Social media: For the better or worse?

Social media’s changing how organizations communicate, but whether that’s good or bad news for internal communicators remains in question

It seems as if all anyone in this business wants to talk about these days is social media. At conferences, workshops, in newsletters, on Web sites and blogs, during podcasts … hell, half the “social media” vehicles are dedicated to discussing “social media.” There’s something a little weird and wrong about setting up a blog to talk about how important blogs are … but there you have it. But while there are plenty of days we want to wake up and read a newspaper or open a book—and never even turn the damn computer on—we can’t do that. Because like it or not, the social media phenomenon is changing how organizations—if not the world at large—communicate. But the real question is, is it changing it for the better, or for the worse? And what does this all mean to internal communicators, who have to operate with more rules and restrictions than the cowboys on the Internet?