Social media is an essential tool for CIOs looking to develop swift, nimble IT organizations in a rapidly changing online landscape. What was once a virtual playground is now an instrument integral to business and career growth.
A social media presence can humanize a business and often advances the aims of the IT organization in a very public sphere. Whether it's sharing a link on Facebook, maintaining a running Twitter stream or monitoring an open-dialogue forum on LinkedIn, CIOs are reaping the benefits of social media for IT and business. With strong social media guidelines and strategies in mind, midmarket CIOs should take the opportunity to experiment with different platforms available to businesses and consumers alike.
This social media guide for the midmarket CIO is part of SearchCIO-Midmarket.com's Midmarket CIO Briefings series, which is designed to give IT leaders strategic management and decision-making advice on timely topics.
Table of contents:
Social media guidelines and best practices for CIOs
"Social media began as a technology project and has taken on a life of its own. CIOs such as yourself have an intense interest in both understanding and using social media best practices to leverage the power of the technology," writes contributor Jonathan Hassell. "Alas, the technology is consumerization of IT at its finest: Consumers and non-technology enthusiasts have taken to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr and the like -- and they all have different social media roles. The social media revolution is much different from other tech waves CIOs have experienced.
"How can you, as a CIO, find your sweet spot in the organization? How can you leverage your company's various teams and power players to explore social media and its potential?" Hassell asks. "There are three important lessons for CIOs to learn when it comes to social media best practices and use in the business setting. Let's look further at some tricks to using social media for businesses."
Read more from Jonathan Hassell about social media best practices for IT and the business.
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Social media guidelines for navigating business and career growth
"If you're a CIO and you're not using social media for business, you're doing yourself a serious career disservice," writes former CIO Scott Lowe. "While some still see social media as an outlet for narcissistic people to share their breakfast habits, the secret is all in how you use social media tools in business.
"It's important to note that today's social media arsenal includes tools that may not be considered particularly social outside the corporate walls (i.e., Yammer). These kinds of internal corporate media initiatives can have as great an impact on the organization as more traditional social networking outlets, such as Twitter," Lowe writes.
Read Lowe's full tip about social media guidelines for CIOs.
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Social media guidelines, strategies and faux pas
Just a few years ago, skepticism abounded over the place of enterprise social media. Sure it made sense to communicate with customers via social media, but what place did this sort of technology have inside the business? Today, one would be hard-pressed to find a business not providing a social networking platform, be it Yammer, Jive, offerings from Microsoft or IBM, or some type of homespun intranet.
The question now is how well these offerings serve the purposes of collaboration and business transparency. Deloitte's recent survey on corporate culture suggests executives and employees are of distinctly differing opinions. For example, in the survey of 1,000 workers and 300 executives at U.S. companies, 45% of executives said social media has a positive impact on their workplace culture, while only 27% of employees agreed.
Learn more in this special report on using social media properly.
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The emergence of new and improved social media channels and platforms is shaping the online atmosphere for IT and the business. Social media today can be tremendously helpful to CIOs looking to reach various constituencies both inside and outside their organization. As such, CIOs need to adapt to and embrace these changes, because social media today is defining all the dynamics of tomorrow.
Do you think you know all there is to know about social media in the business? Test your knowledge by reviewing some of our recent coverage and answering the questions below.