Peer Matters

Twitter seems to be following a similar path to SMS/text messaging. Many early adopters of SMS used it to chat among their friends and agree where to meet. Messages were often written in shorthand, partly due to the limitations of mobile phone keypads. Since then SMS has become a valuable professional tool. We often use it in our executive search business to reach clients and candidates. We cannot rely on everyone having a BlackBerry and/or checking their e-mail regularly. However, most people check SMS on their mobiles throughout the day, even now and then in board meetings.

At the moment there are lots of people on Twitter telling us what they had for breakfast or re-tweeting quotations from long-dead philosophers.  However, there are also authors gathering large numbers of followers who help to build the writers’ brands and boost the sales of their books. A few weeks ago I began following Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and one of the world’s 10 best-selling authors. Within minutes I received an e-mail informing me that “Paulo Coelho is following you”. There are now over 34,000 of us. Neither is it a black hole. When I sent him a direct message, his secretary replied from Paris, also within a few minutes. Yes, Paulo would be pleased to receive a copy of Brand You. Please could I send it to her? She would give it to him when she saw him in Cannes.  In terms of personal brand-building, this is powerful stuff.  Here I am, spreading the word about him and his books…

Few candidates in our executive search business currently use Twitter. I am sure more of them will in due course. However, many of them are keen advocates of LinkedIn.  Personally, I rarely use it. If someone wants to reach me, they only have to Google ‘John Purkiss’ to find my phone number and e-mail address. I do of course agree to link with each new person who contacts me. However, if I were a candidate I would absolutely make sure I was on LinkendIn, with my full employment history. The reason is that researchers in search firms use information about past employers to find ‘sources’ for their assignments. Imagine for example that you used to work for General Electric. GE is an ‘academy company’ for many search firms. They avoid working for GE, so they are free to look inside the company for suitable candidates. If your CV says you used to work for GE, researchers in search firms are likely to contact you to ask about former colleagues who could be suitable for their assignments. If you help them, you will be tagged on their databases as a ‘helpful source’. They will continue to contact you now and then when they have an assignment in your line of work. This is one of the best ways to build a relationship with a search firm and hear about job opportunities that could interest you personally.

About John Purkiss

Twitter is one of those ‘hard to get your head around’ concepts.  On the one hand it seems like a brilliant way of getting your message out to millions of people.  On the other, you ask yourself whether anyone is listening and whether it is worth the effort of getting involved.  Personally, I still have yet to figure it out completely, but at present I have over 1,000 followers and I try to send out interesting information, in the hope that I am adding value to the conversations.

That said, there is emerging evidence that Twitter has the potential to change the game.  One of the best examples is cited by Steven Johnson in his article in Time magazine.  Is Twitter finding its place in the world?

What risks do you run as an employee, and what restrictions can you impose as an employer where Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al are in use – and does home use pose any risks for workers or their employers?

Policies
A safety conscious employer may just impose a blanket ban on social networking in the hope that this solves all risk issues, but this is a blinkered approach for any IT savvy company and does not sit easily with the benefits which might be missed when allowing employees to use the internet for business purposes, such as client contact and sales enquiries.

Assuming therefore that a company’s IT system can by consent be used for this purpose at work, the starting point for an employer is a well drafted and fair use policy to which all parties can refer.  IBM has published guidelines for their employees, and these make a good reference point.    In any case, policy restrictions on the time spent on personal use and avoiding inappropriate sites and material such as pornography, obscenity and violence are essential for any employer.

Employer liability for employee actions
Where are the limits? Inappropriate use will encompass breach of discrimination legislation (including bullying and harassment) since not only can a worker be disciplined and dismissed by his employer (and indeed sued by the victim) but the employer can be vicariously liable for an employee’s blog or twitter, leading to liability to a third party affected – actions which may hasten the departure of the author!

This is a developing area as the courts are increasingly seeking to ensure proper supervision of employees’ actions is performed, so an employer could be liable, for example, where material is posted on another person’s Facebook profile about that person or a third party, especially if done during the course of employment.

Careless Words
Careless words may also be defamatory of the employer or, possibly worse, third parties. A few years ago a major company found itself liable for an email written by an employee with a grudge, unfairly denigrating a third party company.  This was found to be a trade libel and caused losses running into several hundred thousand pounds.

There are of course “grey areas” which the law has not yet grappled with fully.  Picture the situation where an individual’s personal and business networks might converge in one place, such as a business group on LinkedIn.  So for an employer it may be prudent to think about ways to separate private and business networking in the workplace.

Home Use and work overlap
What about home use? Can an employee argue that in his own time he cannot be restricted in terms of blogs, and other social media activity?  In broad terms the higher up the organisation, and where a professional has defined duties including client relationships, the more careful you should be!  In ‘Pay v Lancashire Probation Service’ a probation officer was fairly dismissed after discovery that he had been involved in extreme sexual activity in his spare time with footage posted on the internet.  In another recent case a senior police officer posted details of his own gay activities on Facebook and was warned internally, which in turn lead to his promotion being blocked.

Clearly an employee who posts derogatory material about his employer may seek to argue it is justified and true but surely there are better targets, as in a recession this is akin to cutting your own throat. And the blogs and comments written now may come back to haunt employees looking for alternative employment next year or in ten years time, as many employers will cross check the internet to ensure they are not just relying on a CV.

Surveillance
Provided that employees know, surveillance may be undertaken in certain circumstances.  Provided appropriate tests and safeguards are met, email and internet surveillance is perfectly legal in the UK and indeed in many other countries, as is video surveillance of course.

Conclusion
In summary, do not assume you can write what you like in social networking sites, even in your own time, as Big Brother may be watching.  And if you are an employer, consider making it clear to your staff that clocking off does not mean your employees have carte blanche to post what they like at home.

About Andrew Fishleigh

The Social Media Academy is running a new online training course targeted at business owners, managers and other executives.  The course starts on 21st July 2009, and consists of four sessions, each lasting ninety minutes.  The training covers essential subjects such as how to compete for customer mind share, best methods for networking on the web, and best practice for using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social tools.  Learn more and book online.

A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the only way to sell products and communicate with customers these days is through Facebook and Twitter, as much of the advice coming out of the social media industry would have us believe that the established methods of sales, marketing and customer service are dying, if not already six feet under.

Of course, there are some relatively new companies that started out exclusively on the web and have no offline legacy to worry about.  For them, all customer communication and acquisition is online.  For the majority of companies, though, there are established offline ways of doing things and methods in place that have worked for years, and it can be a daunting prospect to consider dropping them.

The trick is not to think of social media as a replacement for anything, but as something that should be blended into existing practices.  For example, for sales you can use social media tools to discover key influencers inside your target prospects’ organisations.  Finding them in social networks and learning what they are talking about can provide more useful information than any CRM system ever could.  For marketing, you can use the same information to reach out to the appropriate networks to promote events or help launch new products.  For support, once you know where your existing customers are networking, you can begin to engage, offering help and advice.

None of the above should stop you from sending mailshots, making cold calls, holding face to face meetings or any other of the myriad of things that might have worked for you in the past.  These activities should stay for as long as they are good for your business.  But, by blending social media into your daily operations you will begin to generate new customer relationships built on trust, produce new revenues, and your company will be well on the road to becoming ’social media savvy’.

To get further down the road you may need to build your own social community, but that is another blog post for another day…