Social Computing Behind The Firewall- Best Buy’s Video Case Study
I’m always fascinated at collaboration behind the firewall because it’s been such a tough road to hoe for so many years. Getting people to share what they know and to be generally open about their ideas is no doubt daunting for most.
I’d read about Best Buy’s social media efforts, mostly in the form of its Blue Shirt Nation project, but I hadn’t seen the depth of detail behind the company’s motivation until seeing the video below.
With all the talk about the inability to show demonstrable ROI in social computing, it’s refreshing to see a company lay out the benefits so clearly. Though all the gains from social media can’t be distilled down into hard numbers, there’s plenty of returns across the business. One instance was a substantial jump in 401K enrollments after users were encouraged to develop a social media-based campaign targeted at its younger, gen-Y workforce. Through the use of video, blogs and other user-generated content, 401K dissenters were converted after the benefits were delivered in a collaborative, engaging way.
Best Buy simply found a way to engage passionate employees and gave them a voice. That’s a return on participation (ROP) in my book.
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