PR and marketing professionals are often the biggest advocates for using social media tools to engage customers. But what role should they play in promoting social media to help employees engage with each other.  Should they be making a stronger case for internal collaboration and alignment? Are they best positioned to do so?

This week Kristin English and I offer up posts that look at the value of social media tools. Our goal is to help PR and marketing make the case for implementing them across their companies in a way that facilitates employee empowerment and  integrated engagement with outside audiences.

In our first post, CEO of Prescient Digital Media Toby Ward @tobyward writing for CMS Wire states boldly: “If your organization is not using social media to engage employees, it is risking obsolescence.”

Using statistics and trends Ward makes his case and finds that about half of organizations have intranet blogs, discussion forums, instant messaging and wikis. He also points out that the use of employee networking tools is up 42 percent from last year.

It’s somewhat similar to what Forrester VP & Principal Analyst Ted Schadler @tedschadler concludes in our second post of the week by Marisa Peacock.

Peacock writes, “The power that internet technology has given the general consumer can also be used to empower employees, and in some places it already has.” It helps employees  share information faster, better and easier. Taken together, these tools boost productivity and help people work smarter.

Easier said than done, as implementation often involves some pushback.  ”Either the company doesn’t have an infrastructure to support new technologies or it just doesn’t want to.”

He encourage organizations to identify HEROs (Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives) that help drive change and promote collaboration.

Should PR and marketing be HEROs?  What arguments would you make in helping make the case for implementation and making collaboration a higher priority in your organization?

SocialText VP and Enterprise 2.0 Expert Michael Idinopulos @michaelido offers a cautionary post of why social enterprise adoption goes awry.  Three possible reasons:

1) Technology under-investment

2) IT-Business Misalignment

3) Innovation Marginalization

The lesson:  If you going to implement social enterprise tools, make sure you are set up to succeed?

How can PR and marketing help ensure the that collaboration efforts and tools accomplish their intended role?

Lastly a post of interest: The Current State of Enterprise Collaboration

Among its findings: Almost 80 percent of executives surveyed said that collaboration was critical to the future of the company

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