Sunday, November 24, 2013 standing in the way of control
Now here's a question which regularly crops up: 'How do we control social media?' Actually, that's the wrong question. A better one would be: 'Should we try to control social media?' And the answer to that is no. A big, fat, no.
Social media. When you strip it back to the basics, it’s pretty much just a series of conversations. People sharing opinions, chewing the fat, asking questions.
Talking.
And, as my pal Dan Slee would say – ‘being human’,
Which is why I’ve always struggled with products sold by companies which seek to govern these conversations. To control them.
Control your social media activity, lock it down, stop people having their own accounts, put lots of measures in place to prevent staff going off and engaging, being social. Having human conversations.
From what I can see, some of these companies take this control ‘offer’ and repackage it to sell their services by creating a kind of fear of social media. Within the sales pitch you almost sense a belief that, actually, staff shouldn’t really have access to social media anyway.
Why not switch the whole thing off, just entrust your Head of Comms with the task and let’s have done with it.
I’ve seen agencies roll out case studies of where things have gone disastrously wrong on social media, often painting jaundiced views of situations where, of course their product would have saved the day. I can see many a Chief Executive quite liking that idea, to minimise risks, to put a stop to all this social chatter.
It borders on scaremongering in an attempt to sell their products.
But, if we accept that social media is really just a platform for us to have conversations on, it’s worth reflecting on this: Do we try to control our human interactions and conversations on other platforms?
Yes, we might write a script for someone in a call centre to make their job slightly easier and we may agree corporate messages which we would like to share. We train people, we talk about our visions and we try to embed our values. But we don’t actually manage, monitor and lockdown human interactions in our general conversations. Do we?
So, for me, claims and desires of highly controlled social media usage in organisations are flawed.
I’d go a step further and say that they could even point towards a worrying suggestion of not being open and accessible. And if organisations are not open and accessible how on earth can they be authentic?
We comms folks now regularly talk about the need to be authentic. Authentic as individuals, as employees, as organisations. If we manage to pull that off we’ll be better off for it in the long run and, in turn, so might be our customers.
So this type of control has troubled me for a while.
And since when did we ever really control anything anyway – The media? No. Staff opinions? No. What customers think? No.
But we now have agencies peddling their wares based on fear. To protect against reputational damage.
If I had budget to invest in social media delivery, and providing a great service for customers, these products absolutely would not be something I would be investing in.
We’re all human, fallible. We all make mistakes, some of them big, some of them small.
But I’d much rather believe in staff, trust them, invest in them and their development, and let them talk to customers without forcing them into a corporate straightjacket. Yes, of course you need to protect your social media passwords, and not leave them behind on the number 50 bus. But, really, paying out to safeguard a password, to monitor who tweets what, to micro manage staff that you otherwise trust to talk to your customers face-to-face, on the telephone. Is this the best approach and investment right now?
I have been fortunate to get a birds-eye view of many, many organisation’s social media activity, tactics and approaches and I base my view on what I have seen first-hand.
But I wanted to test that view with others. So I asked comms2point0 followers this question: ‘Can we control social media?’ The response was pretty one-sided.
62 said ‘no’
3 said ‘yes’
Not exactly a robust, Ipsos MORI-style survey but, as snapshots go, and from a savvy, online community I respect and trust, it was convincing stuff.
Ultimately, what we are really talking about here is trust. Do we trust our staff?
Or would we rather pay an agency a not inconsiderable annual sum to ‘control’ our social media activity on our behalf.
The bottom line is this: If we don’t trust our staff, I suspect our customers aren’t going to trust us.
And there are no winners there, just losers.
I really like this quote from John Lee, head of social marketing at @webtrends:
“Being a humanized brand means learning the art of authenticity. It means being genuine, being passionate about whatever it is your brand is and does. Just like in everyday life, people respond most to others who are perceptibly and consistently real. And that's why it's an art, not a formula. Authenticity, in the long run, can't be manufactured or faked.”
