Social Media in Organizations

We were in a board meeting of an international non-government organization two weekends ago and we began a discussion based on options if we were thinking of reaching a much larger audience of socially motivated young folks for future support. There definitely was some real intransigent resistance in the vagueness of the responses from the Managers who clearly wanted a more 1980 type of waffle campaign based on the experience of their youth rather than any understanding of 21st centruy realities! Social media brings a fundamental shift and challenge and the resistance will be there.

When Facebook and Twitter started, I was annoyed each time I got an invitation. I snuck into Linked-in as I thought it would be a low risk start as it is a professional network. But somehow, given that we travel constantly, we realized that if we want to talk to grandchildren or keep links with a world wide network of friends, Facebook is the answer as it is the media that not just kids, but hundreds of millions of adults tie up with. You are there or you are ignored.

Organizations are using social media platforms in imaginative ways as they learn how to navigate. Some have used it to enable customers to give them feedback on their products and services and make consumers feel like co-designers. Others, use it to promote their businesses even to let their customers know where they are and how they can find them and how to talk to them instantly. No waiting for Mr. Doofus "on another line". Some engage the communities to design products with them, test out ideas on product design or new services or chat with them on some product features. CNN just referred to GM as social savvy, staying in constant conversation with the community.

Organizations have found how to communicate much more effectively using social media. They get instant feedback. It is more interactive. They can introduce products or ideas or opportunities faster and they can create a community of fans whose input are invaluable and who become their markets as well. Once on these sites, organizations get more creative and their online communities push them in many ways to innovate, and be more effective. Imagine organizing a revolution in the modern world without Facebook? Imagine stopping a revolution if Twitter is its core link device!

Are you in color? Are you coloring? Someone thinks the world of this latest app investing over 40 million of their money on this. Looks like you can have your local network and have an elastic network as well. But in your local network, you will get pictures people upload about places near you including restaurants and others where people hang out or visit or places people use. Pictures are uploaded and you can upload pictures, too, of your own favourite hang out. When someone interacts with your uploaded picture, he or she is then introduced to you and you can respond. Can you imagine the data on your neighborhood that will be uploaded to this? Better than scouring those yellow pages.

The biggest challenge to organizations is not so much the use of social media to communicate with their external audience but the use of social media to encourage change within the organization. Engaging your inside community to think about changes to make your organization better will in the beginning be a messy process until everyone becomes comfortable and are all able to contribute more effectively. Just allowing this within the organization is already a big change. When everyone is able to contribute to what they think is best for the organization, you will have varied opinions and ways of doing so and surprises will come.

The best way is to have a transition strategy in place and introduce the change in such a way that enabling support be provided for people to be able to participate more effectively. The change in culture that this innovation will bring can create a shock that will paralyze the organization when not handled appropriately. Go easy. Rally everyone around the success of the organization.