17 October 2007
Aussie communicators get to grips with social media
Enthusiasm for new internal comms tools is high but fears remain.
Lee Hopkins, an Australian “social mediarist”, this week led the first of Melcrum’s social media strategy workshops.
On day 1 in Melbourne, Hopkins covered the hot topics from blogs to podcasts and Twitter to YouTube, while 20 internally- and externally-focused communicators from a range of public and private sector organizations gained basic-level expertise and knowledge of social media.
Day 2 of the workshop focused on strategy and planning with delegates taking away a practical strategy for initial implementation of social media tools in their own organization, with delegates enjoying several “light bulb moments”.
Social media fears remain
However, despite the enthusiasm and obvious internal communication uses for social media or “web 2.0” tools, many common concerns were still apparent, with “executive support” and “IT restrictions” still proving the major barriers.
Further worries included potential negative publicity and myriad legal implications of employees self publishing information relating to their organization.
See our video from Lee Hopkins’ last workshop in Sydney in August.
Attend the next workshops
The social media workshop series continues in Sydney next week, on 23-24 October 2007.
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