Organization’s personality and social media
Although there are a lot of hoo-haas surrounding ’social media’ these days, the concept is nothing new. What is new is the form it’s taking and the tools being used. And whether you like it or not, you (as an individual or an organization) are already present in the social media world and someone somewhere is talking about you: good or bad. Now it’s up to you whether to put a blind eye to all the discussions, or make yourself visible and take charge of those conversations.
However, while it’s easy to advice, are all organizations ready for the journey? Just as each of us has different personalities, so is the case for the organizations we work in. Some organizations are very dynamic, transparent, open to changes, ‘hip’ and all that. While at the other end of the spectrum are those that are kinda ‘traditional’, reserved, bureaucratic and not very comfortable experimenting with new ideas and concepts. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, my point is each organization has a unique ‘personality’, each has a distinct culture/characteristic/mood and when we talk about organizations and embracing the social media, we need to think about the compatibility factor between organization’s culture and social media engagement.
I was listening to SHRM blogger panel discussion the other day and one of the questions from the audience was why there are so few bloggers from public sector. In fact, the only blogger’s name that came up was Lisa Rosendahl from HR Thoughts. And frankly speaking, this is not surprising at all. In general, public sector organizations around the world are the kind of traditional, bureaucratic organizations that we outlined above. More often than not these institutions are slow and rigid in communication and decision making with vertical management structure and not very enthusiastic when it comes to sharing information and experience with others. And same goes to many private sector organizations as well. It’s like that shy and introvert person who is not comfortable mingling and interacting with people, let alone with a complete group of strangers.
Now the question is, if such an organization [public or private] decides to go out in the social media world without recognizing and taking care of it’s underlying cultural traits [which are quite the opposite and incompatible what social media demands], how successful and sustainable the journey will be? And if successful, for how long?
Photo credit: Gary Hayes
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