Is that really going to going to be possible by micro-managing your social media activity through a locked-down, automated, risk management product?
So, if I had a budget to invest in social media I’d be using it to recruit a talented social media lead who would help to encourage social media innovation within the organisation, to up-skill colleagues and to spread good practice and knowledge. And if there were barriers, such as trust, this lead officer could target them with evidence, with case studies and with common sense.
Two years down the track I’m convinced that this would have been a better organisational investment in social media.
Unless, of course, you’re working for North Korea District Council.
Darren Caveney is co-founder of comms2point0 and vice chair of LGcommunications
Reader Comments (8)
I still hold to the maxim that "if you think you have something to fear from social media, you have".
Interesting post, Darren, which chimes with me. Sounds like you're writing from personal experience of having constraints imposed on what you do. My organisation has a very corporate, command and control approach to social media, and I have been trying to encourage it to loosen up for some time. This is local government but you could apply it to other sectors. Individual service areas (you could call them 'products') regular ask to have their own social media channels. This may not always be a good idea - but sometimes it could be. They are advised to use the corporate channel, which happens to be a partnership of several organisations working across a local area, so is generic. The arguments usually go along one of the following lines: 1) The corporate channel has a large number of established 'likes'/'followers' - you would be starting from scratch; 2) social media is time and resource-hungry - do you have the time to keep it fresh and monitor it properly; 3) we have a stronger web/social presence doing this together. These requests are often categorised by comms colleagues in a similar way to others like 'we need our own website', 'we need a comms plan', 'we need a press' release. I agree with them that you should always ask 'Do you? Do you really?' Some services/products go off and create a social presence anyway - some don't both to ask. Some do it badly. Some do it very well - because they have people passionate and knowledgeable about their service/product who have something valuable, entertaining and informative to share. My own view is that if we give people a bit more freedom but guide them through training, support, examples, a simple toolkit and set of principles to work to, we can relieve pressure on our central comms resource, empower our workforce, give them back a bit of esteem and create more genuine engagement between organisations and customers. I think we're getting there, but slowly.
Good post and though I too have drunk the social media wants to be free Kool Aid I'd like to speak a little in defence of these sinister "control" firms.
They exist because there is a market. They are not trying to scare heads of comms so much as sell a product to heads of comms who are scared.
There are issues of accountability and risk when you increase the number of people who can make statements indelibly and in public as a representative of an organisation. The world in which we mitigate these risks through a combination of trusting our staff and being laid back about the occasional slip up is a world in which I dearly want to live. To get there an awful lot of people have to be OK with this, not just senior people.
But let's crack on with it eh?
I agree with Tom.
I especially agree with the last two sentences of the SouthWestPRO comment. Our job as comms people is to be enlightened gatekeepers who hold the gate open. If we do this we give people the tools and the toolkit to do something really valuable while at the same time we're getting other people to care more about the place they work and the job they do.
I'm far more interested in hearing about a countryside ranger direct from her own stream than something that has come through the corporate filter.
Thanks Tom, Mike and Dan for taking the time to comment.
Quite agree with you all.
And I love your line, Tom (only wish I'd thought of it... )
best wishes
Darren
In my organisation where social media is very controlled and locked down I see social media workflow as a means of loosening some of that culture and constraints. It provides a safety net for the organisation so that more access can be devolved. Where giving unfiltered access and handing over the keys is seen as unpalatable, giving tiered access to set accounts and support seems infinitely preferable. Of course the corporate attitude to control should be challenged, but if people can't see what the alternative could look like then they will not consider that change. Control is dead, long live control.
Thanks Al, as usual, an interesting perspective.
You were one of the people who inspired my use in the early days and so it would be great for you to write a longer post on where you see issues and opportunites for public sector organisations right now.
Go on, you know it makes sense?
Darren
Thanks Ben for your excellent thoughts.
I wonder how this particular market, and issue, will have played out in, say, five years time.
I don't think I'd buy shares in these agencies...
cheers
Darren