Matthew Chapman, CEO of The Chapman Consulting Group, was a guest at the India Top HR Roundtable organised by Organisation Solutions and hosted at the Hindustan Unilever headquarters in Mumbai, last Friday 20 April 2012. More than 20 HR Leaders from blue chip multinationals, based across India, were in attendance. The session was chaired by Dr James Eyring, from Organisation Solutions, and discussion topic looked at the growing importance of having a robust social media strategy for organisations.
The below thoughts on the importance of social media are from Matthew Chapman and should be in no way construed as being necessarily those of last Friday’s group:
- Perhaps the most interesting aspect to the whole social media phenomenon is that it is happening “right now”. If your organisation does not have a social media strategy, it is not too late. However, leave it much longer and you could fall behind.
- Don’t wait for your leadership team to come up with a social media strategy. Smart organisations are talent spotting, internally, for employees with a passion and interest for social media. Graduates and summer interns, right at the “social media coalface” are being recruited to help drive innovative strategies on social media.
- Many organisations are not feeling confident enough yet to invest in a “Head of Social Media” type role, so the responsibilities are often sitting across different departments and teams, including HR, Marketing and Technology. Many are appointing “super-users” or “thought innovators” to help drive social media strategy, but many of these people are holding these responsibilities in addition to their day jobs.
- Transparency and experimentation is the name of the game in the social media age. While there is a lot of talk about tighter controls around what employees can and can’t say on social media sites, some organisations are taking a completely different tact. They are encouraging employees to speak their mind and “put it all out there”. More bloggers are taking a stand and telling things as they are. If a company’s decision making is slow due matrix decision making, chances are that you will now read about it on sites like “Glassdoor”.
- The three most common social media tools still continue to be Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. All continue to grow strongly. LinkedIn continues to be the most business-oriented tool of the three, although almost all companies now seem to be sport a corporate Facebook page. Twitter use seems to be divided between personal and professional use, although many more Tweeters are blurring the boundaries between both now.
