Source:
Employees Linking Work, Social Media
By Wailin Wong |Tribune Newspapers June 11, 2009
Sun Microsystems exhorts its blogging employees, “Don’t tell secrets.”
IBM advises its workers, “Don’t pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don’t alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.”
And DePaul University says, “Don’t be a mole” by pretending to be someone else.
These guidelines are a sampling of how workplaces are crafting policies on employees’ use of social media platforms such as blogs and networking Web sites. The technology’s tendency to blur personal and professional lines, as well as its ability to quickly spread information or misinformation, has companies grappling with thorny issues that aren’t fully addressed in existing policies on e-mail and general Internet use.
“If I can put up pictures of the kids, I can put up pictures from a meeting,” said Sharlyn Lauby, president of ITM Group, a human resources consulting firm. “If I can talk about a recipe I saw with my sister, I can put up an article about something I saw that’s work-related. … People are talking about you, whether you want them to or not. As a company, you need to think about how you want to be positioned.”
The consequences of what’s deemed bad online behavior can be serious. Last year, a North Carolina school district disciplined several faculty members for Facebook content such as personal photos and comments about students. Wired.com reported Wednesday that an Associated Press staffer in Philadelphia was reprimanded for a Facebook posting that criticized The McClatchy Co., a member of the AP cooperative.
Tagged as:
corporate networking,
Strategy
Written by Social Media Mashup – Rob Murray, via A Good Example of a Bad Facebook Strategy
Expedia
So to start with a fact, Expedia (the web based travel agency) has seen an 87% drop in their profit margin over the last year. This huge loss may be largely attributed to the economic downturn of recent years but could there also be a more intrinsic reason?
Expedia is not famed for its great customer service reputation, and in times of financial hardship this could prove extremely problematic. In times of plenty, holidays are booked as a matter of course. Less a luxury and more a necessity. Expedia has never had to worry a huge deal about customer retention as there was enough demand for new business. With this recent drop in profits though, they may well want to wake up and smell the virtual coffee.
Expedia on Facebook (or not!)
Social media is almost made for a company like Expedia. People like to discuss their holidays, recommend places (or recommend good booking agents). Travellers take photos and post them online. Expedia now owns Trip Adviser, the holiday reviews website and the Trip Advisor brand was an early adopter of Facebook applications with its Google Maps mashup.
How they have ignored Facebook
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expedia,
social media,
Strategy,
Twitter
via
Rolling Out a Social Media Strategy, by Jacob Morgan
So you have you’re social media strategy, now what? If you’re like most organizations then you can’t roll out a social media campaign in a day, or even in a few weeks. So how do you go about rolling out a social media strategy? My recommendation would be to proceed in phases. What I’m outlining below is a very high level approach to rolling a social media strategy. Many of these phases will also have sub-phases. For example, during the content creation phase you may want to start out with something simple such as a blog or twitter account your first month and then in month 2 roll out a youtube channel.
Phase 1 Setting up Your Listening Dashboard/Analytics/etc (Month 1)
Before you get started with anything make sure that you have tools in place to help you track your various key metrics. You can use something like google analytics to measure traffic (among many other things) and something like netvibes to build a listening dashboard (something that will help you keep track of all of the relevant conversations going on in your space). It would be great to have these things set up at least one month before any type of efforts are rolled out so that these tools have time to collect and aggregate data about your site. This will help with creating an accurate benchmark to paint a “before and after” picture.
Tagged as:
social media,
Strategy
Before launching any kind of social media strategy, companies need to first understand that it can be affected by anyone who receives a paycheck from them. From the CEO right down to the janitor, whether they’ve seen your social media strategy or not, they are involved in your social media strategy.
The janitor? Really?
Yes, the janitor! Even the cook, or the person who answers your phones, and the guy who delivers the mail to your office every day, they too can affect your social media strategy in ways you probably haven’t even thought of up until this point.
You haven’t thought of them because they don’t participate in creating the strategy or sitting in on meetings discussing your research. But believe me, they can have a significant effect on the outcome, whether you or they realize it. This is why it’s important to make sure you not only plan contingencies for your corporate social media efforts, but also put in place policies for employees and their actions on social media platforms.
Your employees are now on the web more than ever. Whether is a connection from work, home, the library or even free public wifi, just about anyone can get access to the Internet, and all of the ways to communicate with likeminded individuals who share the same passions that they do. With each passing month that goes by, all of these social media platforms continue to grow their user bases, undoubtedly some of your employees are on them and being very social.
Tagged as:
Employee Engagement,
internal communications,
social media,
Strategy
Social media