pr-trends

Twitter what? I am definitely not interested what other people are doing right now!

This is the most likely reaction when you speak to communication professionals in Austrian companies about twitter. And this just means, they are in stage 1 of twitter acceptance:

(full presentation by Min Xuan)

Well, is there a need for us to move up this latter?

Reading that „Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds“ (see details here) I think corporate communications people in Austria need to find out more about twitter, even if there are things that might annoy them. Because if millions of people use this tool of communication in order to relate to each other, there must be a reason.

I think, especially for internal communications twitter opens tons of options. And this is the most difficult task: to find out how tools like twitter could improve internal communications and, eventually, create better relations (in case of internal communications amongst co-workers an/or management and employees).

Jitter is one prominent example for enterprise microblogging. What I really like is the combination with intranet people search – this way it certainly becomes a tool for building relations between employees (and making them visible, too!).

Where do I begin?

I think it takes quite an effort to find out how microblogging could work in a company, introduce it, make it popular and prove its value:

1. First step must be that at least some people have personal experience (e.g. using Twitter itself or similar tools on the internet).
2. Then, there must be a sort of concept which also includes the outcomes desired – with this concept you must convince the management of the value of microblogging.
3. Next, the implementation within an intranet must be designed carefully – ease of use is a key issue (as we see from the example of Jitter above).
4. Promotion: When actually going live with a microblogging solution for the enterprise, you need to tell everyone why microblogging will make their lives easier. Otherwise, they won’t be able to move up the 5 stages of twitter acceptance. Maybe, it’s best to rely on microblogging evangelists who engage in a sort of viral/guerilla campaign.
5. Finally, there must also be some kind of evaluation – you need to be able to prove that microblogging does really create better relations and, eventually, leads to a better performance of your company.