As this is my first post here on the NLC blog, I’ll hope you’ll indulge me as I make a brief introduction. My name is Joe (cue the support group ‘Hi Joe!’) and I’m the newest member of the web strategy team. Specifically, my job is to help shape and deliver some service offerings in the social media realm. Before we dive into that, though, here are five things you may or may not find interesting about me.
1.I’m married to a much smarter woman who is in the process of cooking up our first born (due in December).
2.I used to be in a band but I’m not anymore.
3.I play, coach and watch hockey; I golf terribly; and I took up curling two years ago.
4.I prefer Macs but I’d rather have a beer with John Hodgman than Justin Long.
5.I’ve seen, in person, every provincial legislature building in Canada (but none of the territorial ones).
There, with that bit of self indulgence out of the way…
NLC has staked its reputation on doing things for a reason; tying online initiatives to business objectives and measuring, measuring, measuring to see if targets are being hit. Seriously, I’ve been here all of three days and I’ve already seen the phrase “measurable results are baked into our corporate DNA” like five times.
It may come off a little hokey but it makes for a good mission statement. Thus you can expect nothing less when it comes to our social media offerings.
While we’re putting the finishing touches on said offerings, here are a few of the things we try to keep in mind when working in the social sphere. It should give you a good idea of where we’re heading.
-Subject-verb agreement matters. At the risk of conjuring up horrible memories of conjugation exercises in grammar school, it’s important to remember that media is a plural noun. Ditto for social media. We’re going to be as guilty as anyone of talking about what social media “is” and all of that but underneath that grammatical inconsistency is an understanding that being involved in social media isn’t an all-or-nothing exercise. Social media include a variety of tools, services and channels that may or may not be right for you.
-It’s an evolution, not a revolution. There’s a lot about social media that is revolutionary. Your use of them shouldn’t be. If diving into a particular social channel is a complete 180 from your established practices and habits, you probably won’t be successful. If you’re keen to explore this brave new world of social media, find places to start that are an extension of what you already do. Not sure where those places are? Start by listening. Set up a monitoring system and just observe for awhile. Learn a bit about the opportunities that are out there then decide where you might want to take part.
-Social media shouldn’t drive your culture change. If you’re expecting your social media efforts to bring about a new era of openness and collaboration in your organization, you should probably think twice. These tools, services and channels are great at reflecting organizational culture, not shaping it. They can certainly be used as part of your efforts to open up your organization but if you put the proverbial cart in front of the proverbial horse, you’re not going to get very far (psst, the good news is the culture of openness and collaboration probably exists somewhere in your organization, you just may not have seen it yet).
As with any emerging field, there’s an undeniable temptation to chase after the latest shiny new object in the social media sphere. Above all, we’re going to try to stay grounded in the tangible and keep doing things that will bring about measurable results. It’s in the DNA, after all. And we all know what happens when you mess with DNA.
