Adapt or Die: Facing Social Media

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is one of most substantiated theories in science. Organisms change in order to allow themselves to better adapt to their environment and survive, thus passing on survivability to their offspring. I like to look at organizations functioning just like organisms. Everyone has a role and they need to be able to perform their specific part, as well as work together in order for the organization to function as a whole. Therefore, looking at the organization as a functioning organism we can also apply the theory of evolution. Adapt or die. Organizations need to be able to adapt to the changing environment or they will become extinct.

Social media has exploded over the last few years. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (to name a few) is where your customers are! The environment is changing, and it is changing fast! Organizations that do not start changing to survive in this environment will slowly die off because this social media rocket has taken off and it is not slowing down.

You don’t have to like tweeting or going on facebook, but that is where the customers are and you have to create a presence to reach them. Just like an organism, not everyone has to know how to do every single function, but someone has to in order for the entire organism to survive. Whether you take this challenge on yourself or empower your staff to embrace it; creating a social media presence will allow you to connect with your customers where they are. Adaptability is the key to survival.