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Safe and Wise Corporate Use of Social Media

Written by: suzanne rodriguez 546 views

Corporate and personal brands are easily destroyed by the lightning-fast way that information zips through the Clouds. Just look at what’s been happening to Tiger Woods recently: there was nothing even remotely gradual about the descent of this previously unassailable icon. Or consider the great Domino’s Pizza fiasco from this past spring, when some minimum-wage employees videotaped themselves doing a few rather unappetizing things in the kitchen. When the video went viral,  creating a firestorm of media coverage, these low-level employees had caused damage to Domino’s reputation estimated to be well into the millions.

Smaller Internet firestorms can be brand-destructive, too. Take the east coast advertising exec who traveled to a client’s Midwestern city and tweeted his disdain to colleagues: “I’d rather die than live here.” The client saw the Tweet (yes, they do know about tweeting in Ohio and Iowa) and nearly cancelled the contract.

It’s for reasons like this that findings in a recent study by Russell Herder/Ethos Business Law should come as no surprise. While eight out of 10 senior executives surveyed believe that social media can enhance customer relationships and build brand reputation, 51% nonetheless feared the potential negative impact of social media on employee productivity, and 49% worried that it could damage the company’s reputation. Executives from companies who use no social media stated two main reasons to explain why (after the No. 1 reason, ignorance about social media): security issues (40%) and concerns about the damage to employee productivity (37%).

(An aside: of those executives who believe that social media can be valuable, Facebook is the most-used vehicle, followed by Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others.)

Despite the potential risks, companies are losing a tremendous competitive advantage by ignoring social media.  So what to do? Many companies–40% of those surveyed, in fact– technically block employees from accessing social media while at work. However, such a method has a tendency to create resentment among employees…and where there’s resentment, mischief, or worse, easily rears its head. What’s needed, Russell Herder believes, is for companies to draw up a carefully-considered, strategic plan for the wise use of social media:. However, only one in three businesses surveyed had a policy in place to govern social media use. Says Russell Herder:

“Instead of ignoring the need for responsible guidelines, organizations of all sizes should begin to define their strategy regarding social media, and most importantly, the rules for employee engagement…The rules for creating and implementing a social media policy are not universal. They must take the form, substance, philosophy, and culture of the organization to which they apply.”

Russell Herder cites 10 important elements to include in a good social media policy, spelling out:

1. An effective overall philosophy.
2. A requirement that employees be open, honest, respectful and transparent in their usage of social media.
3. Rules for reinforcing the company’s confidentiality and proprietary information policies, making them applicable to the social media environment.
4. The rules for differentiating between an employee’s personal and business online identities.
5. Job performance vs. company time.
6. How to avoid conflicts of interest.
7. Use of Disclaimers regarding employee views.
8. What policies the company uses to monitor employee social media usage
9. How the policy is applied across employee groups
10. Any other company policies that might impact, or be impacted by, social media usage.

Social Media is here to stay, or so it seems. If your company is missing out on a potentially good thing by ignoring this transformational form of communication, maybe it’s time to put an intelligent social media policy in place and move into the future.

For more details on all ten points, Download a PDF with highlights of the Russell Herder study

The Russell Herder/Ethos survey discussed here involved 438 randomly-selected management, marketing, and human resources execs within companies across the U. S. It has a statistical reliability of +/-4.8%, with a 95% confidence level.

© Suzanne Rodriguez

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