Responses

• Posted by uberVU - social comments on January 8th, 2010 at 10:54 am
  

  Social comments and analytics for this post…

  This post was mentioned on Twitter by smartbriefjobs: RT @SBoSM: Why your boss should let you use Facebook at work http://ow.ly/UgUA (54% of companies still don’t!)…

• Posted by Robby Slaughter on January 8th, 2010 at 10:55 am
  

  There is good evidence that Facebook helps to increase productivity.

  Ultimately, treating your employees like children is going to reduce their desire to work. A Netflix executive once said something like: “Just because we don’t have an explicit policy requiring that people wear clothes doesn’t mean we have a problem with employees running around naked.”

• Posted by rightwords on January 8th, 2010 at 11:36 am
  

  Most of the people I know use facebook to keep up with friends–not conduct business. It’s entertainment, and if you can’t justify the having television, movies or video games in your place of business, chances are you can’t justify social media.

  I’ve been in the work world for more than 30 years, and while completing banning personal phone calls and emails at the office is a bad idea, I’ve seen far too many employees abuse those privileges, so it’s no surprise that businesess want to tread carefully. And they should tread carefully– there is a substantial set of people who live by the”least amount of effort for the paycheck” mantra, and social media is a risk–one more way to waste time at the office.

  That being said, if you can prove a business need for facebook/twitter, you should have it, if you can’t, then you don’t need one more distraction from the job you’re being paid to do. Like so many trends, standards and best practices, social media access needs to be applied on a case-by-case basis.

• Posted by Jen Travis on January 8th, 2010 at 11:38 am
  

  Customers bond with brands through experiences. Employees are key to great customer experiences and are central to building a social brand–a brand that allows its customers, fans, employees and others to define it, share it and build it.

• 

  Posted by Jesse Stanchak on January 8th, 2010 at 11:53 am
  

  RW– I’ll certainly agree there are lazy people out there who would love to waste company time on Facebook. But my thinking is, if the management of a company is even halfway competent, it’s not going to take long to figure out who the abusers are and get rid of them. Fire your lazy employees. Please. There are plenty of folks out there who want that job.

  But I think building a company policy around suspicion or the supposition that most workers are lazy and need to be closely watched is a bad idea. You’ll never get the best possible work out of your people by treating them like peons. Especially when, as Robby notes, there’s evidence to suggest that the thing you’re worried about actually helps them work better.

• Posted by Efrem Burk on January 8th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
  

  “Whenever you open your mouth (or your browser) you’ve got a chance to help improve your company’s image.”

  …or trash it … perhaps unintentionally.

  The marketing department of the government agency I work for has been dabbling with social media for about six months. The effort is being driven by young twenty-somethings whose experience with social media has been strictly social — keeping up with friends, making new friends, sharing information that friends might care about but nobody else would. They seem to have no awareness of who their audience is or what purpose their social media efforts are supposed to accomplish.

  Worst of all from a public relations point of view, they can’t write. Their potential audience is not all twenty-somethings that might tolerate, slang, misspellings or just plain bad grammer. The impression created is that the agency is unprofessional, doesn’t pay attention to detail and doesn’t exercise sufficient supervision of its employees.

  These kid’s older supervisors don’t understand social media, but they don’t want to appear like they’re not with it or be accussed of being over the hill — so they tolerate the lack of focus and discipline. This intimidation by social media also prevents these older supervisors from seeing — or acknowledging — that their young charges do not understand how to use social media appropriately in the workplace.

  It’s the band wagon effect run wild. Everybody thinks they have to have it to keep up, without considering where it’s going.

  True Believers, don’t write these comments off as mere ill-tempered bashing by an old curmudgeon. Social media can be used very creatively by organizations that have a clear idea of who their audience is and what their goals are — and who restrict use within the organisation to those of sound judgement with good writing skills.

  Many social media advocates would find that attitude very undemocratic. They’d be right.

  Food for thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

• Posted by Steven M on January 8th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
  

  I’m 26, been in the workplace for 4 years now and remain a user of the social media sites (Facebook) since a year before I graduated from college (when Facebook required to have a .edu email address).

