Making everyone around you social

Like any new concept, social media is not something with which all the key stakeholders in your company may be familiar. Even more so, just the thought of it may make some of them uncomfortable. So the question is bound to arise: How can I make my company social?

I asked that question to myself not long ago. After talking to various thought leaders in the social media space and having become more social myself, the answer turned out to be relatively stratightforward (especially from a business perspective). You must demonstrate the power and value of social media to the key stakeholders in  your company.

People using social media take part in thousands of conversations on a daily basis. If any of these conversations do not include your company specifically, you can rest assured that they involve your competitors and/or your industry. Even if they do not, they provide an example of how social media can benefit your company.

So if you want to make the people around you social, do the following:

1. If you are not already listening to conversations that are taking place on the various social media sites and that are relevant to your company, then start now.
2. Converse with them. Find out what their concerns, and help them understand.
3. Share with the team what people are saying about your company, about the competition and about the industry.
4. Educate the team on the successes that other companies are having with social media.
5. Attend seminars, webinars and industry events related to social media and invite your colleagues who may not be on board with social media.

You must understand, however, that this does not guarantee that the critics and non-believers will suddenly see the light and jump on board. Don’t be discouraged! For most people, you will need to continue to repeats steps 1 through 5 over a period of time so that they can see that social media is not just a fad that will be gone in six months. This is typical of anything that enters into the business world that disturbs the norms of how people have done business for years, especially when you are dealing with people who have seen great success with the ways of the past.

As companies and as individuals, we should always be looking for ways to improve ourselves. The best way to improve is to listen to the people around you, take their advice, balance the advice with your goals and then implement changes that lead to continuous improvement. So, let’s starting making everyone around you social!

Mea culpa … Not following one’s own advice

In my first blog about social media, I mentioned the need to keep content up-to-date and refreshed regularly. If you’re not ready, then don’t commit to it yet. Unfortunately, I fell victim to my own warnings. The blog began, and I made a few posts. Since then, howver, nothing new has appeared … until now.

The upside to this is that I created this blog as something for me to allow me to find my own voice and to express myself on a variety of issues. My business and my livelihood do not depend upon it (at least not in the strictest interpretation of it). I am not getting paid for writing my blog. I do not yet have (and may never have) a community of readers that are waiting on the edge of their seats for my next post.

Having provided this footnote … it’s still not a good enough excuse (or justification).

Thus, I am recommencing my journey into blogging. The lesson to learn from this is that blogging takes thought and can be time consuming. You must set time aside in your schedule when you will not be interepreted by the static of every day life to put your thoughts together and to write. If you do not do this, there’s a good chance that your blog will not come together. Take me for example. I have a family; I have a career; and I have a “hobby” business that I do in the off hours. If I do not deliberately set time aside, then I will never get to my blog.

Personally, I don’t want to lose my voice before I even find it, so I am going to set time aside to think and to write. This does not mean that there will be a new post every week, but there will be a better flow of blogs. Just remember that if blogging is part of your dialogue with your customers, you do not have the same luxury. There are expectations of regular updates, refreshed content and a continuing dialogue!