Case Study: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney advisers allowed partial access to LinkedIn & Twitter

In June 2011, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB) allowed a test group of 600 advisers, almost full use of LinkedIn and restricted use of Twitter and after a yearlong trial the Wall Street firm allowed 17,000 financial advisers partial access to Twitter and LinkedIn significantly increasing its social media presence. According to the 600 advisors involved in the trial, 40% cited new business through their LinkedIn & Twitter use, and of those 240, 60% said those new customers had more than $1 million worth of assets. According to Lauren W. Boyman, the firm’s head of social media, using Twitter & LinkedIn has helped financial advisers win more business over the past year and Advisers who have used the platforms have come to think of LinkedIn as a tool for networking and finding clients, while Twitter allows them to have more direct marketing campaigns. The full social media roll out across Morgan Stanley Smith Barney allowing access to all 17,000 advisers was always there and the firm had to do the trial to make sure that it has the capability & policy in place so that they can monitor, archive and manage the social media content as there are stringent regulations by the Financial regulators like SEC who had mandated the same rule & guidelines as in the case of email and physical communications & content.

Morgan Stanley’s risk management committee has given the go-ahead for all of the retail brokerage’s financial advisers to use the two sites.To comply with stringent rules governing what and how financial advisers & bankers can communicate, financial advisers of the firm will tweet only prewritten tweets from preapproved library and submit all LinkedIn postings for approval, using software designed by Socialware, and through this software the firm tracks and captures communication of its brokers and retains it for regulators. For using LinkedIn, advisers have to set up a profile that discusses their practice and specialties, receive compliance training, submit all LinkedIn postings for approval and can use all the LinkedIn functions--from requesting an introduction to search features to joining groups which are powerful networking tools and thus increase business. In case of Twitter account advisers can only tweet prewritten tweets from preapproved library, which contains content related to reports on market moves; the firm’s research on investment strategy; wealth management topics such as retirement, women and wealth and divorce; and general lifestyle content. According to Lauren Boyman, wealth management themes tend to do particularly well, and are frequently retweeted on Twitter.

In case MSSB Advisors require help with the LinkedIn, Twitter & their business usage have to contact firm’s business development organization which will guide them in term of how to use the sites and also a call center is established to answer adviser questions and finally advisers can also seek additional coaching from technology vendor Socialware. A lot of financial advice is emerging from many growing sources and technologies like blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn, etc. and all the Financial Institutions like Retail Banks, Wealth management Firms, Investment Banks, Asset Management firms, etc. have to see this content as a competitive threat and should also make themselves present on the various social media platforms as the customers are becoming more social media savvy and social media has become an integral part of their day to day life. MSSB is successfully using social media in client interaction & Business Development.

Case Study: Social Media presence of Goldman Sachs: Looking to improve presence

Despite being one of the biggest investor in Social Media companies like Facebook, Goldman Sachs presence on Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube is quite lackluster. Goldman Sachs joined Facebook in June 2009 and till now it has only 20,000 fans, mere 16,000 likes which is far below when compared to its peers in the Financial Services industry and also has many negative comments about the bank on the Facebook page. It started its twitter account in May 2012 and since then it has 22,000 followers and the twitter account highlights the events, work, research and employees.  Goldman Sachs official twitter account is nothing compared to a parody feed called @GSElevator Gossip, which has over 320,000 followers which reports the various conversations overheard in the bank’s elevators. Goldman Sachs LinkedIn presence has 90,000 followers and is limited to job openings, recruiting interns and informing about employee update and new hires. In February 2012, Goldman Sachs launched YouTube channel and it features videos of employees discussing careers; experts interviewed on topics such as the global economy; clients talking about relationship & work and its corporate citizenship programs. Goldman Sachs is looking to hire a fulltime social community manager who will manage its social media presence and will also monitor the activity.

