How do you cure social media culture shock and be a better participant within the social web? Teach your team the tools they need to communicate and succeed in the confines of a safe internal environment before making them accountable for external engagement. While every culture is ethnocentric, thinking “we do it right,” it’s important for people new to social media to understand that most solutions to the online interaction are neither right nor wrong. Every individual, company and community have their own way of doing things. Immerse your team in the social media culture so they understand not just which tools to employ, but how and when they should be used.

• Internal Community/Portal: Develop goals and objectives specific to your team that will assist your organization in achieving overall process change. Share this roadmap with your department/company. Keep your plan flexible to adjust to lessons learned and mature and adapt to new tools.
• Team/Company Wiki: Learn as much as you can about online culture. Share tribal knowledge, lessons learned and examples with members of your team. Assume “strange” habits in this “strange” social media space are logical. Think of these habits as clever solutions to some of your organization’s communication and customer service problems.
• Instant Message Client: Connect your team with others in your company who are passionate about interacting in social media so they have someone they can confide in and learn from. Be militantly positive. Avoid the temptation to commiserate with the naysayers of your immersion. Don’t joke disapprovingly about a culture you’re trying to understand.
• Collaborative Project Management Software: Get busy! Begin collaborating on shared documents that will spur along social media adaption, such as Engagement Guidelines. Remember that different people find different truths to be “self-evident.” Things work best if we give everybody a little wiggle room.

How is your company fostering social media adaption from the inside-out? Please share your lessons learned and how your organization has adapted social media.