Greater expectations

Here's a great overview, from a marketing angle, of the touch points that social media provide and how businesses can understand them.  There's an awesome graphic in the middle of the article that limns it all out.  (It's from McKinsey Quarterly -- you may need to join for free to read it.)

There's an employee-engagement angle in here, too: these social-media functions are radically changing people's expectations of how they should receive information from their own companies and should have access to participate and respond.

Put another way, I'll call this Campbell's Credibility Quotient:

                                                effectiveness in communicating with employees
credibility of leadership    =          ------------------------------------------------
                                                effectiveness in communicating with customers

If people feel leaders are more committed to being effective with customers than with employees, that perceived gap harms the credibility of leaders.  Commitment to rapid, fair, clear, two-way and engaging communications with customers -- the pillars of social media -- needs to result in the same approach or better for employees.

Have a look at that graphic and ask if your employee communications hit those same touch points.  Social media have already changed your people whether it's changing your business model yet or not.