"...THERE CAN BE NO SEPARATION BETWEEN CORPORATE CULTURE AND A BRAND"

Now-a-days companies should care not only about reviews about their products/services, but also about... reviews about their inside performance from their own employees. It has become very actual because who know companies best? Of course, the employees. And currently they have a lot of opportunities to express their opinions about their workplaces.

Now such reviews are an important part of groundswell, and companies should remember and care about it.

Company's culture reflects the values, beliefs, attitude, and behaviors of its members. Therefore, company's culture has a considerable impact on the success of a business.

Smart executives realized and know how to use the right built culture as a competitive advantage.

So what is your desired company culture?

Let's get some inspiration and take a look at examples of great cultures, which is worth to emulate:

Google

Google is probably the first company, which comes into minds of the most people when they hear collocation "corporate culture". And it worth it. 

The company calls its employees "Googlers". Describing of its culture on the Google website is started with words:

"It's really the people that make Google the kind of company it is."

For the employees Google provides not only excellent philosophy inside the company, but also probably all kind of facilities and events such as bowling, amazing meeting rooms, parks, impressive designed working spaces and etc.

If you work for Google, you can ride a bike through the campus, play active games with co-workers, have a rest at equipped space, and literally slide down into the cafeteria.

Google's corporate culture now is the most famous example of creative, successful, and developed cultures inside a company. Undoubtedly it is a great part of Google's goodwill, and it is making a significant contribution in positive groundswell.

Apple

Apple is known for its innovative products and fabulous design. It is still a kind of phenomena how this company made people buy its products for higher prices than competitors'. 

But what is going on inside the company? The main idea of company's corporate culture may be described precisely by one of the opinion of a Former Apple employee, Chad Little:

"Apple is one of those companies where people work on an almost religious level of commitment. There are probably a handful of large companies that can command this, such as Disney or Google. Most workers, no matter how simple their job might be, truly feel they are changing the world with whatever they are doing."

Nike

Nike is a worldwide famous brand and a huge company. Everyone knows the iconic "swoosh", which is associated with sports, admire design and distinct culture. But what about the culture inside of the company? What a philosophy does it provide?

Nike's executives completely understand the importance of building and maintaining of extremely committed workforce and internal culture.

How the company sees the matters of its employees and internal culture? Here is its vision of it:

"We believe that a talented, diverse and inclusive employee base helps drive the creativity that is central to our brands. Our global strategy for human resources is to help unleash our employees' potential across every area of our business by enabling leaders to make great decisions that in turn enable NIKE's business growth."

You've seen just a few examples of how internal culture and employees' satisfaction with working conditions and their attitude to a company can make a great contribution in company's reputation. 
These companies understand an importance of listening, talking, energizing, supporting and embracing not only for external relationships with customers and partners, but also for internal groundswell and relationships with their employees and between them.

"No matter what you're after, in the internal groundswell, the secret to thriving is culture. This is not about technology implementation but about managing and changing the way organizations work..."

Li C., Bernoff J., "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies", chapter 12

Here you can see Top 25 Companies for Culture&Values.

Companies shouldn't be afraid to give their employees some ways to have fun and rest during a work day. The point here is to find a right balance, to show employees your respect and their importance for the company by providing some perks and benefits. Yes, your company is serious, but don't forget about fun and pleasure to be involved for employees. And it certainly will come back to a company as an competitive advantage.

Dealing with Groundswell: don't stop to listen

All the companies need to be promoted - that is an obvious truth. But the problem is HOW to do this. How to know what a company really needs on the certain step? How to protect your company from wasting advertising budget ineffectively? How to choose the right way of advertising? 

A simple answers on these questions is LISTEN. 

"Listening focuses on hearing what people are saying about your organization online" say Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, authors of the book named Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Just listen to your customers and you will understand what they want, what they want you to change, what they like and dislike, which things you should pay more attention and etc. 

But the problem is it's not so easy to do. This one word imply a lot of other questions as, for example, Whom should I listen? 

How to listen? 

Where should I listen?

We all are living in the world of information and it's becoming more and more difficult to find the information you're really looking for. But it doesn't mean that it's impossible. You just need to know the certain tools and follow certain tips to do it. Here is some ideas advices how you can do it.

Nowadays you can even deal with a company which can do such research for you. It's very convenient in some cases.

In order to see how it works not in words let's consider some interesting casehow Groundswell was listened successfully.

Nike "Better for it"

Everyone knows Nike. It has a huge target audience. But what did they do in one of their recent advertising campaign? They decided again to focus on women.

The campaign's name is "Better for it".

Was it successful again? The answer is YES.

The campaign says:
"If you've got the drive to get better, Nike Women has the tools and gear to help you do it" which is very encouraging for women, doesn't it? 

The video has over 8,4 M views at the date. The main reason why it was so is how they show their understanding the way women thinking, their fears, their motivation.

The first comment for the video was
"It's not often I love commercials. But this one reminds us that everyone has insecurities and that we can accomplish anything, and I think that's a really special thing to focus on in an ad. :)" 

Reaction like this is exactly what Nike expected.

It's important to notice that it was created a brand community of women around Nike where every participant shared emotions - of understanding, of empowerment, of inclusion and etc.

That were just one example of right listening. 

An important thing that companies should remember is that Listening is just one of the first step of dealing with Groundswell. You should always have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and etc. for any case. That means that you should know step by step what you need to do after you find the information you need (to respond, to correct something, to act and so on).