The reason for such a lackluster presence for Goldman Sachs and slowly improving social media presence for most of the Banks and Financial Institutions is due to the stringent financial regulations by the regulators. Broker, dealers, Relationship managers must comply with very stringent regulations regarding communications with their clients which had become a negating factor. The SEC and FINRA quickly classified social media interactions as records just like emails or physical communications which means they must be archived and managed according to the same rules and which also means tight policing and steep sanctions these institutions face in terms of violations from the SEC/other regulators will also be applied to social media records. Most of the financial institutions were not confident that they could comply with such stringent regulations while using social media so they avoided using it. But there are significant benefits in using social media like advisors/traders/relationship managers can build trust with clients, network more effectively and use social media as a marketing tool for more business and with new tools available that help in archiving and managing social media interactions effectively, Goldman Sachs and other Financial institutions & banks have been actively improving their social media presence. Social Media policy is in place and employees are being trained in terms of how to utilize and manage the social media presence, regulatory aspects and precautions to be taken during client interactions is also provided to all the client facing teams.

Banks & Financial Institutions need to understand that the new era financial customers, clients and public are social media savvy users which also has become an active part of their day to day lives and Social media is disrupting the financial industry with the emergence of social media real time money, investment and trading communities and crowd financing which is funding new players. All the above factors have forced the financial institutions to enter the open and transparent world of Social media. Goldman Sachs too is following and improving presence.

Social Media @ Intel – Planet Blue internal social network for Employees

Intel, the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue has an internal social media platform called Planet Blue that was launched in 2009, which is company controlled Facebook styled intranet, where more than 1,00,000 employees can connect with each other, collaborate and share knowledge. Planet blue includes blogs, wikis, status updates, discussion forums and employees can also form groups based on their interests, hobbies, etc. Employees not only communicate and create groups but also use the platform to ideate and innovate which is essential for Intel as there is constant pressure on the company to develop new products. Intel earlier had a wiki based platform for collaboration, called Intelpedia, "the Intel encyclopedia that anyone can edit," was launched in 2006, which employees can edit freely  and had millions of pages and thousands of contributors. Intel had a culture of technology-based information-sharing since early 2003, when employee blogging started predominantly included self-maintained servers under desks and these internal employee blogs gained popularity. Intel CEO Paul Otellini launched his employee blog in 2004 and other top execs and leaders followed throughout 2005 culminating in a fully IT-supported platform that same year. Intel also started its popular developer blogs and wikis for software collaboration called Intel Software Network back in May 2006. In April 2007, Intel created Blogs@Intel as a new business tool for customers and employees to directly communicate and collaborate. In June 2008, Intel added the Digital IQ training program for employees that contained around 60 programs online with certification on how to use these social media tools to increase innovation, communication and collaboration at work.

According to a post titled “How successful is your Enterprise 2.0 strategy?” on Intel communities, “some of the metrics Intel track are related to adoption – such as active users (creators, synthesizers, consumers) and “unique visitors”. However, these indicators may not accurately represent the success indicators of the platform. Quality of discussions, impact of these discussions on the users, problem resolutions, agility in solving issues, ability to find subject matters experts quickly could be different parameters which can really show how successful the platform is.” This highlights that Intel closely monitors its social media styled intranet and hopes that the intranet will fuel social learning among employees and also use it for their career development where they can look for positions and chat about their career progression. Intel created a comprehensive set of social media policies called the Intel Social Media Guidelines that are available in over 35 languages designed to help employees to understand how to manage their social media presence. Intel also created Social Media Center of Excellence, which is a cross functional body of experts from Marketing, PR, legal and Digital Communications, who collaborated to create guidelines, processes, strategies, and skill-building courses for how Intel employees can use social media tools like blogs, wikis, Twitter, Facebook, and social networks around the world. Intel is further looking to improve its Planet Blue and is looking to add voice control features to the content so that employees can use it effectively for their collaboration, communication, learning and knowledge sharing initiatives. 

Social Media @ Cisco-Quad based Integrated Workforce Experience for Employees

Cisco integrated social media at a strategic level and provided its employees internal collaboration tools and intranet which employees were actively encouraged to use them for improving their performance and their productivity. Top Management invested millions of dollars in developing these tools and platforms and the CEO, CTO and other top executives of Cisco are active bloggers and initiate conversations that inspire employees to actively participate and use these tools. Cisco believes it is necessary for businesses to adapt to the new trends and changes that are happening with the rapid rise of mobility and the availability of devices like tablets, smartphones, etc. Employees as well as consumers are using these devices and other social networking tools extensively in their personal lives and are looking to use them in workplaces and businesses do not have any other option but to provide them with access to such devices and tools for the organizational success. Cisco provided its employees IWE, which is a platform that has various tools for networking, sharing, communicating with other employees within the organization.

