So over the last few months, I have been looking at possibly developing a social media strategy for Diamond. To this end I have twittered, friendfed, dugg, stumbledupon, social bookmarked all over the place and got myself a second life. This is atop the social media I am already conversant with, Flickr, Youtube, various Wikis, Facebook etc and of course, blogging.
So, what have I found? Well, in the context of a strategy for Diamond, nothing I couldn’t have got (or indeed didn’t get) from googling “social media” and a few related terms and reading Wikipedia. For an organisation whose remit includes a strong emphasis on public engagement there are opportunities: we have a Youtube channel, we have blogs for a specific public engagement project and will soon be adding social booking marking tools and the ability to comment to our website.
I have also tried to promote social bookmarking tools as something that might benefit how we work internally, as a way of organising and sharing information within the team, but with limited success. The main constraint seems to be time. This is a valid point; whilst setting up a blog, twitter account, delicious etc is very quick, it takes time to build up enough momentum to be rewarding.
And then there is the nature of the reward. Since making a determined effort to engage with the various tools at my disposal, I have been rewarded with new friendships, re-established old friendships, become closer to people who were previously just acquaintances and (inevitably it seems) stalked Stephen Fry. I have, quite frankly, had a great time.
However, I’m still uncertain as to whether institutions can benefit from the wealth of tools around. Especially organisations like Diamond where public engagement is important but not our raison d’etre as it is, for example, a science centre.
But I’ve also become aware of how difficult it is to use social media as a corporate tool – its nature is social, and it works best when the content is from a “real” individual – regardless of tools used, people are very good at detecting corporate messages. And this does support the view that social media is not really new, it is just a different way to share, rant, discuss and connect as we have done throughout history.
I’m not sure I’ve explained this very well. But at the moment I feel that I’ve just scratched the surface and there is a lot more fun to be had, if only I have the time…
I saw this cautionary tale about social media linked at the Sb blog Neuron Culture.
Not that anyone at NN or Diamond would be similarly unwise, but I thought the analysis of the potential problems of social media was interesting.
@Kristi – yes, I saw this too. In a sense therein lies the problem of institutions using social media, you need to be able to write as an individual, without contradicting the messages of the organisation that employs you (and their clients, stake-holders etc…)
I think a sense that is precisely the point. The value in social media for an organisation is in showing the outside world that what happens on the inside matches (or does not match) the rhetoric that is pushed out. To be effective SM must be usefully enabling more conversations within the organisation to generate enough material of interest that the 1% that actually gets any traction in the outside world is of any use to anyone.
SM is only good as a PR tool when the individual aims of contributors really do map on to organisational goals and branding. But on the flip side it provides a set of communication tools that encourage and help people on the inside to buy into those overall goals.
I found it, I found it! I remembered that Bora had blogged about this. I can’t find Bora’s post, though (in a bit of a rush).
You mean this ?
But, back to your point, aggressive marketing is a put-off on social networks. The best marketers use the networks to make “friends”, as many as possible, in as informal and chatty way as possible, trying to get to know them as much as possible (see Robert Scoble – he is everywhere and does it perfectly). No need to push your brand, just mention it occasionally. Make sure that everyone who “friends” or “follows” you on those networks knows (or can easily find out, with single click) who you are working for and they will look it up on their own if interested.
On those rare occasions when the company needs help, you just holler to your thousands of friends/followers/subscribers and ask them to do something quick and simple. They come through and it is a huge voice compared to traditional methods (“call your senator” – and the senatorial office phone gets stuck for days and they can’t do any other business until they come out publicly for what you asked for).
The thing is, if you work for a company that is open about its doings, where the internal and external messages are the same, and the company is generally well liked, this is easy – it’s easy for me to do this as I work for PLoS.
But when the marketing message does not equal the actual motives, when the spokesmen say one thing and the community says something different, then, at this day and age, this is trouble. Examples:
Discovery Institute, learning from court defeats, is very careful not to mention God in any of their PR materials. But their followers keep sending letters to the editor of local newspapers filled with biblical quotes, equating evolution with godlessness and thus blowing the cover.
Same for GOP here in the USA – what their PR folks say is very different from what the followers say. They have entire “think tanks” devoted to building an Orwellian language of deception in order to swindle voters into voting for them and their despicable platform. But the ground-troups are not as well trained in deception – they go right ahead with their racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic slogans (see: Palin events) and blow the cover: people could see clearly what GOP really stands for. Thus, they lost in November and it will be difficult for them to come back unless they get rid of all of their platform (in which case they become Democrat copycats) and thus lose half of their (racist, sexist) followers/voters.
Yes, I think we’re fundamentally ok at Diamond, at least as far as I’m aware we’ve nothing to hide! The problem often seems to be an off-the-cuff remark that was taken more seriously than it was meant or someone just sounding off after a bad day…
Nothing to hide? You mean there isn’t an alien cloning project going on in some hidden part of the ring? I’m very disappointed…
Shhh!