Social media is seemingly everywhere these days, it is has been a part of the social fabric of most societies for the past 7 to 10 years and for the last few has also been appearing increasingly as part of the business landscape.

For many businesses, social media is still little more than a presence on the world wide web, possibly accompanied by a LinkedIn company page, for others it extends beyond these into Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or one of the many other assorted social media platforms that are available. This article is not intended to serve as a guide for which platforms would best suit different businesses, it is, however, intended to provide some guidance on how a virtual team, whether for a business or a project, could use social media for internal communications.

This article is primarily discussing the use of social media by the members of a team to build a sharing and more nuanced personal working relationship, one that is not built entirely on work related email and video conference calls, but one that involves sharing personal and professional experiences outside of the project environment.

Modes Of Social Media Use

Each team and organisation will experience the use of social media differently, whether the users see it as a purely personal tool or a corporate one, as a minimum, many still like to see some social media presence for their project team or business. The key different modes of social media use are:

* Personal use – many, if not virtually all virtual team members will use social media in some way. As an entirely social tool to keep in touch with family and friends, to share images of their lives or to maintain a professional profile the penetration of social media is such that there is an inherent expectation that there will be a touch point between their purely social life and its appearance on social media and their professional.

* Team use – sometimes with the support of though frequently in spite of the business’ views of social media, many team members will seek to establish an informal social media presence for their projects or businesses. Examples of this can be seen on LinkedIn, such as the alumni groups which are formed for past and present members of a company or project to remain in touch, and the use of the projects option to connect members, either working together on a current project or on a completed one. Many businesses and projects are now starting to recognise this as a way for team members to interact socially, and are encouraging the establishment of such communities. Many other businesses however remain frightened of the freedom social media affords their personnel.

* Business use – businesses have tended to see social media as either an inconvenience, a passing fad or a marketing tool to sell their product to an audience. Sadly, only a few organisations are seeing it was a way to build an internal community amongst their personnel, yet building a strong internal community is what every team needs to be successful, regardless of whether they are co-located or virtual.

Methods Of Use Of Social Media

There are a number of ways a business can use social media to build its internal communities, beside this, you also need to consider how you will select the platforms that make the most sense of your business, but essentially some of the factors to consider are;

* Do you want a closed or an open platform, and why – you need to decide whether your employee social media functionality will be inside or outside of your business firewalls.