Social Media Behind the Firewall: The Tire, Tower, or Hub and Spoke?

Photo by Stitch

I've been reflecting on the ideas shared at a panel called "Why Corporate Social Media Marketing Fails and How To Fix It" presented at the Web2.0 Expo by Peter Kim, Charlene Li, and Jeremiah Owyang.  The discussion was organized around four points of social media failure:

• How can I get my culture to adapt?
• How can I make my campaigns work?
• What am I supposed to measure?
• Does social media even matter?

For this post, I wanted to focus on the first issue - the mismatch between organizational culture and social media adoption.  To be successful, the organizational culture needs to be a learning culture, willing to experiment and learn.  

As Charlene Li pointed out, "Change management processes take years - you don't change over night. You need to start small and get comfortable with the technology.  You need to get the big guns involved and the only way to do that is to find the sweet spot between outcomes or goals and demonstrate how the social media strategy supports that."  Take for example, the steps outlined in this "Twitter for the Workplace" article.

Translation for nonprofits:  Explain your social media strategy and how it supports your organization's key outcomes. 

They also warned against having social media be one person's responsibility or that it is a younger person's game.  Social media is about engaging with your stakeholders - whose responsibility is that?

Jeremiah Owyang shared three different models for how corporations organize and deploy social media:

1. THE TIRE

Photo by SamDiablo

The Tire: Social media forms at the edges of the company. No clear leader. Upside: appears very authentic. Downside: one side has no idea what the other is doing.

I've seen this model with nonprofits and I'd add that the other downside is that the implementation isn't strategic.

2. THE TOWER

 

Flickr Photo by MR+G

The Tower: Led by corporate communications, by executive mandate. The upside: Lots of resources. The downside? Not authentic, which saps participation and buy-in.

I've also seen this model in nonprofits and it isn't effective when silo culture gets in the way.  Here's another anecdote, shared anonymously from a reader via email.

At my nonprofit, I work in the web department and we have been tasked by the executive director and director of communications to implement and oversee our social media presence. Implement and oversee, that is, without input from any other departments. There are 250 employees, so to task one group--a group that has no contact with members at all--with handling social media is a little weird to me. At the same time, I'm grateful that they're open to using social media in the first place, so I don't want to complain too much.
 
We actually have developed a pretty robust social media presence. We even have a staff person dedicated to social media implementation--me! But they didn't tell anyone on staff about it! So, weirdly, my whole job description is to work with other departments to develop and implement their social media stuff--but nobody knows my position exists unless they personally know me (which most people don't). I do work with people in other departments a bit, but on a totally individual basis--usually I approach them with an idea and work with them to implement it. But as far as, say, having a team drafting the social media strategy, I've suggested it and been told that no, we'll draft it then others can comment. The result is that I feel like I'm sneaking around behind other department's backs drafting a social media strategy that they're not even aware of, and know that when we finally present them with this completed strategy for their approval, heads are going to roll.
 
I'm constantly having to field complaints from staff "how come when our department wanted to do that we weren't allowed to but now you're allowed to?" "Why should the web team be handling this when it has nothing to do with the website?" etc.  The web team is the only team that has authority to establish a presence on social networks--that alone is a huge point of contention.
 
People in our organization are getting downright nasty about who "owns" social media? That and the fact that silo culture absolutely prevents social media strategies from succeeding so, really, what's the point if the internal communication issues aren't going to be addressed as part of the strategy?"

3.  THE HUB AND SPOKE

Flickr Photo by Colmmacc

Hub-and-Spoke: some central focus, but with clear ownership at the edges. Upside: this is the aspirational model because it combines resources and participation. Downside: the most difficult to establish.

Charlene Li shared an exercise that does with corporations that sounded very similar to the share pair exercise I created for the WeAreMedia Workshop.

-Have organizational staff list all the worst fears
-Most common fear: don't trust employees, other themes
-How do you mitigate those risks?
-What are the benefits on the other side?
-Then make the decision to begin social media experiment

When asked to identify a "successful" corporation using social media, they pointed to examples of corporations that have failed and learned and kept on going.  (Sounds like Listen, Learn, and Adapt)

Resource:

Jeremiah Owyang, What's Wrong With Corporate Social Media and How To Fix It (round up of posts)

Question:

How is social media organized within your nonprofit organization?  Does it match any of the above models?  Is it working?  Why or why not?  

Comments

[Wendy]

I think we have a bunch of tire and a bunch of tower but not quite yet the hub and spoke. I'm optimistic we'll get there eventually.

[Wendy]

Beth asked me after the last comment:
what's required to get you to the hub and spoke? Why do you think you're the tower/tire? what works what doesn't ? B

I think what's required for us is education. We still have lots of people who have no idea that one or the other is happening. We need a way to tell everyone involved in the Red Cross that we have these engagement points online and encourage them to use them. In a move toward that goal, we're posting to our intranet a comprehensive explanation of our philosophy and instructions for how to get involved.

[Will Hull - eCommunciations/eDevelopment Specialist at United Cerebral Palsy]

I tend to think that we are a mix of tire and hub and spoke models. Because we are, as is typical with a nonprofit, immersed in our worlds, moving a hundred miles per hour, we often don't have the time for the communication necessary to fill each other in at all times. At others, we stategically implement a message that is consistent and reflective of a campaign.

[Jeff Jackson]

I use to work for what might be the largest non-profit in the US - healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. I left three years ago, but am still a healthcare member. The organization, like many, is very complex with 400 medical facilities around the US, 120,000 employees, and has what is called the most far-reaching labor-management partnership with 8 international unions and more than 35 locals. I'm not sure of whether Kaiser employs externally focused social media for any purpose, but the members website is pretty broad in what it offers such as on-line communications with your MD, on-line prescription refills, on-line advice nurses and on-line connections to various member and non-member topic-specific professional and/or peer support groups (ie for skin cancer, etc.). I just had to diagnose an issue with my doctor while I was in Mexico and he was in the US. I share this example as one that we might want to learn from because there is a compelling value-added (one's health) that has members and non-members connecting formally and informally around immediate life-saving issues. I'm somewhat removed now so it would take time and energy to find the right contact person, but it just has me thinking as we explore the use of social media for social change, it might be good to look at those who are dealing with immediate and personal life/death issues to see whether they organize differently than those that are working on longer-term change. I believe something like 50% of Kaiser's 8 million members use some form of the on-line services and I've heard the adoption of the new technologies was quick.

When it comes to the three organizational models provided above, I would see the Kaiser model(s) as perhaps a hybrid where there is some stuff that is good for member/member dialogue (with little if any editing) and some stuff that I would much rather have a healthcare expert at the center (like my doctor) to inform my health care choices. More questions than answers here.

[Tara]

Great post and off I go to share it...