企业内部公关的经典案例：《90秒读懂 PayPal》 | PR101专栏
【S姐说：S姐和PR101团队合作，重磅推出专栏#PR101: 给创业公司上一堂公关课#，希望能给创业公司的同学带来一些启发。本专栏作者是前苹果公关、曾任职于Visa、雅虎的20年公关老将#Cameron Craig#，被称为“The Apple PR Guy”。】
在我的职业生涯中，我在企业的外部公关和内部公关都工作过。人们对企业的外部公关多少都有了解，但对于企业内部公关却觉得十分陌生。
内部公关是什么？内部公关是提高员工沟通的效率，提高员工的工作满意度、提振士气、提高生产力、提高忠诚度和投入感，并重申公司准则。
不仅是像你一样的公关行外人，就连公关从业者对企业内部公关的感觉也不亲近。
老麦当劳蜀黍有一个农场——以及一个内部沟通计划。很明显他是很下了大力气在做这件事的。（讽刺脸）
我一直认为，企业外部、内部公关只是受众不同。但许多人却不这么认为，仿佛外部和内部公关之间有一组无形的墙。有位朋友告诉我，他之所以对内部公关不感兴趣，因为内部公关的成效很难量化。他作为对外沟通的专业人士，其成就感来源于使公司新产品见诸报端。这样的『好事』在内部公关似乎是不会发生的。
『通过员工调查可以反应其沟通成效，并且成功的沟通能让员工充分了解企业的战略考量，将之贯彻到自己的具体工作。难道这不是很了不起他的事吗？』我问他。
可是这个『崇高』的原因并没有说服他。我想到了一个工作实例，一集短短的《90 秒读懂 PayPal》。那是2012年，我在 PayPal 担任全球雇员沟通高级总监时做的一个项目，现在这个项目依然保留，而且荣获诸多奖项。
这尤其要感谢我的团队成员 Mark Kraynak. 在一次头脑风暴时，我和 Mark 说到 PayPal 的企业文化变化非常快，因为公司成长速度快，正在迅速地全球扩张，然而沟通却依然总是围绕着美国发生了什么，美国如何如何。PayPal 更新了公司愿景，但并非全球各地的同事都能理解他们的工作如何能成为实现宏达愿景的基石，尤其是当美国总部的大佬们连他们的名字和面孔都完全搞不清时。
这是我们需要解决的一个大问题，世界各地的同事需要相互了解彼此的进度和进步，这样也能看到公司作为整体进步的征途。
一周以后，Mark 带着《90秒读懂 PayPal》这短片回来找我讨论。这个片子的重点是由 Skype 或 FaceTime 采集的员工访问，世界各地的 PayPal 同事谈论自己的工作，PayPal 在当地的影响力，和他们觉得工作中最棒的部分。这部短片里有许多新鲜面孔，有公司产品见报的短章，还有一点点用户访谈——用户不仅仅是聊他们为什么喜欢 PayPal，还会谈他们的痛点--帮助大家洞察市场。
我们马上就把这个短片做群发，邀请同事们提建议。从视频界面，大家可以留言和看见视频的播放频次。短短几个小时，视频播放量破百、破千。当亚洲起床之后，视频播放量有个小的爆发，然后是欧洲早晨的另外一个小爆发。
这个简单的视频评论区，成了他们的沟通平台。世界各地的同事相互留言、打招呼、加好友。很快，世界各地的同事就来向我们 pitch 自己的故事和公司在当地的新闻。在这个 90 秒视频里露面片刻，成了登上《纽约时报》首页一样紧俏的大热门。
有《90秒看懂 PayPal》，也有其他的故事。这是内部传播的可量化成果，也是我一直以来一个观点的佐证——我不认为有必要区分外部公关或内部公关作为两个分别领域，他们显然是紧密联系的，相互辅佐的。尤其现在许多企业『被泄露的内部通讯（internal memos）』成为了积极外部公关的信源。而且一个个员工本人其实正是最重要的品牌向外沟通使者（brand ambassador）。
真诚的内部沟通应当被纳入任何企业的公关计划中。
Having worked on both sides, I’ve never understood the perceived wall between internal and external communicators. It’s all communications at the end of the day, just different audiences, right?
