Thinking about social media? What is the first question to ask?

As the B2B world wades or dives into the deep end of the social media pool I am reminded of a meeting with a new client several years ago. The subject of the meeting was the development of an integrated marketing communications program, their very first. There was a robust discussion about benefits of doing a plan, what competitors were doing and how such a program would get planned and implemented. The conversation was brought to an abrupt halt when a senior manager made the following statement: “this is all fine and good but none of it means anything until this company decides it wants to talk about itself, the culture of this company is that we don’t talk about ourselves.”

Like most of us, I have been reading everything I can about this fast moving communications platform. I have especially paid a lot of attention to those items that are discussing the question; Is your company ready for social media? I have yet to see an audit question that addresses the issue that this senior manager posed.  It seems to me that the initial question an organization asks should be -- Is our company culture one that likes to talk about itself?

If you have a social media program going: Did you ask this question? Did anyone in your company? What was the response? Do you wish you had?