Social Media Won't Work For Your Business if it's Mandated

One thing I've learned about social media is that you can't force people to use it. The best way to start using it is to start with a small group of people that understand social media. Find the people in your organization that are already blogging or using Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, etc.

Start Small

Take for example the recent launch of Yammer. The service, which is basically a Twitter for businesses, has gotten a lot of buzz lately so I decided to try it out. A few of my coworkers had also decided to check it out so we have a small community growing. I'm not sure if it will catch on but I'm convinced that the only way it would is if our small group becomes passionate about it and begins to use it to share useful information. If not, it becomes just another task and it's use will quickly will fizzle out.

Change Your Thinking

Tools like Twitter and wikis can really help increase productivity if used correctly. Think about how many work emails you have in your inbox that could be relevant to others in your organization. How much easier would it be to just post status reports and general updates to an internal wiki? It requires a change in thinking, but eventually could really help increase productivity.

Some Aren't Ready Yet

However, there are some employees that just aren't ready to adopt these tools. Yes, email is inefficient, they say, but that is what they are used to. It won't work if you push them to use these tools. Just start small with those in your office who "get it." As you grow in your use of these tools, show success stories to management. If you can point to specific instances of a blog post helping to create a lead, they will begin to accept blogging as a legitimate business activity. Show them how these tools can help them do their job better. You can use web analytics tools to track visitor engagent on your blog and can even show how each post influences revenue.

Social Media is Not a Campaign

I think it is helpful to not think of social media as a campaign or a project. It is an ongoing effort- an interactive way of communicating with your customers and potential customers. As you continue in your social media efforts, you'll see more and more ways to include social media elements to each campaign, product launch, event, etc.

By the way, check out this great post in ReadWriteWeb about using social media to reach people that don't use social media.