Newly Corporate

As a young professional working for a large corporation, I often talk with my younger colleagues about all the opportunities we are missing in the social media space.  Everyday I see people on Twitter, Facebook and any number of blogs expressing frustration that most of the businesses they interact with aren’t socially-enabled.

Due to a recent project I have been working on, I am realizing the hurdles for big businesses trying to enter the social media realm from the inside.  We all love to blame the internal hoops we have to jump through to try and interact with the outside world through the web but, where do most of those hurdles come from?  Government regulations and social stigmas.  FCC, FDA, Financial regulations, they all pile up between a business and it’s customers freely interacting on the social web.

Without getting into the politics of restrictive government regulations that spur internal hurdles and slow corporate social media adoption, I would like to share some of my initial tips for young professionals trying to get their companies to at least get their feet wet in the world of online customer interaction.

1. Focus On a Small Opportunity.  Find a project or customer touch point with the least amount of sensitivity and government involvement and look for a way to execute it in an online environment.

2. Limit Your Audience.  I know this flies right in the face of what social networking is suppose to be about but, most companies are conservative, they want to make sure something works well before exposing it to the world.  Plus, it will be easier to convince internal gatekeepers to try something with a limited target audience.

3. Build Consensus.  Work with early adopters and tech-savvy employees to explain and flesh out the idea so you aren’t going it alone.

There is no reason even this first attempt can’t be bold and create great benefits, it will.  More importantly though, it will gain the trust, knowledge of regulations and support to increase your companies social media footprint even more.

Have you done something like this for your company as the “resident Gen-Y social media expert”?  Share your experiences in the comments.

Image Credit: matthamm