Social Media At Work

Last week I attended the annual meeting of the Direct Marketer’s Association.  The topic of social media and marketing is a hot topic for everyone.  I was also privileged to hear Martha Steward who told the story of her life (except for one notable two year period that was edited out!) and the story of her company’s success.  She was very high on the contribution of their on-line social media efforts to their success.  She even described a wildly popular blog site that is “written” by two of her dogs. 

 She also commented on the pending challenge of increasingly policies against accessing social media at work.  Much of her traffic comes from employees who access her content while on their job.  She correctly understands that employers will seek to block this access as they understand the threat to worker productivity.  The adage applies, “One man’s loss is another man’s victory.”  Someone will have to evolve this axiom to reflect the age of social media, “One company’s marketing is another company’s distracted employee.”

 Employers have already begun to take action to stem the loss of their employees’ attention.  A recent study by Robert Half Technologies showed that 54% of CIOs have taken steps to prohibit the use of casual social media at their companies. 

 “Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, which may be why about one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes.”

 This finding is consistent with my own experience in working with companies regarding their social media needs and requirements, the number one pushback is consistently three-fold:

1. Social media investments need to provide a payback to the company.
2. These technologies must be controlled to limit the distracting factor
3. Policies and procedures must prevent employees and other stakeholders from making damaging comments

The unique challenge that we face with regards to social media is the intermixing between legitimate business use and personal or social use.  Much like in our real life, the boundaries between work and play are increasingly blurred.  We all use PDAs to read e-mails while we are away from the office (something that our managers heartily endorse) and now personal interests are seeping into our day at the office (something that causes a lot more concern). 

Here are my thoughts of how to approach this tough issue:

• Expect personal responsibility.  You cannot legislate away all distractions.  Ultimately you will depend on the maturity of individuals to leverage these capabilities.  You should communicate that point loud and clear.
• Establish a framework for employees to follow.  This will vary widely by organization.  If you have a strategy that is backed up by clear policies, it will be a lot easier for personal responsibility to take hold.
• Define the benefits.  Ultimately the organization must benefit from allowing employees to engage with social media.  The benefits should be identified and everyone should know what they have to do to achieve the expected outcomes.
• Work with your IT organization.  Over and above issues of personal productivity, your IT function will have legitimate concerns about privacy, security, and bandwidth that will push them to more restrictive use of these capabilities.

 Everyone can benefit from increased access to social media.  Everyone has the potential to learn from an incredible pool of information that was previously out of reach or very expensive to acquire.  It is worth a clear investment of time and energy to avoid major concerns about distraction and productivity.