Cisco's global intranet home page is Cisco Employee Connection which employees use for everything from meeting schedules, e-mail, and communications to online expense reporting, distance learning, and telecommuting services. For Cisco employees this intranet has been a platform to share and collate information and knowledge among themselves but it lacked the personal touch and feel. Employees were also looking to use collaborative tools like blogs, wikis, videos, forums etc within the organization in their projects and daily activities. Cisco in 2009 developed Integrated Workforce Experience (IWE) an internal collaboration platform that employees can use effectively to connect, communicate, and collaborate with people and communities, as well as share information for organizational growth, encourage innovation and create sustainable productivity. In 2010 Cisco moved IWE to Cisco Quad environment which provides all the social networking tools like blogs, Facebook and twitter styled, YouTube styled video sharing sites, etc to all the employees internally.

IWE allows employees to find and connect with experts within the organization through an internal directory similar to Facebook with employee profiles that highlight their expertise, activities and interests and helps in socializing among employees. Employees can also create communities and organize into groups based on their work, expertise, interests, hobbies, etc and collaborate and share knowledge for the organizational success. Employees share content in the form of documents, videos, blog posts, discussion forums and IWE is the most important source of data and information for the employees and they can distribute the information easily with IWE. Another important feature of IWE is personalized workspaces for the employees called My View which is user defined home page that provides access for people, communities, news, applications and events and also provide the necessary updates and activities of various connected employees and member communities. Employees can easily interact with the internal systems of Cisco easily through IWE and use it in their daily activities and transactions.

According to Cisco, key statistics highlight the IWE use among employees as of mid 2011:  Nearly 87,000 unique visitors with software developers and salespeople comprising the largest portions of this total.  More than 900,000 visits to the IWE site per quarter and the overall average of 6.05 visits per week per user indicates that IWE has become a regular part of employees’ work activity. More than 1000 IWE communities created, of which slightly more than half are open to all IWE users. The number of communities has quadrupled in one year as employees see IWE's value for sharing information and resources with colleagues by project, location, interest, etc.  Almost 14,000 IWE users "follow" other users in order to receive alerts when those employees posed new information or take other action within IWE. The follow capability is especially effective for technical experts and managers who post resources of interest to multiple colleagues within their department or across the company. Statistics also show the popularity of IWE features:  A 25 percent increase in the number of IWE discussion forum messages in one month. 1,400 videos created by Cisco employees and embedded in IWE for on-demand viewing via the Cisco Show and Share solution. (Source:  How Cisco IT Evolved Enterprise Social Software and Collaboration)

Cisco employees are provided with the necessary guidelines and policy is in place to control the social media activity and the strategy for social media is determined by a team of ten people called centre of excellence. Within each department responsibility lies with specific people who control the activities. Employees are trained through 30 workshops which trains employees in terms of social media policy and how to behave on social media platforms and necessary certifications are provided once they complete the trainings and the people who control the social media activity and participate in the social media strategy formulation these trainings are must. Cisco Social Media Policy also encourages employee participation in various platforms and they are also provided with incentives for such participation. Employees who are key contributors are rewarded through mentions in newsletters, annual awards and also team awards are given for active participation. The social media participation with customers and other employees is also a KPI in the employee annual performance review process. Employees are also provided with the support of the technical experts who will help in the participation on the social media platforms and create, distribute content like videos, blog posts, documents, etc.

Cisco created a culture within the organization that actively supports the use of various social networking tools within the organization by the employees to collaborate, communicate and share knowledge. The quad based IWE is at the centre of this and top management use of Video conferencing, blogs, wikis and podcasts as part of the communication with the employees has encouraged employees even more too actively use the social media tools as evident in the usage statistics. Cisco has realized significant business value in terms of cost savings, improved employee productivity, and transformed business processes through the IWE platform. Cisco gained between US$3 million and $24 million in the value of increased employee productivity based on IWE usage and expects to increase to between $9 million and $68 million by mid-2012 based on increased adoption. Cisco also benefited in increased sales of products as employees and sales teams collaborate effectively in driving sales. Cisco also uses social media actively in its B2B initiatives with customers and channel partners. With tremendous success of Quad internally within Cisco, Cisco sold the Quad offering externally to customers and Cisco has 50 companies — about 700,000 users — paying for the service. 

