Using Social Tools to Ignite Company Culture
By Giuseppina Chiaramonte
The Hoffman Agency, San Jose
I have to admit that I’m partial to small groups.
I attended a small high school, then a small university, and I started my PR career in a boutique-sized firm. There’s something different about the workplace culture that one finds in small places. It’s more familial and team-oriented; you know what your colleagues are up to.
But take a multi-national company and the story’s different. You can’t always check in with your colleagues in China, and it’s hard to build an “office culture” when offices are separated by a 16-hour time gap.
So how can you keep a boutique-like feel when your company has offices spread across the globe?
The plain fact is, there are more social tools available now than there ever were before, and these can help businesses bridge international gaps and ignite company culture.
For example, take The Hoffman Agency.
This past Valentine’s Day, The Hoffman Agency celebrated its first international Instagram campaign. The premise was simple: snap pictures throughout your workday, upload them to Instagram and tag with the hashtag #InsideHA. The result was a collage of beautifully filtered photos and – more importantly – a sense of what it looked like to work at Hoffman in China, Singapore, London and elsewhere.
Right now, the hashtag is 174 photos strong and you can check out our visual story from your mobile device by searching #InsideHA. Here’s a quick glimpse at some of my favorite photos as well.
Besides Instagram, what are some other social tools that companies can use to enhance their culture?
