new tools in order to be successful.”

Learning How To Use “Social Media” Tools for Employee Recognition: A Primer

Like marketing guru Bob Thacker at OfficeMax, an ever-growing number of human resources professionals are these days exploring new ways to use social networking (aka Social Media) to rapidly expand and improve their recognition programs. More>>