How ESMs can facilitate internal knowledge management and external dialogic communication

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged organizations to shift from the traditional setup into a virtual setup that demands organizational members' adaptability. However, not all organizations are equipped with the resources and capabilities to easily take on this virtual era's challenges. These organizations do not necessarily have the funds to expedite ICT adoption, such as non-governmental organizations and non-profit organizations.

In this thought-piece, I will offer a logical entanglement between the internal communication opportunity of improving the recording of knowledge within the organization and the external communication opportunity of promoting dialogic communication between stakeholders as facilitated by communication technologies.

In the virtual setup, where people cannot necessarily eavesdrop and gain easy access to information across the organization, there is a need for effective knowledge management. Knowledge management is defining, structuring, retaining, and sharing knowledge and experiences within an organization. It enables learning and creates a culture that aligns with the organization's goals for any purpose. Knowledge management can be facilitated by the use of enterprise social media or ESM. Knowledge management aims to achieve efficiency and save knowledge relevant to the organization by allowing members to access and use it. 

By using ESM such as Slack or Discord, effective knowledge management can be achieved through its affordances. Treem and Leonardi (2012) listed these affordances. In terms of visibility, it allows members to see the different information across different departments or teams. In terms of editability, it allows members to update the information they have previously communicated, thereby improving information quality. In terms of persistence, it can help the organization members to form a common ground or a shared understanding on matters. An effective recording of previous communications allows information to be contextualized properly to provide people with alignment on the knowledge existing within the organization. Moreover, through association, the members can access relevant information.

ESMs such as Slack and Discord are composed of different channels where organizational members can all access which is an opportunity for the organizational members to learn information that may not necessarily concern them but are essential in terms of the organization. 

For external communications, Facebook as a social media platform is now being utilized by most organizations to facilitate dialogue between their stakeholders and the organization. It allows the public to send a message directly and expect to receive a prompt response. Hence, it is imperative to tap the platform's potential to its full extent to promote mutually beneficial relationships between the org and its stakeholders. How fast an organization can reply to a Facebook message can give the organization a reputation of being trustworthy and responsive. The Facebook tag of "typically responds within seconds" gives stakeholders confidence about the organization, giving the organization a reputation of willingness to engage with the different publics. Therefore, organizations need to respond quickly and efficiently with Facebook messages since usually, this is one of the best ways to foster dialogic communication among the public. But how can members fastly reply if they are not knowledgeable about information across all departments?

A practical knowledge management system facilitates social learning among the members. In the context of an organization with a social media handler, not all the time, the social media handler is knowledgeable of all the information within the organization as the role only entails social media management; hence it is essential for organizations to have a repository of information and this is achieved through ESM. Since all members are knowledgeable of the different contexts or information across different teams because of the affordances facilitated by ESMs, the social media handler can answer the questions quickly, whether it is regarding donation concerns, volunteer concerns, beneficiary concerns, publicity concerns, or sponsorship concerns. In Kent and Taylor's (1998) dialogic loop principle, it recommends that there is training in responding to concerns, but of course, in an organization with limited resources, it is recommended to utilize all platforms available that will be useful for the organization's effectiveness. In this case, the ESM's facilitation of effective knowledge management can help a social media handler quickly respond to questions.

On the same note, dialogic communication can also help improve internal communication. Providing the public with feedback mechanisms or facilitating two-way communication also helps the organization improve their interventions and projects depending on the feedback of the public and the information from this dialogic loop. This feedback can then be recorded and stored through the ESM and can be accessed for future reference of the organization members. The feedback stored in the ESM can then be again used to improve dialogic communication by establishing FAQs within the Facebook page. It is a continuous loop of improvement and development of organizational effectiveness.

It can be noticed that internal and external communication are not mutually exclusive to each other. They both contribute to the improvement of organizational communication. In communication technologies, the ESM facilitates effective knowledge management, which helps the external communication officer, such as the social media manager, respond quickly with stakeholder feedback or messages. The usage of ESMs and social media applications such as Facebook can help achieve better organizational effectiveness at a low cost since they are both free to use. Organizational members and leaders need to learn more about these platforms' different affordances and benefits and utilize them efficiently. Organizational leaders and members also need to be aware of how their internal communication can improve their external communication and vice versa. 

Helpful readings:

• Treem, J.W. & Leonardi, P.M. (2012). Social Media Use in Organizations: Exploring the Affordances of Visibility, Editability, Persistence, and Association. Communication Yearbook, 36, 143-189
• Kent, M.L. & Taylor, M. (1998). Building dialogic relationships through the World Wide Web. Public Relations Review, 24(3), 321-334.