Archive for June, 2009

Awesome article by Lindsey Allen:
Too often, archaic strategies undermine the efforts of those with hands-on networking experience

If you watch ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” or TBS’ “My Boys,” you know both shows have delved into the social media realm in recent weeks. The questionable results drove home a larger point about how companies and organizations are handling social media.

On one of the last “Desperate Housewives” episodes of the season, Tom Scavo returned home from a job interview, distraught that he’d “become irrelevant.” He lamented to wife Lynette that he’d been stumped by a question about “(using) ‘Twittering’ as part of a marketing campaign.”

Setting aside the notion that the writer may have had the character reference “Twittering” (rather than “Twitter” or “tweeting”) to illustrate his ignorance,
the ensuing dialogue was painful to digest. Clearly, the writer wasn’t someone who uses — or even truly understands — Twitter.

Just a couple of days later, an episode of “My Boys” focused on Facebook. Although the references were accurate, they were outdated — about 18 months too late, probably. I bet there is someone on the show’s staff who, if consulted, would have said, “Shouldn’t we be focusing this episode on Twitter instead? Or at least talking about more current Facebook-related topics? (The never-ending stream of LivingSocial quizzes, perhaps? Or the relatively recent ‘25 things about me’ flood? Terms of service controversy, anyone?)”

As I watched these shows, I wondered, “How can someone who doesn’t really get this stuff be the one whose job it is to write about it?”

Then it hit me: This is just like what’s happening in the business world when it comes to building social media strategies and developing social media policies.

Mining in-house expertise

Companies/organizations should be calling upon their social media-savvy employees to take the lead on engaging the company in social media initiatives and teaching others how to use social media tools. Why not engage in-house social media experts in strategy building, as they’ll know the tips, tricks, and shortcuts to make your social media communication more timely, relevant, and effective? Plus, they’re the ones who probably will end up executing the plans, so why not give them that sense of ownership?

Instead, it seems that an old, ineffective business model is being perpetuated here. You know, the one in which people with little or no knowledge of “task X” are sent to workshops to learn how to do it, or perhaps a new position is created to manage “task X” when there’s already someone in the organization who understands its finer points and could easily incorporate it into his or her duties, even if it meant shuffling around a few responsibilities to balance out the workload?

A similar area of concern is the development of policies for employees’ use of social media on the company’s behalf and on their own. (I’ve heard IBM and Intel cited as examples of best practices in social media policy, and there are plenty of other policy examples on the New PR Wiki as well).

My previous employer did not have a social media policy, but the idea, in general, made sense to me. I had my own “social media policy”; I referred to it as “common sense.” Apparently, though, I am the exception and not the rule, which is why more organizations are developing formalized policies.

Working in a vacuum

I recently had a conversation with someone whose organization is developing a social media policy. However, it was being developed by people who don’t use and/or fully understand social media.

Wait. What?

People who don’t understand the ins and outs of social media tools and who call upon younger employees who are social media-savvy to explain things to them and others are creating a policy by which the people who actually use and understand the technology must abide … without their input? How does this make sense?

It doesn’t!

Developing social media policies in a vacuum is illogical. How can a policy be effective if you haven’t consulted the people to whom it actually will apply? I’m not suggesting the consultation be of the “do you think this is fair?” variety; that essentially would be letting the inmates run the asylum, as the old saying goes.

Crafting a comprehensive policy

What I’m suggesting is talking to the organization’s social media users to determine which tools and technologies they are using, and how; concerns they have regarding how they should manage their online presence, as well as that of the organization (if they’re being called upon to do so); and suggestions for potential policy items.

This conversation could produce almost everything that should be included in an organization’s social media policy — perhaps even issues that the C-suite and managers did not even know about or understand before.

Don’t you think the buy-in from existing employees would be much more likely if they felt the policy’s creation was a collaborative process rather than executives quietly making a bunch of rules about something they don’t understand and then enacting a policy that doesn’t address relevant issues or, even worse, creates more confusion than clarity? (Then there’s the “approval from Legal” issue, but I’m not even going to touch that here.)

Bottom line: Organizations are missing the social media boat by not consulting — and subsequently not empowering — their potential social media champions and capitalizing on their knowledge and ideas to ensure relevance, timeliness, and that all-important buy-in.

Lindsay Allen is a recently laid-off higher education public relations professional and former journalist who is using her layoff time to freelance, as well as to learn more about social media in PR and marketing.