Most Jamaicans would consider that we are above all trend-setters – leaders in all things good, bad and ugly. Overall our approach to life and work (when we can afford to) has been generally along the lines of ‘if-a-egg-we-inna-de-red’.

When it comes to our business practices and management though we are more staid and conservative — sticking very closely to the blue-print of command and control. Every bit of corporate communication will therefore drop sanitised from the executive office of God 2.0 like manna from above but definitely not as nourishing to the body or soul.

Management by and large has a great fear of ceding control of the means of communications. In the workplace he who controls the information usually has great power. Have you ever noticed the swagger on some CEOs and management higher ups — who are in the know? Memos are dispatched with finality from the ‘top dog’ and most announcements come from him or her. There are employees who would kill (some do) to be near the seat of this fount of control. Others prefer to create their own ‘knowledge-base’ which the rest of us call, quite rightly, gossip, lies and rumour.

Which leads us to the phenomenon of social media and why some companies’ management seem to be afraid of using it. Not wanting to slap an ‘all-you-can-eat’ label on the technological buffet that is social media, I prefer to describe it as participative media that uses web-based technologies or social soft-ware. A few year ago David Teten defined social soft-ware as “web sites and software tools which allow you to discover, extend, manage, enable communication in, and/or leverage your social network.” He included blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, relationship capital management software, contact management software, and others.

Social media is a free space that allows people to talk across social and other artificial boundaries – including those of job title. It does not exist as a result of information being fed from the top and trickled down to us peons below. It is not a medium over which any management team or Executive committee has any control. Social media is a wide open space in which everyone can participate and for businesses this is a new ball game. In the same breath, just as how the mini-skirt might not be the best fit for women, nor Speedos for all men, let’s make it clear, not all aspects of social media is relevant, useful or profitable for every businesses. For sure most retail businesses stand to benefit from using social media as a way of staying in immediate touch with their customers. You can, for example solicit new product ideas from a FaceBook fan base or send out new information and get quick feedback from your Twitter followers.

Many businesses here and abroad are social media shy. They say hurtful things about its usefulness in part because of their fear of losing control of the reins on their brands. Further they seem to prefer to not know what people are saying about their brands – where ignorance is bliss – ‘ tis folly to be wise, they think.

I love to talk with people who are passionate about their subject. Ingrid Riley is a social media guru and speaks feelingly about her love. “Some businesses are afraid of it because they feel as if they will lose control of their brand, they are used to the old traditional media which does not have the immediacy of the feedback that happens in the space of social media”, she says. Ingrid is an advocate because she feels that it is a medium around which companies can engage their customers, build a community around their brand and share information. Island Grill and Flow are two of the Jamaican companies who seemed to have embraced and positively used social media as a proactive part of their communications strategy. Even if the feedback is not what you would like it to be because there will always be your chronic complainers, narcissistic attention-seekers, your wiseacres and those who never met an evil thought they did not like to share. But at least you will know that they are there and find effective ways of dealing with them – which does not always entail giving them free-stuff.

Companies should be careful before they jump into the social media sea because just like any wide body of water, you need to know its depths and the sharks that might lurk beneath. Don’t jump in a set up a FaceBook page or start Twittering as if your life depended on it before you do your research. For example, Ingrid cautions that companies go on line and see and hear conversations about their brands. Do your customers really like you or are they just waiting around for a company with a better product/customer service to replace you? The news after you do your research might be hard to take and you might need a good strong drink to make it go down easy and some even stiffer tonic to share it with management. But now is not the time to be a wimp – man up and do the research. Social media is not going to go away – it might never replace the traditional means we use but it can be used to bolster their usefulness.

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with ROCommunications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.