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Building A Culture Around Social Media

There are loads of posts that describe the importance of corporate culture. But this isn’t one of those posts, this is merely about what we’re doing to build a connected corporate culture with social media.

Lately I’ve been meeting with managers, web designers, graphic designers and PR consultants to try and put together what will be an amazing social media project.

As you’d expect, we’ve mapped out both long term and short term strategic goals, but the sticking point for this entire plan is that it revolves around motivating a number of self interested individuals  to work together.

When people are hired they typically stick to the confines of their job, and avoid further responsibility. All social media projects are hard work, which can make them hard to sell to the individuals involved in their day-to-day running.

Initially we tried to sell everyone on the strategic importance of what we’re trying to achieve, but selling strategy was never going to be enough. So we’re now attempting to build a culture around social media.

How are we doing this??? With education centred around connection.

For us  education is where culture starts, if you can teach a team of diverse individuals to think along the same lines, and see similar value in their interactions then you’ve got a beautiful foundation to build upon.

We know that this is easier said than done. That’s why a crucial part of this education process is getting them to connect with one another using social media. This hands on experience in the ‘value of connection’ is the cornerstone of establishing a connected corporate culture.

This way the people in charge of the day-to-day social media interactions quite quickly unravel the fact that social media is a philosophical shift in mindset, where the main focus is not on the technology or on the sale, but on the people involved.

If we just sold strategy we’d have no hope of getting them to use social media to connect with one another, let alone with their interested public. But once they understand and value their own online connections they quickly see the long term value of social media.

I’ll be back with a more detailed follow-up on exactly what we’re doing to build this connected corporate culture in a couple of weeks. But for now this is a nice inspirational video about the value of culture….enjoy.