Comments on: The Social Media Fire, Will It Change Corporate Culture?

By: Time to be Frank » Blog Archive » Business Has Always Been About Personal Connections!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:47:58 +0000

[...] The Social Media Fire, Will It Change Corporate Culture? This is the third attempt for me writing this post. This morning I woke up and read my email like I do every morning. One of the emails was a Google alert with a reference… [...]

By: Jessica Randazza

Jessica Randazza — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:41:22 +0000

Thank you for sharing! I think social media will change corporate culture — sort of. It’s just making us more aware of how we communicate, and forcing us to do it more quickly.

I agree with Mark, no one “owns” social media in a company. It’s everyone’s responsibility and because we’re forced to deal with transparency (which is a good thing), we have to be sure that everything that we communicate online, whether it be personal/”private”/business reflects the best interest of our organization and clients.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:58:31 +0000

The only question I have is how does one person (Frank) handle all the tweets? What happens when Frank goes on vacation? I understand there is a staff of 11. Where do they fit in?

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:37:35 +0000

I agree with Mark. I handle social media for our company and actually got the job by proposing it to my former employer. While they were hesitant years ago they are now 100% on board. The company does block social sites for everyone but it’s changing. Many corporations are overly worried about employees using social networks on THEIR time. I’ve been in Customer Service and Marketing for over 10 years and the corporations that had relaxed internet policies had happier and MORE productive employees. They are not going to spend all day online goofing off. But as responsible adults and employees they may log on for a 10 min break and return to their work MORE productive. As long as one gets their job done and follows corporate internet policies I am a firm believer they should not be banned from these sites. The exposure for your company increases for each and every employee online and mentioning your company. Happier, more productive employees, that are networking and increasing your exposure should outweigh the fact they are online on company time. Try it for a short time and see what happens.

By: Daniel Roth

Daniel Roth — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:11:20 +0000

Frank hits so many important points in this post. Social Media is a new communication channel. Similar to when phones and Email first became channels, this is forcing companies to revisit policies and procedures for interacting with companies. Some companies have already changed, some are starting to change and some are resisting the change. The primary difference I see with Social Media vs the other communication channels is the public and viral nature of the customer comments. In the past, the voice of the customer was only heard by the company. Now, with Social Media, a customer can publicly comment and cause a group of their followers or friends or the media to join in. When this happens companies are reacting with much swifter and larger actions than they would through phone and email customer service channels. I see this balancing out as companies put response times in place and develop processes for identifying “high risk for viral” vs “low risk for viral” posts. These are all good things and will make a more consumer friendly environment while having the strongest companies differentiate themselves through customer service, product quality, price, etc.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:44:14 +0000

Jeff, No one in the company “owns” social media in my opinion. That is like saying one dept. owns TV or radio. Social media is a channel that should be used with care throughout the organization. Just my thoughts. If we all continue to argue about where social media lies in a company, nothing is being down to engage customers.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:25:43 +0000

Whereas I agree that companies can benefit from using social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc…. my one concern is WHO in the company should be the one (or ones) doing the posting to these social media sites on behalf of the company?

EG: Your company has what, 20,000 people work there? Your company’s firewall probably blocks say, Facebook, but it can be set to allow access to facebook for those authorized to be posting on behalf of the company.

Its one thing to use these pre-existing social media sites to help your company’s image and get feedback etc…. but to allow everyone who works there to post on their personal Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc.. about their personal life while they are on the clock… thats where the Big Brother in the company has to step in.

I twitted you about this earlier. I fully acknowledge social websites as being useful for companies to use, but who uses them during business hours per say and who at the company has the authority to speak for the company.. that is what companies need to focus on…. in other words.. a social media PR group