  I see nothing positive that can result from employee’s wasting time on social media sites. I said “wasting time” so if one can show legitimate use (sales leads) of social media, OR if one wants to take a break, fine. Remember if you’re surfing at work, you’re on company badwidth, and restricting or allowing should be left to the discretion of the company.

  Parallel it to smokers. They generally smoke 3, maybe 4 cigarettes a day. That’s 3 or 4 ten minute breaks every day. Why not allow nonsmoking employees to surf around social media for a few minutes a day? That’s OK, I think, if the company allows it.

  Otherwise, lay off personal business with company business. “Don’t sh*t where you eat” is my favorite saying.

  I see both sides of this argument, but I side with the company. You are at work. You work for the company. Wasting time costs money.

  And bandwidth costs money, too. In this economy, commenting on your friend’s weekend recap status is a firable offense.

• Posted by Miguel on January 8th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
  

  It is an interesting question… I think there are ultimately three factors that play a role in whether a business should or shouldn’t allow social media. First and foremost, purpose. Yeah, there are tons of social media and collaborative technologies, but many of those technologies can and should be applied for internal use. External applications will vary depending on how each tool is being used.

  Second, the role of an individual within a company should also influence who does and doesn’t use certain social media channels representing a company. I don’t think business should say no across the board. If an employee wants to use SM for personal reason, then business have no right or say. Only when the channels are being used to represent an entity professionally.

  Third, business culture will often determine if an entity should allow social media access to employees and when. But there are some businesses and professionals that shouldn’t. Do we really want the agents from the FBI and CIA tweeting? Probably not a good idea for national and personal security reasons. Should a surgeon be tweeting or FBing during a procedure? Umm.. no. Teaching lessons to med students is another matter though. Should an NFL player be tweeting during a game? Umm.. no. After a game no problem. So, professional associations should develop social media usage parameters based on profession – the does and don’ts.

  Just my take..

• Posted by Eduardo on January 8th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
  

  I have found LinkedIn to be very valuable for work. It is a perfect tool for finding talent and exchanging experiences. Facebook and Twitter can be great tools for promoting new products. For social networking inside the enterprise, packages like jouzz.com are starting to gain momentum.

• Posted by Andrew McFarland on January 9th, 2010 at 7:34 am
  

  Companies want their employees to be good ambassadors outside work. Permitting social media use during work hours just extends the reach/ability of employees to promote their company.

  Provided the use doesn’t impede someone’s ability to perform their job, companies would be well advised to embrace such interaction. http://pivotpointsolutions.net/2009/08/05/social-media-and-customer-service/

• Posted by Catherine Ventura on January 9th, 2010 at 9:36 am
  

  Efram Burk makes excellent points. Social media is a new communications platform that, like IM, email, and the phone, can be used to reach out to potential customers, audiences, strategic partners, vendors, creative contacts etc. An organization needs to be very aware of who is representing it online and how effectively they are doing that. There are many social media practitioners who can train organizations to use social media optimally, who can audit how its being done and make recommendations for improvement, who can strategize who should be doing what and where. It shouldn’t be left to chance just as you wouldn’t (hopefully) entrust your cold calls to someone with bad manners and no judgement, simply because they new how to call long distance.

• Posted by David Lanning on January 9th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
  

  As a business owner, I can tell you first hand that allowing our employees to use social media on the job has been one of my best decisions.

  The people on the front line, dealing face-to-face with our customers are the best people to continue the direct contact with after the customer leaves (or, before they come in). It just makes complete sense.

  But, I’m not so naive to think that they are only using social media for company related work. There are ways to control that issue with monitoring software for a very minimal cost.

  Additionally, adding multiple voices (while congruent to your company vision) also adds variety and interest for your followers and fans. Variety is the spice of social media, as well as life.

• Posted by Rinnell Garrett on January 10th, 2010 at 11:43 am
  

  This is the exact opposite thing that i have heard about facebook. Everyone is talking about its negative impact. Nice to read some flip thoughts.

• Posted by David Lane on February 3rd, 2010 at 1:06 pm
  

  JS, you say: “if the management of a company is even halfway competent, it’s not going to take long to figure out who the abusers are and get rid of them.”

