---
title: 13 Warning Signs Your Organization Isn’t Ready for Social Media
description: 13 Warning Signs Your Organization Isn’t Ready for Social Media
---

[Blog | Brainzooming ](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog)

# [13 Warning Signs Your Organization Isn’t Ready for Social Media](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/13-warning-signs-your-organization-isnt-ready-for-social-media)

 Written by [Mike Brown](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/author/mike-brown) | May 25, 2011 9:50:33 AM

This** list of warning signs your organization's culture isn’t ready for social media** isn’t comprehensive, and I’m not offering a model today for organizing these issues or a prescription for solving them. But based on challenges we’re seeing in developing and implementing [social media strategy](https://www.brainzooming.com/social-media-strategy-50-articles-to-rapidly-expand-your-strategic-perspective/5897/) (let alone getting social media to take hold), **seeing any of these <https://www.brainzooming.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/social-media-challenges-ahe-3.jpg>warning signs **(or “red flags” as we call them) in your organization,** indicates you’re in for a struggle to make real, meaningful progress on implementing social media**.** **

**How many **of these **warning signs** sound **familiar in your organization**?

- A **secretive culture **that doesn’t readily share information
- Senior executives [**talking** about **social media in generalities with** great **urgency**](https://www.brainzooming.com/beware-of-morphfiends-%e2%80%93-foes-of-solid-strategy/639/)
- A general f**ear of customers and the power they **potentially **hold **over the brand
- An **overly concentrated business** with relatively few customers
- A **distrust of employees** and the judgment they use
- **Complete confidence in senior managers **and the judgment they use
- [Disconnected customer interaction points](https://www.brainzooming.com/crippling-divisions-in-social-media-strategy/4085/) (in plain English – **customer service has no idea what sales is doing with a customer and vice versa**)
- **Inaccessible (or uninterested, uncooperative, etc.) content owners** (i.e., subject matter experts)
- **Slow **and **unpredictable approval times** for traditional communications materials
- Multiple **layers of approval **for most communications materials
- **Regulatory pressures **which threaten open interactions with customers
- **No one on** the internal **legal team assigned permanently to marketing** who “gets” how marketing is trying to help move the business forward
- The [**internal legal department is a black hole**](https://www.brainzooming.com/legal-departments-can-help-too-much-on-social-media-policy/7467/) where documents go in, but are nearly impossible to get back out

**How did you organization do?**

**If you found** a number of these **warning signs in your business** and you’re trying to get social media incorporated into your organization,** call us**. **We’re using** the strategic **Brainzooming approach in helping organizations successfully deal with all these types of red flags!** – [* **Mike Brown*](https://www.brainzooming.com/about-brainzooming/mike-brown/)

* *

***The ******Brainzooming Group****** helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at *[*brainzooming@gmail.com*](mailto:brainzooming@gmail.com)* or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help your organization make a successful first step into social media.***

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