If you were to map out the way your company’s social media connections, what would the map look like?  A bunch of lines going point to point everywhere? A massive spider web?

Many observers see social networking emerging within organizations in an organic, grassroots fashion. That is, Enterprise 2.0 tools, technologies and techniques are springing up or being adopted to augment existing processes and existing culture. Call center representatives suddenly have a new channel to stay connected with the customers they are dealing with. Managers have a new way to broadcast messages out to the field aside from email or phone. Project teams have a new collaboration platform to replace emails with documents attached.

Some observers say organizations tend to lay out their social media strategies in somewhat predictable patterns. Jeremiah Owyang talks about the best ways to organize for social media in a recent post, and observes that companies tend to organize social media in three distinct patterns:

The Tire (Distributed): “Where each business unit or group may create its own social media programs without a centralized approach. We call this approach the ‘tire,’ as it originates at the edges of the company.

The Tower (Centralized): “A standalone group within a company that’s responsible for social media programs, often within corporate marketing or corporate communicaitons.”

The Hub and Spoke (Cross Functional): “Like the hub on a bicycle wheel, a cross-functional group that represents multiple stakeholders across the company assembles in the middle of the organization. The hub facilitates resource sharing and cross-functional communications (via the ’spokes’ in the wheel) to those at the edge of the organization (or the ‘tire’).”

Owyang says that organizations need to strive for the hub-and-spoke model in laying out their social media strategy. Through this model, the enterprise can provide centralized resources that can support business units, yet the business units “still have the freedom and flexibility to dialog with the market –and should be in alignment with what other spokes are doing.”

Interestingly, the hub and spoke is what always has been proposed or the most well-functioning information technology and network infrastructure. Same reason — there are centralized resources, as well as a form of governance that helps maintain consistency across the autonomous business units.