From CIL-NET Social Media Training Wiki
Dealing with Challenges to Implementing Social Media
Implementing a social media project is not without its challenges. On this page, we identify some of the challenges to using social media and discuss strategies for addressing these challenges.
Resistance
Some questions to consider in dealing with resistance.
Who's resisting? Different people in your organization may be resistant--management, the IT department, staff. Knowing the sources of the resistance will help you figure out how to handle it.
Why are they resisting? No, why are the REALLY resisting? Often you will find that people's initial objections are the not their real objections. Really listen and probe people for their concerns. Usually they are rooted in fear and/or ignorance of how social media works and its benefits.
Common concerns about social media from nonprofits may include:
- Loss of control over your organization's branding and marketing messages
- Dealing with negative comments
- Addressing personality versus organizational voice
- Not being successful, fear of failure
- Perception of wasted of time and resources
- Suffering from information overload already, this will cause more
From NTEN: Overcoming Resistance:
- Target. Map out where the resistance is or will be coming from. Identify all the people in your organization, from the board to the executive assistants, who will have to deal with your project in some way.
- Listen. Pitch your project in a very soft, "I've been kicking around an idea and want your feedback" kind of way with each of your stakeholders. Listen. Don't talk. Let them tell your all the reasons they support or resist your project. Don't try to provide any counter arguments -- you're collecting intelligence here! Take copious notes.
- Interpret. Look back on each conversation and identify the single biggest objection of each of your key individuals. Remember that while leadership may say "It will cost too much", they could really mean "I don't understand what all this crazy stuff is about." Your notes and listening skills will help you hear the difference.
- Respond. Once you know what kind of resistance you're dealing with, you can craft a response. How you respond also matters a great deal. Know your targets and how they will best receive your feedback. You may need to write a memo to one stakeholder, but start shoulder to shoulder training with another.
- Repeat. Changing anyone's mind is not easy. You will not win converts overnight, so keep in mind that you may address one area of resistance, only to encounter another. In this case, you'll have the pleasure of starting all over again!
Also check out this module on Overcoming Resistance from the WeAreMedia project.
Below are some of the reasons we find that people are resistant and some strategies to consider in dealing with them.
Time-Wasting
When phones were first invented, many supervisors did not allow employees to have one on their desks because the fear was that they would spend time on social calls. When email started in the mid-90's, employees often were not allowed access because they might exchange emails with friends and family. But . . .
- What is your real job? Is it communicating with people? Then social media is the platform for doing that online, especially is you're communicating with young people who spend a lot less time on email than do adults.
- Do you trust staff to make phone calls and use email? They could be wasting time there, too. Time wasting is a management problem, not a technology problem. Blocking access to social media isn't going to resolve the issue of an employee who fools around rather than working.
Not Enough Time. And Who Will Do It?
This is another biggie--the feeling that social media is just one more thing to add to an already too-long "To Do" list.
- Social media can often replace things you've been doing--for example, instead of spending days putting together a newsletter of dated material, set up a blog and start posting articles as news occurs. Use a wiki for maintaining meeting agendas and minutes--you can type both directly into the wiki page. This way everything is always accessible to meeting participants and you don't have to send emails or spend time searching for the minutes on your hard drive. Instead of sending links to articles, have people sign up for Delicious and start using the same tags to bookmark resources so you can easily share them with each other.
- Social media use should be spread through the organization, not become the additional responsibility of a particular department. If many people are using it, then you can share the work.
Check out:
Access to Social Media
Many organizations block access to social media sites. The first issue is to ask why. Note that the Army has ordered its bases to stop blocking social media (Army Orders Bases to Stop Blocking Twitter and Facebook). And the State Department is using social media (State Department Gets Hip to Social Media). So if the Army and the State Department are using social media, what possible reason could your organization have for blocking it?
If your organization insists on blocking social media, part of the issue is HOW the IT department handles blocking. With most software blocking packages, it's relatively easy for them to "unblock" sites that you need to use. For example, IT may block everything with "blog" in the URL. However, you can get them to unblock the professional blogs that you want to read. This is called "whitelisting" a site. Whitelisting can also be done for emails from particular sites.
Getting around IT
Use these at your own discretion.
- Nutshell Mail--lets you access social media sites via email.
- In some organizations it's possible to get to a site by running a search for it on Google and then clicking through the to the link that way, rather than trying to go through directly. If it doesn't work through a Google search, try searching on another platform, like Yahoo or AltaVista.
- Try using a web proxy. These are websites that basically give you an indirect route to the site you want to visit, allowing you to bypass internal blocks. They are also used by many people as a privacy protection. Note that these sites may also be blocked by your organization and that your IT department may be monitoring use of proxy sites. If you want to use this option, try the Open Directory list of web proxies and the Open Directory list of http proxies for potential proxies to use.
- TwitterGadget--allows you to use Twitter from Gmail or your iGoogle page. Assuming that Gmail and iGoogle aren't blocked at your workplace, of course.
Privacy & Safety Issues
Staff are often concerned with the privacy and safety issues they believe are inherent to social media. Below is a four-point strategy for addressing these issues.
1. Teach staff and other users about privacy issues and how to maintain their privacy online. Below there are several links to lessons and articles on protecting online privacy. Check them out and use them with staff and consumers. Social media is a fixture in today's society so NOT using the tools is rapidly becoming about as practical as saying that you won't use a phone or a fax machine. If people don't know how to use social media tools, they need to have opportunities to practice a responsible, supportive environment where they can learn how to use the tools effectively and appropriately.