  Um…I would love to work in your company…because in the 20 years I have been working, including as a manager, “firing” is not so easily done as you would have us believe, even for being less than halfway competent.

  Are there ways to use social media internally – sure, and it has been done in good companies for years…OK, departmentally – if the company gets large, most people barely feel like their input matters beyond their pod anyway and then all the internal stuff becomes rah, rah, rah marketing that is generally ignored.

  But giving access to sites like Facebook…well, if we cannot keep them from clicking on the infected email…how do we keep them from the infected sites….much less wasting real time.

  You are going to have to convince me some other way…and oh, that includes this, but as a private contractor, if I don’t bill, I don’t get paid…so back to work.

• Posted by Mike on February 9th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
  

  Interesting attempt to twist an argument, but it falls flat when faced with reality – first, the vast majority of companies do regulate employee phone use, and rightfully so – non-business phone use consumes company resources and wastes time for which the employer is paying. Second, spending just a brief amount of time on Wastebook, Twitter, Yammer, or any of the host of other sites reveals that the vast majority of the content has absolutely no redeeming value other than sheer voyeurism. The fact that voyeurism can sell advertising is undeniable – but that does not mean that companies should participate in the exhibitionism to benefit advertisers. There are a very few legitimate uses of public social media, but the misuse, abuse, and inappropriate content far outweigh those uses for the majority of employees. If phones and e-mail had such low ratios of productive usage, you can be certain that their use in business would be almost nonexistent.

• Posted by Branding, Social Media and Beyond « Ride5 Media Group Blog on March 3rd, 2010 at 11:44 am
  

  [...] Why your boss should let you use Facebook at work: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2010/01/08/why-your-boss-should-let-you-use-facebook-at-work/ [...]

• Posted by sierra on June 30th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
  

  If you are interested in using social networking at the office, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, please check out http://www.FaceTime.com

  In fact, invite your compliance manager or director to attend a webinar on how to allow employees access to these sites without risking data leakage or malware attacks.
  http://www3.facetime.com/newsevents/events.aspx

  want to learn more about social networking at the office? email me at ssummers@facetime.com
  My recent post Social Networking Compliance for FINRA Regulated Organizations June 29- 2010 9-00am PST – Webinar

• 

  Posted by robbirgfeld on September 1st, 2010 at 7:35 am
  

  So what is news in the world of Facebook at work? Ton of new traffic to this post, and we're looking for what's news as it relates to using Facebook in the workplace.

• Posted by Adam on September 1st, 2010 at 9:20 am
  

  That's right folks…you're there to do a job and not socialize via twitter, facebook or myspace while at work. There are many people out of work who would love nothing more than to take your job simply because you don't, can't and will not comprehend or understand workplace policy. That being said, the same goes with companies that use these social media networking sites to conduct business. Really, come on, what business? Follow me here, follow me there, follow me on this, follow me on that…almost seems like nothing more than being invited to social (internet tupperware) parties rather than trying to solve your own company problems or determine how to best "realistically" out perform your competition.

• Posted by Chris on September 1st, 2010 at 12:54 pm
  

  I use Facebook and just the other night I commented how much I love my new FiOS TV remote control application on my Verizon Wireless phone. Not only did I comment how much I like the feature, but the 180 friends I have also saw it and Verizon got free marketing.

• Posted by ER911 on September 2nd, 2010 at 4:29 am
  

  I agree that companies should be careful about who they allow to represent them, especially on the internet. In fact, many of the people who posted comments in favor of social networks at work had typos in their comments. Then they want to represent the company they work for online? Great beginnings there! To Mr. Lane, I have a feeling JS works in an "at will" state, such as I do. That means if I have not joined a worker's union or signed a contract that states terms of my employment with my employer, my boss can look at me tomorrow and tell me I'm fired, no reason necessary. Not only is it totally legal, it makes employees work harder to make themselves valuable to the company. Does my company allow social networking while on company time? Yes, if you provide your own computer, it is only used during "down time", and you can (and will) be held responsible for anything you post-on and off duty. I have yet to see any benefits of social networking "on the clock", but I have seen someone get fired for a comment he posted. BTW- I am a 20-something facebooker-just not at work.

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