Mayo Clinic using videos, blogs to reach far-flung staff

Social media efforts gain momentum and an engaged audience

Could you carry on a conversation with a scientist, parking attendant, doctor, and cafeteria worker who live and work all around the country? What about 55,000 of them?

Mix in some students and administrative staff, and keeping a conversation running among these diverse groups sounds like a feat for an army, or at least the beginning of a bad joke. But Mayo Clinic’s internal communications staff was able to do just that with about 20 people who produce content for an intranet, print and electronic newsletters and magazines, digital signage, e-mails, podcasts—just about everything they could get their hands on.

By all accounts, they were doing well. Featured in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” for six years running, Mayo’s staff satisfaction surveys were also positive. Regardless, communicators felt employee engagement numbers lacked in comparison with benchmark institutions.