I was in Sydney last week attending a workshop focused on using social media for work-related purposes. One of my main goals was to see what all the fuss was about and how community and not-for-profit (CNFP) groups might use social media to achieve their goals. Here are some initial insights.
What are social media?
Social media are also sometimes referred to as Web 2.0. They’re social and interactive, allowing people to share ideas, opinions, and insights rather than just communicating one-way, as in the case of an old fashioned website. Social media include things such as blogs, wikis, discussion boards, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube. Now, many of the applications on that list look like entertainment rather than serious work-related applications. But there are at least five needs that many CNFP groups have that social media may help address.
Need #1: Create a community (or communities)
Many CNFP groups want to find better ways to create a sense of community among stakeholders–that is, members, volunteers, trustees, supporters, or clients. Social media can help do that. Whereas a static website is okay for letting people have access to important information such as upcoming events, it doesn’t do much else to get people involved. Imagine instead a blog in which someone in the organisation puts up brief articles on issues of interest to members, and members then engage in online discussion by posting comments to the blog. Or imagine a wiki where members equally contribute to sharing their knowledge and building up their collective knowledge on an issue of importance. Or a Facebook or MySpace group in which people engage in topic-specific discussions and post pictures, ideas, links to other websites, etc. A sense of community is formed by interacting together on issues of common concern.
Need #2: Monitor and understand evolving issues, concerns, and needs
Getting stakeholders involved in the organisation’s social media increases the likelihood that you will understand emerging concerns and issues as they emerge rather than finding out (perhaps too late) that stakeholders needs have changed or that recent political, social, or technological changes have led to new concerns. Social media keeps you engaged in ongoing conversations with stakeholders so you’re aware of issues and concerns in real time.
Need #3: Provide timely, helpful responses
This is the natural follow up to the previous need. CNFP groups need not only to know what stakeholders’ concerns are, they also need to respond in meaningful ways to those concerns. Even if limited resources or other matters prevent the ideal response, being engaged in the conversation enables you to respond in some way and to do so immediately. And who knows? The conversation may lead to feasible solutions.
Need #4: Generate ideas and innovations
New ideas will emerge in the conversations with stakeholders as they discuss needs, concerns, and possible solutions to problems, and as they share practices from other organisations, ask “dumb questions” (that turn out not to be so dumb), etc. Get people communicating with each other about issues they care about and innovative ways of solving problems and improving practices will emerge. The interactive nature of social media also lets us bounce those new ideas off others, test them, and refine them before trying them out.
Need #5: Collaborate
I suppose all of the above is about collaboration, but it needs to be said. Social media allow stakeholders to collaborate in solving problems, creating plans, developing policies, etc. Wikis are especially good for this. Think of the best known wiki, Wikipedia, which has grown enormously as thousands of people have collaborated to build it. Google documents (see the Google website) is another good tool for collaboration.
I don’t want to over-hype social media. There will be a learning curve in using them, and there will be problems they can’t solve. But the tools are out there, they’re often free, and they can go a long way toward helping CNFP groups address these five needs.
