1. ‘Social Readiness’:
Preparing your organisation for a more
SOCIAL life
Dr. Valerie Purchase
School of Communication
@ValeriePurchase

2. Many organisations create Facebook pages,
Twitter or Pinterest accounts but fail to consider
preparing their organisation for increased social
attention and involvement

4. Why into the unknown? What’s
different?
§ Fragmented and messy
§ Culture is different
§ Organisations are the ‘uninvited
guests’
§ Huge potential for positive involvement

5. How can an organisation be prepared?
§ Be strategic – know why you are embarking on a
social journey
§ Be ready offline – resources; guidelines and
procedures for responding
§ Be ready to change
both incrementally and perhaps fundamentally

6. Be strategic
§ Some organisations just tack a
Facebook page onto their existing
business’
Rules For the Social Era by Nilofer Merchant
• You need a clear situational
analysis, measurable objectives, a
strategy to achieve your objectives
and more detailed and regular
campaigns and actions
• Share your strategy

7. How can an organisation be prepared?
§ Have a strategy
§ Be ready offline – resources; guidelines and
procedures for responding
§ Be ready to change
both incrementally and perhaps fundamentally

8. Being ‘social’ requires resources
§ 95% of Facebook Wall Posts Not Answered By Brands
§ How many people are there in your social media team?

10. ‘Social media crises are on rise,
yet many can be avoided
through preparation’
- Need a social media policy
and response plan
Social Business Readiness:
How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally

11. Do you really need a policy?
‘We don’t have a clothing policy but no-one comes
to work naked’
‘it’s just common sense’

13. Creating a Safe Space - Social Media
Policies Directory
§ Employees and managers need some basic guidelines on
what is and isn’t allowed.
Why social technologies are important, and go on to provide
detail on what employees should and should not do when
engaging in digital media communication

14. * ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers

15. How can an organisation be prepared?
§ Be strategic
§ Be ready offline to be online
§ Be ready to change
both incrementally and perhaps fundamentally

16. Incremental change

17. Perhaps even fundamentally change?
Emanuele Quintarelli
Value co-
Isolated
Inside -out Permeable
creation

18. Fundamental change -Threadless T-shirts
Michael Parent, Kirk Plangger, Anjali Bal (2011)The new WTP: Willingness to participate. Business Horizons (2011) 54, 219—229

19. Building social readiness - American Red Cross – (Li, 2010)
§ Hurricane Katrina - Why wasn’t the country
better prepared? Why were citizens of the
richest country in the world abandoned for
days?
§ Red Cross were facing criticism, reputation
threatened by blogs, discussion boards,
social networking sites
§ 2006 Hired Wendy Harman – ‘make it
stop’
§ January 2010 Haiti Earthquake
§ Rapid volunteer response and raised
$10m in just 3 days

20. § But be ready …
Are we strategic in our adoption of
social media?
How ready are our organisations in
terms of resources; guidelines;
skills?
Are we really ready to change?