Share This Too: More Social Media Solutions for PR Professionals

Chapter 28

How to Change Organizational Mindset

Gemma Griffiths

This chapter looks at how to make a case for social media to C-level executives. It also examines ways to create and execute a change management programme that will influence employees to ensure that they are fully on-board an organization's social media train.

It is no secret that social media has fundamentally changed the way businesses operate. For some the integration has been easy; for others it has been a struggle.

As those who have successfully adopted social media will know, to get a workforce interested and active in social media, organizations must do a lot more than create a social media policy and run ad hoc training sessions on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Organizations must change mindsets and will often have to adapt the existing company culture to be more open, transparent and flexible. This requires an effective and extensive change management programme.

Change management and transformation processes used to be a discipline for people implementing change at large-scale corporate companies. Now it is fast becoming a skill public relations professionals need to effectively get a team, department or an entire organization to embrace social media.

Using change management principles to increase social media adoption

The basic premise of change management is to influence people to alter their behaviour – a practice familiar to most public relations professionals – and adopt new practices, tools and ways ...