Time to let your staff use social media at work?
It’s a license for staff to waste time. There’s no control about what they say. What happens if a customer makes contact with them direct? Today’s arguments against allowing your staff to use social media at work? Actually they were pretty much the arguments used by companies to restrict email use in the mid 1990s.
That’s worth bearing in mind as the social media in the office debate rages.
Today it’s received wisdom that email is an essential business tool, and so it will be with social media before too long.
Especially with metrics firm Nielsen showing that in February, communication via social networks overtook communication via email. And from personal experience, I can now think of several instances of clients messaging me direct on Twitter as opposed to pinging me an email.
However just like with 90s email, the first stage of workplace social media acceptability is to publish dos and don’ts guidelines about what’s allowed. Even though a recent survey by Monster showed that 90% of workers are afraid of using Twitter for fear of getting in trouble, a number of firms have done just that.
As with all internal guidelines this ranges from the simple to the ones filled with corporate speak.
For example, Opera, the makers of the Internet browser of the same name, published a series of eight easy to understand rules: Share your thoughts, be active, “we’re not your mama”, don’t give away the farm, check your sources, our friends are your friends, for the squeamish post a disclaimer and use your common sense.
Australian telecoms giant Telstra publicly released guidelines revolving around the ‘three Rs’ – responsibility, respect and representation. And at the far end of the scale, Canadian broadcaster CBC published criteria that they backtracked on after it caused a fuss, saying that personal blogs couldn’t be used to espouse a partisan political opinion.
The bottom line is though social media isn’t going to go away, it’s part and parcel of today’s Internet environment and it’s what graduates in particular who join your organisations see as second nature.
As with so much of social media, you can either set out the parameters of your involvement now. Or stick your head in the sand and wait until it comes to you, when you are forced to react to it.
All Comments
Hi Dirk,
This story is really topical for me because the reason for my profile on brand republic, (which I made today), is because my Boss told me to. His view is that it’s a great way to quietly promote the company whilst keeping employees up to date with the Marketing world. This knowledge can only prove to be beneficial in talking confidently in front of clients.
I guess as the employee, it’s my job to make sure I check myself when blogging under the company name, as while Visual Philosophy isn’t directly responsible for anything untoward I might say (!!), you have to bear in mind that you are representing your employer at all times. It’s tricky though, and certainly something that I’m new to!
Amy
Cool