Anthony Bradley

I just finished publishing a research note set on mobilizing the grassroots with social media initiatives to help our clients gain the benefits of grassroots while mitigating risks.

Enterprises are struggling to capitalize on social media and deliver collaborative solutions with high business value. Because there are so many ways to improve enterprise collaboration (among employees, partners, customers, prospects and so on) and a myriad of available social technologies, the path of least resistance is to simply provide a social technology in the hope that a grassroots effort will take hold and deliver business value. Unfortunately, this approach rarely succeeds. Enterprise IT organizations must determine when a grassroots movement has a high chance of success or when a more top-down approach is required. This involves building a decision model as part of the social media governance program that enables the enterprise (all levels) to understand the nature of the social media purpose in terms of its ability to succeed as a grassroots driven effort or where top-down involvement is required. Done correctly this can empower grassroots social media movements without undue risk. I have assembled the No-Go-Grow decision model to serve this purpose. No is, well, when you say no to a grassroots movement, go is when grassroots success is more probable, and grow is when the enterprise need to get involved (top-down) to nurture the solution. See “Use a Gartner Governance Model to More Safely Empower Grassroots Social Media Efforts” for detail on the No-Go-Grow decision model (available to clients or for a fee).

As part of the “No” analysis enterprises must determine whether social media is actually suitable for the collaboration need. Enterprises looking to capitalize on mass collaboration and the power of the community must understand the nature of community interactions and their affinity for social media. I have identified 18 collaboration scenario characteristics organized in nine-pair endpoints across a spectrum from highly authoritative to highly collective (such as Deep Analysis Versus Broad Observation and Ascertaining Facts Versus Ascertaining Perception). This provides a framework for assessing an enterprise collaboration need according to its affinity for a social media-type solution. This enhances the understanding of the core collaborative challenge, so enterprises can make better decisions on when and how to pursue a social media solution. See “How to Assess the Suitability of Social Media for Enterprise Collaboration Scenarios” for details on the framework (available to clients or for a fee).

Understanding and capitalizing on the grassroots is critical for both bottom-up- and top-down-driven social media efforts. Generally, the enterprise leadership forms a team to lead a top-down social media effort, while members of a potential social-media-based community drive a bottom-up approach. The need for grassroots is obvious for bottom-up success, but many enterprises fail to see the importance of grassroots mobilization in top-down social media solution initiatives. Regardless of how the initiative is driven, the enterprise needs to help activate and guide a grassroots movement. Because the potential is less obvious with a top-down effort, enterprises must take extra care to mobilize a grassroots movement. With a bottom-up approach, enterprises can experience a more natural grassroots movement, while a top-down effort can require proactive behaviors to encourage participation.

I have pulled together 12 key criteria (such as security, seeding, and integration) for assessing any potential social solution initiative’s affinity for grassroots success and how enterprises can use them to capitalize on grassroots mobilization without undue risk. Enterprises can use these criteria to determine if a bottom-up approach can succeed, or where grassroots efforts can support a top-down approach. See “12 Criteria to Assess Grassroots Risk and Potential in Social Media Solutions” for details (available to clients or for a fee).

Do you take a calculated approach to mobilizing the grassroots when you pursue a social media solution?

p.s. this seems like a good place for another survey