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Ten definitive social media tips for 2010

In a recent interview with Melcrum, former BBC communication practitioner and early adopter of social media, Euan Semple, cut through the clutter and offered some crucial advice on using collaborative technology in 2010. Here's a round up of his top ten tips which may help you sell the idea of social media to anyone (particularly leaders) who is yet to be convinced.

An extract from a forthcoming SCM* interview with Euan Semple.

1. Social media isn’t for everyone. You don’t have to do it, it doesn’t have to be the only thing you do and it doesn’t replace all the things you’re already doing. It’s just part of the mix.
2. Companies don’t do it, people do. Ownership should belong to whoever's going to make it work, whoever's got the bug, the drive and the passion and whoever is willing to push back all the barriers that people will throw in their way.
3. If you come at it from a command and control, risk averse mentality then it will die very quickly. You have to trust the users to make the best use of it. Sometimes it’s a bit like letting children fall so that they realize themselves that it hurts.
4. These conversations are happening anyway. It’s better that steam gets let off professionally and inside the firewall, than somewhere else. Having these conversations visible means you can deal with and respond to them immediately.
5. IT is the single biggest block to getting social media going. IT staff could be such enablers but they’ve largely been employed to replicate the hierarchical command and control structure that most organizations pretend is actually running them.
6. Corporate systems are like Milton Keynes, efficient on the face of it with lots of signposting but everyone gets lost because everything looks the same. At the BBC we were trying to create the equivalent of Cotswold villages. They grow up haphazardly but it works because you know where the church, the pub and the footpaths are. You’re comfortable in the environment and you can locate yourself.
7. Allow everyone to talk. The exciting potential is that you can give all those little, quiet voices a space where they can voice whatever they want but it’s that hardman that makes all the quiet, smart, and very often more intelligent people not say anything.
8. The worst thing you can do is ban sites like Facebook. This was clear to me 10 years ago when people were already having work conversations on the web and I thought the safest thing to do was make it as attractive as possible to have those inside the firewall where we could gain an understanding of what they were saying.
9. Create the debate. Give employees a platform where people can question what’s happening.
10. Experiment. Trial and error is generally the way social media becomes embedded in a company’s culture. Don’t worry about the fully manifested plan, just start putting bricks together until you get a house and see how it looks.

* The full interview with Euan Semple will be published in the forthcoming issue of Strategic Communication Management (February/March 2010).

Note: Euan Semple will be delivering the key note speech at Melcrum's Social Media for Internal Communication Conference on 9th-10th February. To find out more visit the conference website at www.melcrum.com/socialmedia

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Are you using social media successfully? Do you want to start using it but aren't sure how? Or perhaps you think it's a waste of time and has no bearing on the business case?

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