Social media: with great power comes great responsibility
Posted on October 31, 2008 by Tom
Every now and than it pops up. The discussion if a company should allow and/or stimulate employees to ‘represent’ the company online. As recent: Harm your business, block facebook and the somewhat older Pay your people to waste time on facebook all have noble goals… stimulate a positive feed about your company. And no-one can neglect the fact that social media can in fact have a positive impact on your corporate communication.
But being able to speak for your company (and that’s what happens when you say “I’m Mr. X form Company Y”) is a great responsability, a responsability not everyone can or will handle. Why can’t or won’t they do that? Social media gives you great power. It’s beyond the control of your company, it’s easy, free to use and global. (AND I was a comicbook geek… so any reference to a Spidey-comic is a plus) Should you start monitoring your employees and their online activities? Should you hand out financial rewards for those who promote the company? And what about negative feedback? Should you punish the person who gives negative feedback? The answer to these questions are most of the time ‘no’ because that means you’re only fixing the problem, not the cause of that particular problem.
· Product. I told you I once bought a DVD-recorder that had a remote control with a million buttons except a fast forward or rewind button. If I were an engineer that pointed out these flaws and nobody bothered to listen to me… I’d get frustrated and probably publish negative feedback online. Is this basically the problem of the engineer? Companies need to admit they made bad decisions. Not everything you do can be perfect (remember New Coke?). Admit it.
· Team. Powerstruggles on the workfloor, favouritism,… We all love to think we work in a perfect team, but no team is perfect, there are always inbalances that can result in negative comments about the team and the company.
· Work. Stress, too much pressure on your shoulders, too much to do,… this can all lead up to a burn-out and a negative attitude towards the company and how they treat you. Or maybe you’re faced with difficult clients that you’d rather get rid of?
· Management. It’s always easy to point to other people. But management plays an important role. If no-one on top is convinced social media can benefit the company, why should they reward it? The only thing they will do is when it turns ugly, they’ll punish the culprit. Or when no-one takes the time to research what someone down the ladder is doing or can do for your company?
· Bad apples. Some employees are just negative. They don’t contribute anything to the company and have no purpose. They ‘infect’ other employees and pull the company into a downwards spiral. Everybody knows what to do with them… It’s a dirty job, but that’s why you’re in charge!
The first four causes aren’t employee-related. They’re company/management related. Should you punish, overmonitor the employee? Hell no, fix the cause of the problem, not just the problem. Creating a positive work climate can do wonders. Stimulate them, not financially, but give them more responsibility! Remove bad apples and promote early adopters! Handing out rewards will have a positive impact short-term, but what’ll happen when word gets out? Everybody starts to write ‘fake’ posts because they want a piece of the cake… But metaphorically speaking… you should pay them indeed!
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