Couple years ago, I heard lots of news
about people get fired, because their bosses found that those people have bad
mouth about the companies on social media. Some of them might say some thing
damage the company’s reputation, some of them might just complain about their bosses’
decision. At that time, the manager of companies might hate social media, but
now, after they saw the benefit brings by social media, they start change their
mind.
This week, we move to the last part of groundswell:
the groundswell transforms. In this part, it talks about how groundswell
strategies are changing the way companies manage and support their employees.
The conclusion of this part is: social media can help spark employee
communication, and it can harness innovation. However, those benefits are
conditioned by use the social media in a right way.
The book list several suggestions and
strategies to help the companies to use social media in a right way. Just like
use social media for customer relationship, a company should start with
listening, then talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. There are three
essential elements to create groundswell within the company. “First, take the
transformation step by step. Second, each of these stepping-stones leads in a
natural progression. And third, you have to executive support.”
I used to interns at Urumqi TV Station for
two months. The president at there is a middle-age man with full of energy. As
a president of traditional media, he might notice the impact of social media, as
a result, he hold a conference ask all journalists to open a social media page
on WEIBO (A Chinese social network), and the journalists need to update the
page everyday, the content of the page should focus about reflection of daily job.
After the meeting, we I went back to newsroom, all I heard is complains about
the new decision. The journalists think they are too busy to update social
media everyday, and they don’t want to waste time on writing reflation on
social media, they think that is useless.
As a result, the journalists write the reflection perfunctorily in a few words. Some of them even ask interns to write it for them. At same time, some journalists make complaint about the president’s decision on another social network called WeChat. Several journalists read the complaint and join into chat. Generally, their topic change from complaint to episode about daily life, they also sharejokes on WeChat. One month after, they began talks about their work, such as news resources, interview strategies, common of yesterday news, etc. The WeChat community became an open secret within the office. At the last day of my internship, the president called of the WEIBO event.
As the textbook mentioned: “getting the
company to embrace the groundswell is going to take a lot of small steps and a
lot of time”. I think that is the first reason that the president of the TV
station failure. The second reason is he ignored the culture. According to the
book: “It’s nearly impossible to force social technologies on organizations
from the top down, because by their definition, these technologies require the
participation of your employees.” Here I want to share a video about cultural approach of organization.
No one can focus others to do anything in groundswell,
perhaps that is part of its charm. I really like the seven suggestions at the end of this book: "First, never forget that the groundswell is
about person-to-person activity. Second, be a good listener. Third, be patient.
Fourth, be opportunistic. Fifth, be flexible. Sixth, be collaborative. Seventh,
be humble."
Recent years, some people hold the opinion
that social media is beginning to date However, after I finish this book, I
think social media will keep showing its impact of companies and brands, the groundswell
will not only influence customer relationship but also influence employee
relationship for a long time.