Social Media Curricula Resources
Social Media Privacy Settings
2. Have a social media policy. Every program and organization has guidelines and policies that spell out the behavior and expectations you have for how staff and others should handle things like attendance, customer service, etc. Social media use is no different.
You should also post your policies on your website and anyplace you're active online, including your blog, Facebook Pages, etc.
3. Think through how you're using social media to support specific projects/events. Consider where you might have problems/issues and plan for how you might address them. For example, if you're posting a video to YouTube, will you moderate comments? If so, what criteria will you use to determine if a comment should be deleted? How will you handle negative comments? Understand the tool you'll be using and the possible issues that may arise so you can try to plan ahead.
4. Monitor, monitor, monitor
Make sure that as you are using social media you are monitoring your sites and managing what's being posted.
Blogs:
- You can set comment moderation settings so that you have to approve a comment before it can be posted. This way you can review its contents and decide if you want the comment to be made public.
- DO NOT OVERDO comment moderation. The best policy is to remove only those comments that use foul or pejorative language or that are "comment spam," which is spam (like in email) that is posted in comments sections of blogs. You can reduce comment spam by requiring commenters to use "CAPTCHA" (usually one of the comment settings on your blog platform). Realize, though, that this makes your site less accessible for people with visual disabilities.
- Have a blog commenting policy and post it on your blog, making it clear what is/isn't acceptable. Here's an article on writing a blog comment policy and here's sample "terms of use" policy.
Wikis
- All wikis allow you to determine who is able to change or add information to the site. Check out the settings on the wiki platform you are using to see what you can control and how you can control it. You may want to require people to register before they are allowed to make any changes. This will then allow you to monitor who made any changes to your wiki because when they make an edit, it will automatically record what edits were made and who made them.
- You can also set your wiki up so that you are notified every time a change is made. You can usually do this by page, so that you watch particular pages on a wiki or you can set it up for the entire wiki, so that you'll be notified about any edits. Usually you can receive these notifications either through email or through an RSS feed if you are using an RSS reader like Netvibes.
- One of the best things about a wiki is the "history" feature. With it, you can revert to an older version of your wiki in case someone makes changes that you didn't approve or don't want to appear.
Facebook
- In your Facebook account settings, there is a tab for "notifications." Here you can set it so you receive an email when people do certain things on your page in Facebook, such as post a comment on your wall or send you a message. You can also set a few of these so you are notified on your cell phone via text message.
- There is no comment moderation on Facebook, so you cannot approve a message or comment before a person posts it to your site. However, you can remove anything that you do not like after it's been posted by clicking on the "x" button to the right of that comment.
- You are able to approve who is "friends" with you. People who are not approved as friends cannot write in your wall.
- Sample Facebook Moderation Policy
Twitter
- If you follow someone on Twitter, then whatever they post on Twitter is going to show up in your Twitter stream. This means that people who view your page on Twitter will see their comments. For this reason, it might be better to only follow those people and organizations who are providing information that's useful to your young people.
- You are not able to remove the "tweets" of any of your followers or of people who are following you. However, you can delete your own tweets by following these instructions. (Instructions for deleting a Tweet).
Flickr
- As with a wiki, if you set up a group on Flickr, you can control who is a member of the group, what they are allowed to post and how. Just go into your group's Administration and you'll see your various options.
YouTube
Some Ways to Get Started with Social Media
- Find a problem or issue that can be solved with social media. For example, meeting agendas and minutes can be maintained on a wiki, making it easy for people to add items, see what's on the agenda and stay on top of the minutes. All without having to search through their email.
- Shoot for small wins--run experiments and track results. Build your experiments around problems that need to be solved (see above), not around wanting to use specific tools.
- Read Colin McKay's Secret Underground Guide to Social Media in Large Organizations--works for small orgs too--good ideas on "guerilla tactics" for using social media.
- Use a blog to replace an internal email newsletter. Try having a "Topic of the Week" or "Question of the Day" component to encourage staff to engage in commenting and discussion. You can also use a blog to replace your external newsletters or other publications. Try using Posterous--it lets you add blog posts through your email and is about the simplest possible way to set up a blog.
- Set up a wiki to manage a project or event or to share information. Wikis are excellent collaborative work tools because they're easy to edit and anyone can do it. Many organizations use them to manage a project, organize for an event or to share information like policies and procedures or best practices. You can even use a wiki for personal productivity and organization. Check out these 5 Uses for a Wiki at Work for some ideas.
- Use Delicious to share interesting links, rather than emailing them to people. (Cut Inbox Clutter with Social Bookmarking)
- Set up a Yammer account to practice using Twitter-like features, but only with your employees--Yammer is like Twitter for organizations. Only members of your organization are able to join your Yammer network. So if you want to practice sending out Tweets, Yammer might be a good place to start. Although we'll warn you that you won't be getting the full benefit of Twitter, because it's the open nature of Twitter that makes it so powerful.
- Create a Flickr account and start uploading photos from events and activities to your account as a way to better manage images and use them for other publications.
- Set up a Twitter account and start sending out links, event announcements, etc. You can advertise your Twitter username on your website, in a newsletter, on a blog, etc.
Resources