Social Media: We’re Already Ready Already

At Friday’s SMBMSP 19 (Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis/St. Paul), much of the meeting’s discussion centered around the use of social media as an internal communication tool. How to convince management to implement it? How to get employees to buy into it? How to maintain compliancy and legal requirements with it?

The variety of experience represented in the audience created an excellent discussion with valid points and even more valid questions (which, in the end, related to big organizations as much as small; internal use as much as external).

Anyone could probably write for pages and pages about each of the points discussed. So, I’m choosing a few points, that together, made me think about larger implications.

(I wish I could credit the people who made these original points, but unfortunately, I’m not sure who they were. If you somehow find this post, and it was you, out yourself and your opinions, please!)

So, back to those points:

• The In Crowd:
  With easy content creation and access to content from anywhere in the world, social media makes it clear – something’s going on out there. And if something’s going on, we want to be a part of it. Nobody wants to be left behind while their friends, coworkers, or entire industry charges ahead without them.
• Addiction:
  We often receive social media content on our mobile phones, which makes us more likely to read it. Even if we wouldn’t read the same content on a website (computer), somehow, on a phone, it’s more appealing. Why is it appealing? Whether it’s novelty or something else, you really can’t argue that most people consider content via mobile convenient and fun. Because it’s so convenient and fun and because we want to be in, it naturally follows that it’s easy to become addicted.
• It’s a Culture Thing:
  If an entire organization, from top management to newest employee, doesn’t buy into social media, it will never work. The culture has to be on board for a complete, genuine, and responsible social media presence. The transparency that comes from such a strategy is rarely, if ever, absent from a successful social media presence.

These first two points are very closely related; we want to be part of what’s going on. So much so, that it becomes an addiction. Of course, these points could be said about anything, not just social media usage. Everyone, at one point or another, wants to be part of the in crowd, whether it’s the popular or trendy crowd at large or fitting in with our own small circles of friends or even our families.

Taken together with the third point – about an organization’s culture – is what made me think:

Is social media usage inherently part of our culture already?
Do we, as a culture, just need to breakdown existing stereotypes, so we can see social media for its purpose – genuine, transparent communication in a convenient, fun way – rather than a new, and for many, intimidating medium?