Social Media @ Infosys – Infy Bubble Social Networking Platform for employees

Infosys is a global technology services company and the company has 146,000 employees with 64 offices across over 29 countries and generates revenues of around US$ 7 billion. North America is the dominant geography followed by Europe in terms of revenue contribution. BFSI, Manufacturing, Retail & CPG, Telecom, Energy & Utilities are the major verticals. Infosys believes that in today’s dynamic business world, success is significantly determined by the collective intelligence and actions of company’s employees. Infosys built an internal communication system that helps its employees collaborate and share knowledge. Employees need to communicate with one another for project related activities and also for understanding each other personally and culturally. These interactions are essential for the global organizations to run smoothly, knowledge management, innovation and operational efficiencies. Infosys also has formulated a social media policy for its employees that provide guidelines in terms how to be active on the various social networking sites without causing any damage to company and its brand reputation. Employee engagement and satisfaction levels have increased after the adoption of the internal social networking tools/platforms in the organization.

Infosys had launched InfyBubble in June 2011, internally developed social network for employees and there are 82,000 employees registered on the platform, with 392,051 connections established across the world and 102,572 average page views a day. The site looks like a Facebook page and Infosys employees can share moods, blogs, videos, photographs and other stuff. The site does not allow employees to post any personal comments on their managers or superiors but negative feedback in terms of performance and work related are invited and expects discipline to be maintained on the social platform. Employees can collaborate with colleagues not only for work but also based on the interest and hobbies. Infosys also launched InfyRadio in August 2011, an in-house radio station for employees across all development centers in India through which employees are informed about happenings in the organization and also ensures they are motivated and engaged with some fun at work. The station runs for six hours a day, five days a week and is accessible via a link on the employee’s computer and on an average it receives 10,000 hits per day.

Infosys intranet Sparsh, the information intranet of Infosys, allows every single member of Infosys to be connected at all times and was rated among the world’s top 10.  It serves as an internal social network, and members can exchange ideas by email, bulletin boards and also hold discussions. Sparsh has helped Infosys in reducing operating costs and meeting clients’ needs even more efficiently, and increase in operating margins. Sparsh is coupled with KShop; a knowledge database where Infosys has book reviews, case studies, even materials, FAQs, tutorials, downloadable software etc for every employee. Infosys in the recent years have been facing significant attrition levels and the company with an intention to regain its best employer status launched these social media initiative in the last few years. Also through the social networking platform and other collaborative tools Infosys is expecting to retain the employees and actively engage them with the management and also involve them in the organization strategy and future policy initiatives.  

Social Media & Business Organizations 2011 – Emerging Markets leading Adoption

According to a report from KPMG International, more than 70% of organizations across the globe are active on social media and businesses in the emerging markets are leading in social media adoption compared to mature markets due to fall in cost of internet and devices. Social media is being used by business organizations for customer relationship management, engaging employees and other stakeholders in the organization innovation process for developing new product and services and improving the existing ones. Businesses too have realized that there are risks associated with social media engagement and are looking for ways to reduce the risk and use social media to improve their brand image and organization reputation. Organizations are also training employees about social media usage and are told to strictly adhere to the specific social media policies and rules formulated by the respective companies which also help them to reduce the risks associated with social media engagement. The policy should be clearly communicated to all the stakeholders and without a clear social media engagement policy it will be disastrous for the business organizations.

4,000 employees including 1800 managers in major markets gave their feedback and the research found that organizations are still underestimating the benefits of social media but 80% of businesses with an active social media program said they had seen and measured the benefits of social media engagement. Businesses are using analytical software to monitor their social media presence and are also trying to measure the ROI in the social media engagements. Job satisfaction of the employees has been better in organizations with open policies on social media as they feel motivated and valued for their engagement and they voice their opinions freely through the social media channels and there is no point in restricting employees to access social media as they will find ways to go around the firewalls and still use them. Moreover employees are bringing their own devices like the smartphones and mobile phones with internet access to the workplace and companies have no control over them. Employees don’t know that organizations are monitoring their social media activities and face severe consequences of loosing their jobs for wrongly using the social media platforms. KPMG suggests businesses and organizations to actively listen to the opinions and feedback on various social media platforms and accordingly engage and develop their social media strategy.