The culture of the social media-savvy company is the opposite of the culture of bureaucracy. Bureaucratic companies lose agility, ability to make immediate decisions, become wedded to old customs and routines, and sometime…lose the ability to innovate. (Think: US car companies. GM, anyone?)

Organizations become more bureaucratic as they become more complex, expand geographically, and need more accountability and reporting. A culture of openness throughout the company is often replaced with a culture of secrets and fear. Processes become cemented. Many approvals are necessary to create any new ideas. New ideas are easily dismissed as unnecessary or too risky. For a great example of this, read about “The Incompetence of American Airlines and Fate of Mr. X.” It’s not limited to for-profit institutions, either. I’ve had nonprofit clients with processes just as unwieldy as those described above.

And how do organizations like that implement social media? They “silo” social media to the hands of the very few, do not take risks, do not personalize engagement, are afraid of critique, shut down employee social media initiatives, and cannot add new social media platforms without many layers of approval. Yikes.

Here is a radical idea: It’s not that the company is excessively bureaucratic. It’s that the company won’t change.

If your company is scared of change, scared of transparency, scared of critique, and unwilling to change, its efforts will, in fact, fail. This type of company’s social media efforts will be compressed into the least interesting, least engaging tactics possible. Without ever producing any return on investment. (But you are probably not reading my blog. Maybe your employees are…)

The social media savvy company is agile, creative, willing to take risks, transparent (or at least transparent in its use of social media), interested in customer feedback, eager to listen, and can make rapid decisions when necessary. This sounds a lot like a young company’s culture. doesn’t it? It doesn’t have to be.

I don’t think that only young companies, or hierarchically flat companies, can effectively use social media. Zappos is the common example held up of the large company that embraces social media. Their company culture is young, open, interested in change, and very customer-oriented. Best Buy, the largest US retailer of electronics, beautifully embraced social media in 2009 and is really successful at it. The American Red Cross integrated social media to help them meet their programmatic goals and mission.

You work at one of these institutions. You want to help your company change. The key is a change in corporate culture, along with some shifts in bureaucracy. How?

A few suggestions:

• Start with education.  Offer training to the entire staff about what social media is, why it works, how it can help the company better fulfill its mission.
• Create a social media team that represents many different departments. Make sure it includes real decision-makers on the team.
• Insist that everyone in the company receive reports summarizing online mentions, the social media team’s major activities and goalposts, and its upcoming activities.
• Periodically, hold company-wide trainings about social media.
• Ask that employees be allowed to participate individually. Start small, with members of the core team. Expand.
• Secure a six-month commitment. Nothing long-term – but long-term enough to show that it isn’t scary, or the end of the company. It’s also enough time to show quantifiable results.

What are your suggestions? Have you faced these issues at your organization?