How should employees use social media?
A recent social media poll found that 54% of business completely prohibit their employees from accessing social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter at work.
Here at ClickWriters, a division of Cre8ive Wisdom, we utilise social media for a living (so we can’t and wouldn’t prohibit employees from accessing social media websites), so we do understand the arguments that support both sides of this debate.
US-based business guru Warren Buffett famously pointed out the main reason against… He said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”. Putting your brand in the hands of every employee within the greatest open forum in history can be a huge risk, but having your brand perceived as a ‘Big Brother’ organisation or old-fashioned by preventing social media interaction can also be damaging.
It would seem that the safest route is to ’say no’ or to impose extremely strict social media policies on staff, that severely limit interactions and engagement.
We are helping our client organisations to see the benefits of embracing social media platforms and in trusting their staff to be responsible online, rather than enforcing very strict guidelines on people. However, brand-related guidelines and a straightforward external communications policy, linked to contracts of employment, are certainly routes that we are exploring and developing with clients at the moment.
By working to established and agreed guidelines on content, terms and ’social time online’, we are developing an open, self-regulatory approach, which is already having fantastic results with employees and employers alike.
To embrace social media in your organisation, call us on 0845 094 9948 or email info@cre8ivewisdom.com