Nokia Actively Uses Social Media to Communicate Apply the knowledge of Managemen

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Nokia Actively Uses Social Media to Communicate

Apply the knowledge of Management presented in this chapter to the following case. Applying this knowledge should enable you to have a better understanding of how Nokia uses social media to its advantage.

Read the case below and answer the questions on the right.

Nokia is a Finnish multinational communications and information technology company. It was founded in 1865. In 2015, the company had 114,256 employees and four business groups: Nokia Networks, Nokia Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia Bell Labs. Total revenue in 2015 was 23.22 billion euros.162

The company's vision is to be an "innovation leader in the technologies that connect people and things." Making this happens involves pursuing a strategy of "creating a new type of network that's intelligent, efficient, and secure, and advancing the technologies that tap its power through smart devices and sensors."163 It is not surprising that Nokia would focus on using social media for its internal communications given the company's history, vision, and strategic focus.

Nokia created a Social Media Communications Team in 2008 to improve communications. The team's goal is to:

"Encourage the use of social media internally to bring out the company's unique authentic voice and to engage in social media externally on behalf of Nokia, and contributing to product and service announcements by opening up a dialogue and driving online engagement."164

Nokia's Communication Strategy

Nokia's communication strategy entails a three-pronged approach using social media: (1) build relationships, (2) improve products and services, and (3) demonstrate corporate values and leadership.165 The two key tools being used in this pursuit are BlogHub and VideoHub.

BlogHub. Members of the Social Media team believe BlogHub is the most effective internal communication tool used at Nokia. According to Molly Schonthal, former team member in North America, "The BlogHub lowers barriers for employees to find conversations relevant to them." BlogHub gives all employees a voice because communication spreads in all directions—horizontally, upward and downward. This contrasts with the top down communication approach used in many companies. Schonthal concluded BlogHub provides a "dynamic community that is ruled by members, not executives."166

BlogHub enables employees to share ideas and update others on what they are doing. This fosters collaboration and breaks down communication silos. It also provides valuable information to management. One blogger noted that "BlogHub is an effective way to gather employee feedback on various issues and track the conversations that are happening inside the company. One of the primary ways that is accomplished is via a voting mechanism, enabling employees to rate blog posts, with the most popular entries rising to the top."167

Nokia Conversations is one specialized internal blog run by Phil Schwarzmann, its Editor-in-Chief. One feature focuses on telling employee stories about interesting people or interesting aspects of someone's job. For example, one story pertained to a 6" 11" employee who played basketball for Norte Dame and now plays for a Finnish league. Other stories involve people who live the Nokia values of:

Respect—treating each other with respect and working hard to earn it from others

Achievement—working with others to deliver superior results and win in the marketplace

Renewal—develop your skills and grow the business

Challenge—avoid complacency and question the status quo168

VideoHub. This collaborative tool allows employees to post and share videos. It contains a combination of professionally produced corporate or marketing videos and employee-generated content. The company provides a network of trained employees who help employees create short videos.

Videos of Nokia's quarterly business reviews represent examples of formal videos. These videos feature "top leaders' insights into the company's performance on a quarterly basis. The video is largely based on professionally conducted recording and editing, but is often complemented by employee-generate video clips."169

One example of less formal videos entailed management's requests of clips of employees who exemplify the company's values. Over 100 video clips were created. Johanna Komonen, Nokia's communications manager, commented that "Nokia is a very non-hierarchical company and I don't think you could ask people to make videos that are honest unless they felt confident enough to know that it's their video. We don't tell anyone what to put in their video, they know that it's their video and their views."170

All told, this tool "acts as a hub through which Nokia's employees can post, view and discuss work-related videos. Employees are encouraged to keep the clips to only a few minutes or so in length, with even the professional shot Quarterly Business Review lasting only around eight minutes."171

Communication Doesn't Stop with BlogHub and VideoHub

Other communication tools include the following:

Live Meeting enables employees to ask questions online during presentations. Employees can also send text messages if they can't be online during the presentation.

Road shows are used to educate employees about new products. "Regionally, mini product launches—aka 'mobility happy hours' are held so employees can ask questions and become familiar with Nokia devices."172

Video conferencing is used to communicate across geographical boundaries. Annual communications meetings are also accessible with this medium in order to cut down on travel costs.

Electronic newsletters are used on daily, weekly, or monthly bases to communicate about important topics and Nokia businesses and their initiatives.

Corporate intranet is used to communicate about organizational charts and human resource benefits.

Flat Scree Displays are located around regional offices and provide consistently streamed information about corporate issues, information, and real-time business metrics.173

Social Media Certification

Nokia has highly invested in its communication strategy. To facilitate its success, the company developed a six-part social media certification. Employees must complete the process before actively using the social media tools. To be certified, employees must:174

Be prepared

Be transparent

Be smart

Be nice

Be yourself

Be professional

Please help me answer these question :

1. What extent is Nokia's use of social media conistent with recommendations about matching the richness of media to the situation at hand?

2. How does Nokia use of social media tend to eliminate barriers to communication? Explain.

3. What extent is Nokia experencing any of the downsides to social media? Explain.

4. What are the primary benefit of Nokia's communication strategy?

5. What does this case teach you about interpersonal and organizational communication? Explain.

Explanation / Answer

1. Nokia’s vision is to be an innovative leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Achieving this mission required to pursue a strategy of creating new type of network that is intelligent, efficient, and secure, and advancing the technologies that tap its power through smart devices and sensors. Social media was the better platform for internal communication to ensure the success of vision and proposed strategy. Hence Nokia encouraged the use of social media internally to bring out the company’s authentic voice and externally for product and service announcements. This way Nokia used social media to a great extent both internally and externally, to meet the company objectives.

2. Nokia’s communication strategy uses social media for building relationships, improve product and services and demonstrate corporate values and leadership. Blog Hub and Video Hub were the key tools used which helped to eliminate the barriers in communication. Blog Hub lowers barriers by helping employees to find communication relevant to them. The communication spreads in all directions and enables employees to share their ideas and effectively gathers employee feedback. Voting mechanism allows employees to rate the bog post and push the most popular entries to top. Video Hub allows employees to post and share videos. The video is mainly based on profession videos on corporate or marketing and employee generated content. The examples include videos of Nokia's quarterly business reviews. The video mostly features top leaders and employees can keep the clips only for few minutes. Nokia also uses Live Meeting that enables employees to ask questions online during presentations and Video conferencing to communicate across geographical boundaries. Other methods include electronic newsletters, corporate intranet and flat screen displays located in regional offices.

3. Nokia has experienced downsides to social media due to less formal videos by employees that are not compliant with the company values. The management cannot control employees to put videos that are honest or tell them what their video should contain.

4. The primary benefit of Nokia’s communication strategy is to promote internal communication without barriers and allow employee feedback on the issues and track the conversions in which company is involved. It helps to build relationships and motivate the employees with the top leader’s videos. The communication strategy helped the employees to interact with each other and communicate across boundaries.

5. The case shows that interpersonal and organizational communication require effective tools and it helps to build relationship among the employees by promoting communication and share their views. It also helps in motivating the employees by sharing the success stories of the leaders and employees gets chance for providing feedback which helps to address the employee issues effectively. Employees can develop or improve their interpersonal communication skills when they communicate with different kind of people without any geographical boundaries. Interpersonal and organizational communication is very important to increase the knowledge level and communication level of the employees.

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