In past posts I’ve talked about company blogs that are viewable by the public this is because many of their customers are all over the world, and having a blog is a simple way to connect with most of them. This is a great thing, however, some companies just have internal blogs that only employees can access and communicate through. Companies should not forget that employees are an important public. Best Buy has created Blue Shirt Nation (BSN) a social network for their employees to communicate with each other. Blue Shirt Nation started back in 2006 with the idea from Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling, corporate marketers, who wanted to learn customer insight, from employees on the sales floor. In Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web it explains how Bendt and Koelling wanted to promote BSN bottom-up so they went store to store promoting their project. In about 2 months there were 14,000 members. The employees enjoy having a place where they could all connect, and get to know each other. BSN was also a place for employees to compare and give advice on how to better customer interactions.
The video below is an interview with Bendt and Koelling talking about Blue Shirt Nation. They have found that employee’s love having their own place to ask questions about work along with getting to know each other. Bendt and Koelling have notice an increase in efficiency and problems getting fixed quicker. In conclusion, if a public blog might not be the best outlet for your company, consider an internal blog where employees can connect and communicate.
