Can you ease into Social Media?

I’ve been reading with interest the reactions to companies who have stumbled in the social arena. In particular on blogs outlining Habitat UK’s hashtag spam, those commenting reeled at the idea of having an intern execute such a highly visible part of the communications strategy. And yet at the same time there is disbelief around the policies in place for US Marines, US Open competitors and on game day for the NFL.

Closer to home, Mat Rogers tweeted his way into trouble with the NRL and at the Social Media Summit in Melbourne the heavily government based audience continually expressed concern at trying to have a two way conversation when it takes forever to get copy approved.

While contemplating whether companies should hire, outsource or DIY their social media strategy, JD Rucker states “having a poorly run social media strategy is worse than not having one at all”. At the same time Nancy Williams is adamant (as I’m sure many of you are): social media without conversation isn’t social media.

When it comes to sports and politics, the consequences of a social media stumble can mean more then just crisis communications. (And of all people to stumble, sportsmen and the public service seem to be the very best at it and I doubt your clear/strict/enforced social media policy is going to change that much.) This is based on rules and regulations set in stone long before the rise of blogs and Twitter.

So while those involved push for changes to allow a more open channel of communication, will we (the public, fans, advocates, constituents, lookers-on, social media mavens) allow them to approach the medium with baby steps? If they won’t let us comment, will we share their content? If they won’t publish our feedback, will we give them our opinion? If they can’t answer our questions, will we seek out (and trust) their advocates instead?

Original post by http://mab397.wordpress.com

Has momentum for change become unstoppable?

Tipping points, according to Wikipedia are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable". Are we far away when it comes to business use of social media platforms? Or more directly when will the business risk of engaging with social media outweigh the perceived risk it represents?

When not taking a risk is actually taking a bigger risk, according to @murnahan, is ‘when your competition does it sooner and better than you’. So could it be that a basic human emotion is the key driver for many organisations? Is it a balance of fear of lost opportunity against the fear of sustained web attack or more succinctly the fear of losing control of the message?

Many organisations, and indeed communications professionals cite losing control of the message as a key reason to avoid social media as a channel to market. But surely this implies control of the message to begin with? If social media channels are an extension of word of mouth then organisations’ have never really had control, it’s just that the reach of those conversations was more limited. Sure, a badly handled guitar or the (alleged) mold in your apartment weren’t discussed on millions of screens, but even now they are, the issue isn’t message control but lack of engagement and dialogue.

It’s not the message that is uncontrolled it is the channel, and that’s what scares business.

Managing reputation and creating relationships with customers are key drivers for every business. Creating engagement with a customer or entering into a dialogue with them in any other medium would be seen as a positive influencing factor likely to elicit repeat business. But in social media it is risky?

If tipping points are those at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable, surely we are approaching that point at some speed. To actively manage social media channels each business must evaluate its own tolerance for risk and at the very least they should be actively evaluating that tolerance rather than hoping that the societal impact of social media will diminish.

That really would be risky.

Social Media Revolution

A number of years ago, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, both teachers in the US, created a video entitled Shift Happens; Did You Know? The themes of Did You Know? are global and designed to be relevant to schools and children around the world and to raise interesting topics of conversation around societal shifts largely driven by the adoption of internet protocol. The themes raised are relevant to a much wider audience than schools and children.

The video embedded below, created by Socialnomics09, youtube.com/user/Socialnomics09, follows a similar theme but investigates the reach and impact on societal shift of increasing usage of Social Media.

Enjoy.