How BT communicators persuaded leaders to embrace social media

Seven lessons you can use to make social media work at your organization

What if, unprodded, 4,000 of your employees joined a Facebook group named after your company? Surely, that would mean something.

At London-based BT Plc, communicators decided it meant they were missing a huge opportunity to improve the way employees interact with each other, with the company and with customers.

That’s why last year the British telecom giant began providing tools to make it easy for workers to blog and network online—both within the company and outside it.

“Employees already say what they want internally and externally—they just generally say it in small groups and it’s not published anywhere,” says Richard Dennison, intranet and channels strategy manager. “Publishing ‘conversations’ allows you and others to participate more widely.