How Are You Managing Your Organization’s Social Networking Engagement?

By Tara Orchard

In today’s socially networked world there is a good probability that your organization has at least some social media policies or guidelines, provides a little social media training and has some social media monitoring in place. Too often, however, those policies and that training address primarily the technical aspects of social media and your social media monitoring is more likely to be tied to measuring WOM (word-of-mouth) communications generated in the public about your organization than focused on monitoring the impact of the activities of your employees and leadership.

There is no escaping the reality that for most organizations social media networking impacts on many aspects of business. Earlier this year, Jobvite conducted a survey of human resources and recruiting professionals and found that over 90% reported they were planning on using social network recruiting as part of their recruiting strategy. Around the same time, Brand Frog reported that 81% of employees believed the leaders who engaged in social media engagement were better prepared to lead business today. You do not need to be told that social media network engagement has invaded many aspects of business nor do you need to be reminded that it is not going away anytime soon. Perhaps, though, it would be helpful to understand more about how members of your organization can better manage their social networking activities in order to reduce some of the risks associated with online activities.

As with so much in life, how you approach and react to situations is impacted by your natural tendencies; your natural endowments, including personality, your experiences, upbringing, thoughts, emotions and other elements of who you are create the context for how you think and respond. This all plays out in your social media networking activities. Your ‘first’ thoughts and whether or not you can temper your response, actions and reactions is what enables you to maintain your composure or not and can contribute to your ability to mitigate risk in your social networking activities.

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, in his 2011 book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” discusses the WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) phenomenon of your System 1 thinking (your fast thinking). Your ‘fast thinking’ system is what enables you to quickly assess a situation and respond and is a necessary component of day-to-day functioning. However, it does not always provide you with the most comprehensive information or analysis from which to formulate a solid response in complex situations.

The WYSIATI phenomena enables your System 1 fast thinking to make the quick decisions that are important, such as getting out of the way when you see a car swerving a half kilometer down the road. This is not just your reflex to jump out of the way when the car is upon you, but the part of you that recognizes and responds to the possibility of the danger from the swerving car before it is upon you. As useful as it is, however, this fast thinking is also what can cause you to make errors in response. WYSIATI occurs when you do not have access to the complete picture, including both sides of a situation or when your System 2, slow thinking, is not engaged. You may see a car swerving down the road but if your ‘slow thinking’ knows a movie is being filmed down the street the situation will be assessed differently. Your slow thinking, which Kahneman describes as the ‘lazier’ of the two systems, is the part of your thought process that waits in the wings for when it is needed.

While some and perhaps much of social media networking engagement can be routine and often managed using your System 1 fast thinking skills some of these social network engagements will require you to be better able to quickly measure and then deliver your responses in a very public forum. This type of engagement requires being present in the moment and not simply being on automatic pilot. The good news is that you can prepare yourself to keep your slow thinking processes if not on high alert then at least listening and ready to jump in when necessary.

Preparing For Social Media Engagement

Before anyone engages on social media on behalf of your organization you must clearly ascertain that they understand their role and the limitations or expectations of their role. Of equal importance is that they understand their own System 1 reactions and how they will engage their System 2 thinking when required. How can you help them do this?

Step 1: Increase Self-awareness

The benefit of self-awareness is an increased understanding of one’s tendencies, including reaction triggers and interaction style. I find personality type awareness a great place to begin this process of awareness (I use a tool called TypeFocus).

Step 2: Understand ‘Identity’

A clear awareness of the role one is playing in social media is a reminder to keep your System 1 reactions in check. Part of this identity should include an awareness of the ‘personality’ and expectations of both the organization and the role.

Step 3: Maintain Composure

Developing the skill of composure can enable you to more effectively manage your own responses. To better maintain your composure you might consider the practice of being mindful. Mindfulness involves being in the moment, aware of your surroundings, and able to take in a broader frame of information. One way to counteract the fast thinking WYSIATI is be aware of what is happening inside and outside of yourself and remember that there is more to a situation than what you see.

If you remember the importance of being mindful of your own natural tendencies and remain aware of the identity and expectations of your role you can minimize some of the risks associated with the brave new world of social media networking.

One final tip to consider – Select a word or phrase, for example “be mindful,” that will trigger your System 2 into action and increase your chances of maintaining composure prior to responding to social network engagements.

Tara Orchard, MA., is a Canadian Social Media Networking Consultant, Career Performance Coach, Trainer, and Wikinomics Facilitator. Over the past 18 years she has provided consultation and training to individuals and organizations seeking to gain insights and develop strategies to promote change. She is currently working on a book exploring the psychology of social media networking. The founder and principal consultant at Career-Coach Canada and principal coach and leader of learning at Careeradex LLC, you can connect with Tara on LinkedIn, at Career-coach Canada (career-coach.ca) or follow her on Twitter @careerchatter.