Can Your Business Use a Social Audio Makeover?

How can social audio impact your business?How can social audio impact your business?

Social Audio has made a huge splash over the past 12 months. Many new companies are showing up on the horizon. The pandemic has transformed how we do business and virtual events, and remote work teams have created a perfect storm for many organizations to begin leveraging emerging technologies to connect with their many stakeholders.

Last week I shared my thoughts in What Future Trends Are Transforming Our Lives and Businesses Today? 

I received several notes asking how do you decide what technologies to use to leverage these trends in our organizations. We need to take a step back before we get going. As an executive coach, I’ve always been a huge fan of accuracy first, then momentum.

Social Audio as another tool in your leadership toolbox

Social audio provides an impressive set of tools for our businesses. To use them most effectively, we need to answer several questions about our business. Marketing and corporate communications continue to converge. Social media, video, and content creation are critical elements to achieve market leadership.

I recently wrote about the social audio app Clubhouse here Entrepreneurs, is there a Clubhouse in your future? 

Recent events have accelerated the rate of change for organizations. Many leaders have people on their teams they have never met in person. Others have lost people through illness and early retirements. Even before the pandemic, many midsize and family organizations faced a wave of boomer retirements.  

How to you get employees re-engaged post-COVID?

As your employees return, how prepared are you to reengage and reignite their energies towards your shared goals?  Successful strategic internal communication is the foundation for your organization’s short- and long-term success.

Social audio can help you refocus on your goals

When I start talking with the leaders about internal communications strategies, I ask several questions to get them focused on what needs to be done to help them reconnect with their business goals and objectives:

  • What does the leadership need to communicate to your workforce? How does this apply to partners and other contract employees?
  • Does your team understand your business strategy? How has it evolved or pivoted over the past year?
  • Is your current strategy dealing with market conditions? Have competitors changed the market landscape? How have these forces changed your go to market strategy?
  • Have these forces changed customers’ expectations and behavior? Is your team prepared to deal with these changes? What opportunities come from these changed behaviors?
  • How do you succeed in this fast-evolving business environment?
  • What are the critical issues that most worry management as you create the strategy and tactics? What can the team do to move into a more powerful position in the market?

These questions are not that hard to answer. The answers can be difficult to implement. Add to this equation the uncertainty created over the past year. Many employees are scared. They’ve lost friends and coworkers. Their lives have been changed forever.

Your teams are feeling increasingly stressed today

People are feeling stressed in the workplace where they used to find comfort and camaraderie. According to Gallup over 57% of employees in North America feel stress daily. I expect the number to decrease over the coming year. I’m not certain how much given inflation fears, healthcare concerns, and uncertainty about their roles. Employees have their own questions.

You can learn more about these workplace  trends at 7 Things We Learned About U.S. and Canadian Employees in 2020 

Here are the questions I’ve heard at when talking with people both on location and online. One of the major changes I’ve had to make over the past year is to get significantly more involved in people and HR issues for my clients.

What concerns YOUR employees?

Your employees are concerned, I’m not always certain they know how to share their concerns. Much of my time is helping them work through these challenges without losing focus on what they want to achieve with and for their teams.

  • How are we doing?
  • What are we trying to accomplish?
  • Are things going to change at work? Why?
  • How do they know if their meeting your goals? What are the priorities?
  • What do these changes mean to me? How does this change my role?
  • Are they going to lay me off or close this location?
  • Do I have job security in my current role? Can technology replace me?
  • Can I trust my manager? Do they care about me and my family?
  • Are they aware of how stressful the work environment is today?
  • Does management care about what’s going on? Will they accept and value my suggestions?
  • Are they listening? Will they act on my suggestions?

You can see there are many different questions between the leaders and their teams. Either group can achieve their goals without the other. We need to build a bridge that allows both groups to work together towards common goals.

Now let’s get back to the original question, can your business use a social audio makeover? I think social audio can be an incredible tool to help you energize and engage your organization again.

I’ve have spent the past several months on social audio for clients trying to decide how the best way to use it is for corporate communication. I’ll share several ideas and make you an offer that you might find interesting. See you tomorrow at Empowering Serving Leaders where I’ll share how social audio can help you transform your communities and your leadership.  

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