While the larger part of my career has been in PR and corporate communications, for the past few years I’ve specialized in employee communications. One common experience at a couple of different jobs is when I’ve asked a colleague from the external side to help manage my function and team for a week while I’m on vacation. The request is often accompanied by a look of shock followed by excuses of why they can’t do it.
I don’t get it. But truth be told I was probably like that a few years ago before I truly appreciated the power of effective employee communications.
I was talking about this “wall” with an accomplished external practitioner and friend recently. He said part of the reason he’s not interested in practicing internal communications is that he wouldn’t know how to measure it. In his role, he gets satisfied when a great article comes out about his company’s new product, or his team turns the opinion of a tough blogger to be more favorable. What could possibly be the equivalent of that in the internal world?
I was tempted to talk about how effective employee communication can increase employee job satisfaction, morale, productivity and commitment; and enhance quality and a company’s bottom-line. On measurement, there’s the annual engagement survey; there’s regular pulse surveys. And surely he knows that successful communication of business initiatives moves employees from awareness of a strategy to accepting or agreeing with its premise and then taking action to support it? What could be more noble than that?
However, for whatever reason I didn’t think that kind of dialog would have made him more curious to dabble in employee communications or give his internal counterparts more respect. Instead, I decided to give him a real life example of something I found measurable, repeatable and satisfying in my experience doing internal communications.
I showed him an episode of PayPal in 90 Seconds, a weekly video that my former team (special kudos to Mark Kraynak) created at PayPal in 2012 and is still going strong today many awards and accolades later.
It was born from a brainstorm Mark and I had about how the culture of PayPal was changing so rapidly and what we needed to do to help employees along on the journey. The company was growing at a massive clip, particularly internationally, yet most of the communication at that time felt very US centric. PayPal had recently introduced a new vision but not every employee necessarily understood how their work contributed towards making that vision a reality. There was new leadership but people outside of the head office didn’t necessarily know their names or faces yet.
A week later Mark came back to me with a pilot of PayPal in 90 Seconds. It captured the evolving culture of the company in a way no other channel before had. It featured interviews with employees captured via Skype or FaceTime from all over the world talking about their work, PayPal’s impact on their community and what they found exciting about their job. It introduced new faces. It showed employees the headlines of how the company’s products were being received by media and analysts. It featured real customers talking not just about the great things about PayPal, but their pain points as well. All that, and somehow it clocked in at less than 90 seconds.
We decided to test the pilot with employees the next day. We sent out an email to all employees asking them to check it out and let us know what they thought. It linked to a YouTube-like page with the first episode. Next to the video was a counter showing how many people had viewed the broadcast and a space to leave comments.
We checked back a few hours later and the counter had gone from a few hundred to several thousand views. That night there were even more views as Asia woke up and checked it out. And even more with Europe the next morning.
The comments were very positive. It shined the spotlight on regular employees from all over the globe and helped them get recognized or make connections. It was their platform. In the weeks to come, employees started pitching us on stories they wanted us to cover. It became like getting a spot on the cover of the New York Times. No one was fighting for our team to issue company-wide memos anymore. If it wasn’t covered on PayPal in 90 Seconds it wasn’t news.
This is one small personal example of the many ways internal communicators make a measurable impact. At the other extreme, strategic internal communications efforts around safety in a setting such as a meat processing factory have proven to save lives.
I don’t consider myself either an internal or external communicator. Why should I have to choose? I have a passion for both and believe communicators with experience in both disciplines can offer better and more well rounded counsel to their business clients. I am just surprised they are still considered such separate disciplines.