I attended the #140conf in LA in late October as well as sat on a panel about the future of communications. A subject touched upon in a few sessions was enterprise concerns over allowing wider social networking use by their employees. Are these concerns founded? Are there solutions to ease these concerns?
There are some enterprise uses that appear to be generally accepted and businesses are wrestling with how to do and measure it successfully. These include;
1) Customer Service - watch for & serve/resolve customer complaints showing up in social network streams much more proactively and real time. The linkage to the enterprise contact center can and should be strong to make the social media stream just like any other stream (voice, email, web) input into the contact center and to the service agents
2) Brand monitoring & promotion - providing product information, enhancement ideas, and proactively getting reactions to your products, suggestions, feedback, comparisons to your competition
3) Marketing/Promotion - clearly social media is another channel to reach the eyes of the potential consumer. More and more businesses are looking at social media for this purpose.
If you search there are plenty of blog posts with success examples, social media ROI discussions, the cost of not listening, and providing tips for sucess. One recent example I saw is Avaya. There are several more. Monitor Twitter using Tweedeck searching for "social media" and you'll soon see the many studies and examples I refer to. Using social networks strictly for marketing, promotion, and customer service implies use by a limited number of the enterprise employees - contact center/service, marketing, possibly some sales order taking being the most likely.
What about broader employee use of social networks?
Enterprises are struggling with the if and how of allowing and supporting social network use widely within their employee population. There is certainly some risk and learning around using these new technologies. Is your enterprise having this debate?
The most common arguments against enterprise use of social networks are listed below. I don't imply any priority order to these concerns.
1) Productivity - does it benefit the Enterprise or not?
Con: Employees will waste time on social networks and lose productivity for my business. It's true that you could describe social networking as the biggest water cooler room in the world. However, I contend that if an employee tends to be unproductive, they'll do so with or without social networking access. I agree there could be an increased temptation to use the networks improperly but I have some suggestions for that in a later post.
Argument For: Knowledge Worker Information Gathering - Employees can use the power of social networking productively. For example, they can search for information and what's being said about potential products, suppliers, technology trends, or consultants your business is considering using. They can use the network to reach out for advice or suggestions from friends, past colleagues in their area of expertise, or new experts they find on the networks. In today's world of multi-modal communication it's pretty likely that networks like LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter, Facebook etc. are where they are and the most real-time accessible means to reach them. In addition, isn't this just another form of "Googling It"? Is Google search discouraged in your enterprise too?
2) Security of Company Information
Con: Employees will purposely or accidentally divulge company Intellectual Property (IP), product plans or internal issues on the social networks. Of course, when they do, the audience will be far wider.
Con: Company liability for claims and comments made by employees about other companies or products, reviews, perceived or real "endorsements". Again, the reach is far and wide when it does happen.
Con: Airing dirty laundry. Concern over negative comments about products, the organization, management in such a widely viewed public forum.
Argument For: Most companies have a code of conduct or something similar. Enforce it upon the discovery of such behavior on the social networks just like it you'd enforce it in other situations where such behavior is detected. Denying employees access or discouraging use at work is not the answer. The employees are going to be on the social networks in any case. You can't control that. If they are not allowed access from work, they'll access later from home and have the same opportunity to "misbehave". Doesn't it come down to ground rules and enforcement of what won't be tolerated? Trust, but monitor your employees to do so. The emergence of social networking communication really doesn't change this. I agree the exposure to the misbehavior is much higher but that exposure is there with or without enterprise support of social media use.
In summary:
1) The social networks and real-time communication are here to stay and will continue to evolve
2) With or without the support of the enterprise, your employees are using them
3) The enterprise can gain by embracing rather than discouraging use. Discouraging use doesn't substantially reduce the risks
4) Most important - Create guidelines, publicize and train your employees on them. Be clear on monitoring and consequences of improper behavior. This last point appears to be the most essential. The use of the networks is inevitable so the best defense is clear guidelines and training.
What's the view of your enterprise? Additional comments and suggestions welcome!
Related Posts:
Communication Revolution Part 1 - Information Overload
Communication Revolution Part 2 - Social Behavior Impacts
Link to - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1
