Alan Rosenblatt, Internet Advocacy Center

True leadership can sometimes feel like a balancing act that requires the all the skill of a tightrope walker. One of the many lines to walk is weighing the need to act boldly and take advantage of new opportunities with the imperative to be a responsible steward of your organization’s resources. This can be especially hard when making decisions about resource-intensive technology projects.

Many nonprofit leaders are currently trying to find the right balance when it comes to social networking. If you jump into social networking without a clear sense of the benefits (and who has a clear sense at this point?) are you boldly leading your organization into the future? Or needlessly wasting staff time and money that could be put to better uses? If, after dipping a toe into online networking, you pull those resources back, are you wisely cutting your losses? Or throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

With the flare up over the Barack Obama MySpace community takeover by the campaign from a volunteer, many non-profits that are just getting or about to get their feet wet in the online social network pool might be having second thoughts.

Fight those thoughts back. Try to imagine what would have happened if people decided Howard Dean’s loss justified not using the internet as a campaign tool after 2004 just because he lost. Take a deep breath and consider this.

First, and foremost, recognize that social networks are primarily a place where individuals go to create their own personal networks. These networks may be purely social, but in some cases they will be directed by the individual to become a platform for social or political change. These individuals may adopt the issue agenda of your organization, they may become your greatest champions or critics. Simply put, they are not under your control.

This is a good thing because individuals who become self-motivated activists will be among your most loyal supporters. They will internalize their personal stakes in your policy goals. They will become evangelists and initiate action that is truly grassroots and, thus, potentially very powerful. If your goal is to see concerns for your issues become part of the lifestyles and culture of the people, you can ask for no better way to make this happen.

But if you want to have an “official” presence in a social network, then you have to create your own organizatonal profile and manage it in-house. This will give you some control over the outgoing messages disseminated from your profile. You can invite the unofficial activists to join your network, and you should. And you should join and participate in other networks as well.

The key is to use these communities to create vast networks, comprised of smaller linked networks, of people who care about your issue. But regardless of what you do, you will never, ever be able to control your message beyond putting it out there. This is the second key lesson: social networks are a chaotic message environment. Thus strategies that seek to tightly control the message will fail. There is no way around this. And the tighter you try to control your message, the greater the potential pushback.

Rather, adopt a strategy for managing your message in a chaotic environment. It is important to keep some distance between your organization and your network champions and supporters. Embrace them as outside supporters. Help them with inside information. Celebrate them when they help you and give them latitude when they drift away from your primary message. But do not bring them inside unless they have a well spelled out contract with you regarding their duties and expectations.

Remember, social networks are inherently organic and thus they must be cultivated. Marching orders are for armies. Social networks are not armies, they are open communities. They are the people who you wish to embrace, not troops you send into battle to fight for your cause.

If you approach your social network strategy with patience and a realization that you are virtually stepping into the town commons, you will reap rewards. You will be able to disseminate your message, recruit supporters, and keep your finger on the pulse of the voters (at least the voters in that community).

If you enter with unrealistic expectations, you will be disappointed, probably give up too soon, and alienate supporters in the process. As I often tell people who ask if there is any proof that the social networking strategies work, “Not yet, at least not systematic evidence. But then again, there was no systematic evidence that television worked for the first 15-20 years of its life, either.”