Nestlé eyes internal social network

The Kit-Kat and Nescafe owner’s digital marketing team is working with their counterparts in PR to develop a system that will generate insight quicker and at a lower cost.

Pete Blackshaw, head of digital and social media at Nestlé told Marketing Week that it is working on ways to “apply the principles of the social network to internal knowledge sharing”.

“We are doing quite a bit of work on that front in terms of how we reinvent peer to peer knowledge sharing even within the larger Nestlé network…….Those things are really exciting we are definitely testing them on that front”.

He adds: “At a very high level I believe that listening systems will help companies get to insights a lot faster at lower cost. And that is very promising for us.”

Several brands are looking to social networks to improve internal communications strategies. Coca-Cola plans to introduce social media elements to its online staff engagement programme, My KO.

Sainsbury’s is also trialing social networks in regions around the UK to help store staff share best practice.

Elsewhere, Blackshaw says that although the company is “progressing considerably” in developing digital marketing it does not spell the end of investment in traditional media such as television.

He adds: “There is something about the power of social engagement around a TV show that may very well drive retention, we may have to think differently about the way that we price it, or think differently about the way we plan TV copy knowing that there are so many additional things that may happen around the show.

But there is no question that sight sound and motion which is at the heart of TV ad copy is powerful and probably won’t go away any time soon. That said I think that digital has a very important role in optimising that medium.”