Success in social media is, in large part, about attitude.
If you have a negative attitude about social media and/or you are wildly introverted, there’s a good chance you’ll suck at social media. This means your organization will either suck at social media under your guidance, or at a minimum, will not benefit from the positive interactions social media can engender.
This is because, as Bradley and McDonald wrote in the October 2011 Harvard Business Review, “Social media is about people, not technology. Its business value does not come from social software or a snazzy website, even one with 800 million users. Its value stems from how business leaders, from senior executives to managers, use it to foster new collaborative behaviors that materially improve business performance.”
Occasionally, I run into executives with bad attitudes about social media. Thankfully that happens less and less.
Usually they frown, grimace, make a bad joke about how they don’t care what someone had for breakfast and then challenge me to “convince them to care about social media.”
No thanks. I’m happy to answer questions and provide guidance and insight, but I’m definitely not out to convert anyone. Talking someone into “doing” social media results in more bad practitioners and spammy, anti-social feeds spewing forth onto the Internet.
Conversely, when an executive asks what the opportunities, risks, and best practices are to employ social media, I light up like a social media beacon. With that attitude, I can show someone the way, easily.
Bradley and McDonald identified six attitudes execs often have about social media:
Folly – seeing social media as entertainment only with no business application.
Fearful – seeing social media as a threat to productivity, intellectual property and so on.
Flippant – seeing social media as insignificant or not to be taken seriously.
Formulating – seeing the value or potential of social media, as well as the need to be methodical in its application.
Forging – representing the early adopters of social media who are driving use and skills development at a rapid pace.
Fusing - seeing social media as integral to all facets of communications and weaving it into the fabric of the organization (so called “social business”) at every level.
Obviously, the first three attitudes are the most difficult to deal with, but if an exec has an open mind and is prepared to listen, even these myths can be dispelled. To me, the “formulating exec” is a responsible manager looking to balance risk and reward. That’s good business and good communications.
Doug Lacombe is a social media speaker and strategist with social media agency communicatto.