I’m fascinated with social media, so I was excited beyond belief when my supervisor at my summer internship with the National Coalition on Health Care suggested that I oversee the Coalition’s first-ever social media strategy. For the coming months, it would be my responsibility to use social media for work: mission accomplished.
I quickly learned, however, that explaining the importance and use of social media to my colleagues was easier said than done. Most of them have extensive political and public policy experience and were/are intimidated by the openness of social media (I’ve managed to convince a few of them that it is not pure evil).
Frustrated with my slow progress, I was eager to attend an “Online Community Roundtable” event hosted by Forum One Communications. The goal of Forum One’s roundtable events is to discuss social media strategy and community management among professionals in the non-profit industry. I was looking forward to discussing social media with people who actually “get it.”
At the roundtable, we exchanged thoughts and ideas on how to best reach key audiences, our general annoyance with social media “metrics,” the best social media blogs to read and more.
But I left with more than just the answers to my questions; I left with a sort of “social media revelation”: the future of social media is undoubtedly bright, but it’s still cloudy. It is still so new, so revolutionary that it can go in any direction we want it to. We can (and already have) use it for good or for evil, develop countless applications and devote jobs just to Twitter. Social media is allowing us to explore our creative side, and it is pushing new media forward.
So before you look to the next self-proclaimed social media experts and pundits for an answer, remember that it is okay to be unsure. We’re all playing this guessing game together.
