Four steps to maximize the effect of social media

So says Dux Raymond Sy, author of “SharePoint for Project Management” and managing partner at Innovative-e, a company that works with Microsoft to help clients learn to use SharePoint more effectively.

“Social is very powerful, but just like anything else, with great power comes great responsibility,” he told an audience at Ragan Communications’ Employee Communications, PR, and Social Media Summit at Microsoft headquarters.

People are doing more with less. More and more they’re using their own devices, including smartphones. The speed of business is accelerating rapidly, and engagement is more important than ever.

“Communication is not just transactional,” Sy said.

However, that doesn’t mean you can go into social media without a strategy. For example, Sy talked about a presentation he’d given to military officials in which he mentioned the content-ranking feature in SharePoint. A colonel told him that feature wouldn’t fly in the military, because everyone would simply give every post from a commanding officer five stars.

“You don’t just use anything you can because it’s cool or is a bright shiny object,” he said. “It has to be relevant to your culture.”