Friend and foe: social networks in the workplace
Jason Karaian, Economist Intelligence Unit
It is an episode that neatly captures the uneasy relationship between business and social media. When Noah Kravitz, a writer for a website about mobile phones, left his job he removed mention of his previous affiliation from his Twitter account and carried on as before. A few months later, the company, Phonedog, filed a lawsuit against him, arguing that the followers amassed by Mr Kravitz while employed were the company’s property. The case continues.
Like most companies, Phonedog recognises the value of burgeoning social media networks to its business. In fact, the company’s suit cited damages worth $340,000, or the equivalent of $2.50 per follower per month. This set Twitter users abuzz with chatter about the hypothetical value of their own networks.
The case also highlights the risks of introducing social media into the workplace. Mr Kravitz’s account, originally set up under the name @Phonedog_Noah, reflects the mix of the personal and professional that arises when social networks are used for business purposes. Although this offers an appealing outlet for intimate, personal interactions with customers, it also bypasses the filters and safeguards that have served corporate communications for decades.
Like any new technology, the adoption of social media in the workplace generally outpaces the policies designed to govern its use. How quickly a company gets to grips with its impact—both good and bad—will determine whether social media elicits joy or despair in the boardroom. The rewards may be great, but so are the risks.
It pays to share
The commercial appeal of social media is not hard to see. Put simply, social networks are where the customers are. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that there will be 3 billion internet users in 2016, up from 1.9 billion in 2010. Most of these new users will go “straight to social”, as the consultancy dubs it. Although internet penetration in many emerging markets is often only half of the level in developed markets, social networking penetration among the online population is the same, if not higher. These days, to be online is to use social media.
In this context, many businesses have little choice but to engage potential customers on social networks. Done well, a company gains privileged access to a user’s social circle—on some networks, people literally invite a firm to become their “friend”, a marketer’s dream.
The inherently personal nature of social media raises several thorny challenges. Few people relish friendships with relentless self-promoters or acquaintances with ulterior commercial motives. But giving a brand the personal touch necessary to foster successful relationships is easier said than done. The positive view is that social networks can empower every employee on the payroll to act as a spokesperson, significantly boosting the company’s reach at little cost. The negative view is that social networks can empower every employee on the payroll to act as a spokesperson, opening the door to off-message or harmful content that can tarnish a company’s brand.
The surest way to minimise the risks of social media is to ignore these networks altogether. This, of course, also forgoes all of their potential benefits. What’s more, the absence of a corporate policy on social media does not necessarily mean that employees will forgo discussing business matters on their personal accounts.
At the other end of the spectrum is a full, unfettered embrace of social networks. The most commonly cited example of this is online footwear retailer Zappos. By emphasising customer service, the company encourages staff to build friendships with customers. The main venue for this is the company’s famously chatty call centre, but Zappos employees—from the CEO to the newest junior hire—are also prominent on Twitter, blogs and various social media networks. To the outside world, Zappos presents itself not as a corporate monolith but a collection of outgoing people eager to chat with you about shoes, among other things.
Enterprise 2.0
Regardless of how a company engages with social networks in public, different rules may apply for enterprise social networks like Chatter, Yammer or Jive. Indeed, such networks—limited only to employees, thus bypassing the dangers of dealing with the general public—can be efficient tools for fostering new connections among far-flung staff or business units that would not otherwise connect offline. For firms stifled by bureaucracy or a rigid hierarchy, online social networks offer a venue for employees to connect organically and, ideally, create value in ways that would not be possible under the company's traditional ways of working. Younger employees' facility with social media is another reason to deploy enterprise networks as a means to provide outlets for interaction and feedback that a growing share of the workforce is comfortable with.
Rolling out an enterprise social network, however, will not necessarily boost employee productivity or generate brilliant new business ideas. In fact, a survey of research on social media use in the workplace by two academics at the University of California, Irvine, concluded that, “employees generally do not use [social network sites] at work to seek information or get answers to the questions that they may have.” Instead, enterprise social networks serve largely social purposes—that is, employees use them primarily to burnish their image among colleagues.
This, in many ways, reflects the limits of social media’s usefulness. The currency of social networks—the connection—is only a means to an end. Enterprise social networks achieve little if a company’s culture does not encourage widespread collaboration. Similarly, the only way to ensure that a brand gets positive buzz on public social networks is for the company to provide goods or services that people are so delighted to purchase that they want to share it with their friends. Too often, companies deploy social networks as a stand-alone solution, when in reality these tools, however powerful, are better suited as a tactic within a broader strategy.
The benefits of social networks in extending the reach of a brand or the scope of connections among co-workers are undeniable. Still, the relationship between businesses and social media—like any intersection of the personal with the professional—will never be completely comfortable. Even the most rewarding relationships have their share of ups and downs, in business as in life.
