Chris Brogan’s recent post Social Media Needs to Become a Team Sport makes some valid points. In essence, he says that social media is full of a bunch of solo players, rather than teams of people working together to achieve (or, in his analogy, score) a common goal.
“We’re building a cluster of solo players out there on the field when what is necessary is a team methodology with all kinds of touchpoints, system connectors, and deeper communications/strategy channels,” he writes.
Many companies who have adopted the use of social media tools (applause here for this in itself is a huge step) are entrusting the success of their efforts to only a few company representatives – often the responsibility lies with only one or two people within the organization (and even more often, this person’s position is far removed from senior level strategic decision making and many are also new to the organizations they represent).
How ironic that social media tools are being trusted to so very few people.
I would love to see companies embrace the power of social media by first seeking to really understand it – to embrace the opportunity to offer education to employees around these new tools that have become embedded in our culture , to teach employees of all levels and within various functional areas how Facebook works and how to tweet important news, how to find and upload videos on YouTube regardless of whether or not they will actually use these skills in their day to day jobs. I don’t have to be an accountant to get value from understanding balance sheets and income statements, but I make better bottom line decisions becauseI understand the basics of how what I do affects the bottom line, and the same holds true here.
Imagine if companies sought to understand what twitter, Nings, Facebook, YouTube, wikis, etc can actually do, AND how, once they have become familiar with their capabilities, these tools can be used and integrated to accomplish the organization’s goals from various departmental, and management level perspectives. For HR and PR will have very different needs, views, concerns and ideas of how social media might be used to achieve their goals, as will the Systems Developer when compared with the CFO.
What benefits would we see from organizations that take advantage of the opportunity to use teaching social media as the springboard for greater internal dialogue between departments and use it as the galvanizing force for ongoing communication and in breaking down functional barriers? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we saw decisions about how best to leverage social media be the thing that brings together departments like Sales, Marketing, IT, Communications, PR and HR.
We might be skipping in the streets if the same organization demonstrated an integrated approach in their selection of chosen tools AND in the creation of the messaging that was then used by an integrated team of employees representing various functions, management levels, geographies, viewpoints, etc.
Yes, I agree with Chris Brogan and think there needs to be a team approach to social media adoption. Maybe this is the strategy that will drive corporate adoption rates.
Maybe this is the only way we’ll truly see a lasting increase in corporate “socialarity”.
Questions of the day.
Do you know an organization that is doing great things with social media? increasing their “socialarity”? one that is educating employees around these tools? using social media to help increase interdepartmental communications or break down functional barriers?
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