eBay—Using Social Media Inside and Out
May 4, 2009 | by Jyl Johnson Pattee
eBay is the world’s largest online auction marketplace and the base of its customer support is right here in Draper, Utah. There are 3 other centers worldwide as well though: Dublin, Ireland; Dreislinden, Germany; and Vancouver, BC.
“Our goal is to provide the best deals on whatever people want from the most diverse sellers on the planet,” says JD Norton, eBay manager and Social Media Club of Salt Lake City member. “We want people to tell others about the deals they find on eBay and also know that eBay support is always there for them when they need us. We also want both our employees and our community members to be in touch with the business as a whole and we know we need to be accessible via all means, especially via social media.”
One of the ways eBay meets its goals is to use social media extensively both internally as well as externally.
How eBay’s Internal Communications Leverages Social Media
The Internal Communications group uses social media in many different ways. It leverages a robust intranet which is packed full of blogs, forums, discussion boards for employees, and video posts. It serves as the hub for streaming all meetings and events company-wide as well. It also makes great use of picture galleries, similar to Flickr. Each employee in the company has their own landing page which they can modify and personalize with info about themselves, their own photo gallery, and other media. They can even create their own internal blog. It really is a great example of social media used to the fullest extent internally.
How eBay Is Expanding Its Use of Social Media
Externally, eBay has many different departments using twitter to address customer concerns, report company information, and spread details about what is going on in various departments. Just over a year ago, eBay launched the eBay Ink blog, which is a blogger working within the confines of the eBay campus in San Jose and blogging about the goings on within eBay with an unfiltered voice and opinion. This is quite evident as not everything on the site portrays us in a positive light all the time. It also gives the community a look into the eBay business as a whole and the members which keep us afloat. Via the @eBayinkblog twitter account, eBay was the first major company to broadcast its analyst’s day live via twitter.
eBay’s Green Team just launched a huge social media campaign and recruited many employees worldwide with a strong touch in social media to help them spread the word. The team’s Facebook page is growing quickly and they can be followed on twitter via @ebaygreen.
“My group specifically uses social media as means to keep employees in the loop about all the “fun” stuff going on around the offices in which they work, as well as recruiting for upcoming events,” JD shares. “We also recently got approval to begin using twitter as a voice to the community with regards to community events we will be a part of. We love doing random giveaways to tweeps and usually throw a trivia aspect into these giveaways. We have numerous community events coming up this summer where we look forward to using twitter for treasure hunts, “where are we” contests and just blasting event updates from the events themselves.”
When asked what technologies eBay finds most useful and effective, JD commented: “Our group specifically has found twitter and blogs to be the most effective. We are expanding the use of Vlogs and podcasts internally as well, and our employees are loving them.”
How eBay Plans to Use Social Media in the Future
eBay plans to use social media much more than it does now. JD comments, “We feel as if we are just using the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). My goal for us is to expand internal use of twitter and somehow integrate it into the communication systems we are already using as well as finding the time and resources to fully expand all events onto FaceBook and definitely stay in touch with and adopt developing forms of social media.”
About eBay
eBay’s office here in Draper is a CS center consisting of nearly 1200 employees, which range from support reps to business analysts and CS software programmers. It supports members via e-mail, chat, and phones; plus, it has certain groups using twitter more and more to lend help that way as well.
“The group I manage, comments JD, ” is responsible for all employee & community event for North America Customer Support. We plan and facilitate all site-wide meetings, employee recognition programs, quarterly and yearly employee events (including the summer picnic, holiday party, sporting events, etc). We also work to set-up all charity initiatives and volunteer opportunities within the organization.”
“As far as community events goes,” JD continues, “my group works to align our business and our employees with opportunities to get involved in the community and make sure that we are good corporate citizens within the communities in which we operate. We do this by way of sponsorships and employee volunteerism and also by supporting our employees in activities which they participate, like recreational sports leagues, races, festivals and the likes. eBay was founded around a tight knit community of users and has always had a very alive and active community portion of the site full of discussion boards, blogs, chat rooms, and forums for members to connect with us and each other. Our goal is to reach out to the actual communities within which we operate and personally interact with members and non-members alike.”
Chris Andersen wrote a great book on the subject of free. I believe its still available, free, in audio form from audible. The wonderful thing about the internet is it gives all of us the chance to build relationships at little more cost than our time. Which is slowly killing off the yellow highlighter scorched-earth crowd who still believe they only have one shot at you. Thanks for the great post.