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.
3 responses so far ↓
Jim Sodt // October 31, 2007 at 1:11 am
Hi,
I teach corporate communications at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, USA. We (the comm faculty) are finding it hard to ignore these new social media and are thinking about how we can effectively include them in our curriculum. I think it’s pretty interesting that the students are fairly comfortable with a number of these, but we are not. Oh, well, that probably won’t be the first or last time that happens.
I just wanted to add to your comments that I think these new social media are probably subject to Andrew Grove’s 10X Rule from his very wise book with the great title Only the Paranoid Survive. The rule says that when something is brand new try to imagine what it would look like if it were 10 times better than it is now — then you’ll know whether it’s a threat or not. Well, I’m not thinking of these media as a threat at all, but I do think it’s going to be an interesting watching them evolve — and I guess my version of Grove’s thought is imagine what they’ll be like with 10 times the content or substance. Right now they’re pretty fluffy as far as I can tell, but sometimes the new forms are fairly empty and fill in as they go.
I guess my bottom line response is we’d do well to get familiar and get some practice time in with these media — and then perhaps we’ll be well positioned when and if something happens and substance breaks out.
All the best.
Jim Sodt // October 31, 2007 at 1:19 am
All the best.
tedzorn // November 10, 2007 at 4:23 am
I agree with you, Jim. It’s not so much how well they’re functioning now or what their impact is now, but what possibilities exist. Recognising that all of these tools are developing rapidly, with new ones added every day, is important. So the 10X rule is not a bad one to keep in mind.